Georg has taken on the responsibilities of the family, and the responsibilities of life after his mother's death, and this causes him to feel like it is his responsibility to know what is best for everyone, even his friends. Georg assumes that everyone around him revolves around his decisions, when that isn't completely true. He puts himself in a position of power over friends and family, but finds that his father has a great amount of power as well; his father's words strongly affect him, even though his father is merely an old, weak man that Georg has to take care of.
"It would mean telling him that his friends were the only ones with any sense,and that hee was jsut a grown-up child who should merely obey his successful friends that had stayed at home. And was it even certain that all the pain that would ahve been inflictted on him would be to any purpose?"
"So now you know what existed outside yourself; up to now you knew only about yourself! You were truly an innocent child, but even more truly you were a fiendish person!- And therfore know this: I now condemn you to death by drowning!"
What does his opinion of his freind characterize/depict the things he is blind to in his life?
"He carried his father to bed in his arms. He experienced a dreadful feeling when he noticed, as he took a couple of paces to the bed, that his father was playing with the watch chain on his chest. He could not put him in the bed right away, so firm was his father’s grip on this watch chain."
"Essentially you’ve been an innocent child, but even more essentially you’ve been a devilish human being!"
How does the childlike description of the father compare to the father's childlike description of Georg and how does this show a shift in power?
When Georg is carrying his father to bed, it is clear that his father is described in a child-like way. Then when his father calls him an "innocent child," the role of the child has switched. When the father is compared to the child, it is only in the way that he is needy and cannot do things on his own. When Georg is described as a child, it is in the way that he needs advice and needs to be told what is right. The power shifts to his father when he tells Georg that he has been secretly writing to his friend. This weakens Georg and strengthens the father... hence the power shift.
The father's description makes him seem like a very young child, even a baby, whereas the description of George makes George seem like a child who can think and act on his own. How can George be innocent and devilish? He is not, because he is obviously not innocent and he is subconsciously devilish. Maybe he can be said to be innocent because he is not consciously being cruel to his friend, at least not anymore, because he has tricked himself into believing that he is helping his friend. The watch chain is a metaphor for George's father's control over George no matter the time or his age. George's describing his father as a baby demonstrates his father's power over him still, because a baby is very reliant on its parents (or George) and can drain the parents' energy so much that it has "power."
"That's how I am and that's how he's got to accept me...I can't remake myself into a person who might be more suited to be his friend than I am" (3).
"So now you know what existed outside yourself; up to now you knew only about yourself! You were truly an innocent child, but even more truly you were a fiendish person!"(9).
Why is Georg able to have such a clear view of what would be best for his friend, even though his father is obviously convinced that he doesn't think about anyone but himself?
Maybe Georg's father is right and Georg just thinks he has a clear view of his friend, but he really doesn't.After all, he isn't attempting to make any compromises or sacrifice anything for his friendship which shows how self-centered he is. If he really cared about other people and wanted to make his friendship work he would be willing to put in an effort. Maybe this shows that he doesn't even care about himself if he doesn't work for any relationships in his life. Maybe he is depressed and is not only hurting those around him, but himself
"And so Georg confined himself to continually writing his friend about nothing but insignificant events, as they accumulate disorderly in one's memory when one thinks back on a quiet Sunday. His only wish was to leave undisturbed the mental picture of his hometown that his friend must have created during the long interval, a picture he could live with."
"Now that you believed you had got the better of him, got the better of him to such an extent that you can seat yourself on him with your backside and he won't move, this fine son of mine has decided to get married!"
How does Georg's father use Georg's isolation and lonliness to have power over him? How might marriage interfere with this?
Georg getting married would completely change his relationship with his father. Since he would probably move out, his father wouldn't have that much power over him except for when they were at work, which is already where they talk the most anyways. I think Georg's father uses Georg's isolation as a kind of manipulation. Since Georg is alone all the time, his father uses that as a factor against him, even questioning Georg if his one true friend is real. Also, the negative reactions towards Georg's fiance give his father power. Georg's father manipulates the most significant things about Georg's life to have power over him.
Georg's father uses Georg's isolation to his advantage by never pointing out what Georg has been blind to the whole time, allowing the father to live a more free life in his old age witohut constantly being watched by his son. Marriage would cause Georg to wake up to the events of the world and get out of his onn little bubble, making him unmalitulatable to the father and a better and more interesting friend to his freind in St. Petersberg, causing the father to lose evne more power over his son. One of the few things he can hold over his son's head is that the one he calls freind does not call him that back and rather goes to his father for all of the news of his childhood home, but once the father loses this power over the son, then he will lose the freedom he enjoys, such as being an important part in the company and not being treated like an old and dying man by his son. With this power he will has with Georg's isolation and lack of awareness the ability to shape Georg into what type of man he wants him to be, but when Georg starts to become aware of things around him then he no longer cares and basically tells him to kill himself.
The windows represent communication between Georg and his father. Georg's father is closed off to him, hiding in his room in the dark. Georg comes into his room to try and talk to him, to open up the window, to make some kind of connection with his father about telling his friend about his engagement. The father, when Georg walks in, is sitting in the corner of his room surrounded by photos of his wife. The closed window represents the past, where is father still lives without moving forward, and the air would do him well because he needs to move on from his past. Georg's father, although he is old, tries to keep his power by refusing to open the window simply because he does not want to, and because it is his own personal choice. This power his physically shifted as Georg has to help his father dress in his old age.Georg's father lives in darkness, which is deliberate discommunication(?) because that is his personality. Although his father tries to shut out the world, signs from it, like the heat outside, still radiate through the windows, and his son can still come in through the door and present contact from the outside world to him, making it impossible for him to completely shut out everything. His father, in his old age, knows one life, and holds onto it, as it is seen through his very scheduled lifestyle.
There is a relationship between Georg's fathers' power over him and isolation. Shutting windows means shutting out an outside world, a world of unknown, and closing yourself in to what you think is a safer environment. Georg has only three relationships: one with his fiancee, friend, and father. His father has a way of making him feel guilty, especially because the two can both connect through their feelings of lonliness.
"At that moment a simply endless stream of trafic was passing over the bridge."
"So now you know what existed outside yourself; up to now you knew only about yourself! You were truly an innocent child, but even more truly you were a fiendish person!"
How does the endless stream of traffic correspond to Georg looking at what exists outside of himself? What is the significance?
The stream of traffic is a representation of everything that exists outside of Georg. It continues when he is gone, and doesn't depend on his existence. Before this conversation with his father, Georg was so self-centered that he couldn't understand that there were things going on in the world that were unrelated to him and that these things would go on without him. Once Georg is gone, the world will continue without him, so it puts his self obsession in perspective. Even if a person is so important to others or even to themselves, the world continues without them. Georg sees himself as the only or the most important person in his life, and by doing that, he would be the person most upset by his own death while everyone else moves on.
"You wanted to cover me up, I know, offspring of mine, but I'm not covered up yet" (7)
"His only wish was to leave undisturbed the mental picture of his hometown that his friend must have created during the long interval, a picture he could live with." (3)
How does the covering of people and events present a false reality, and how does Georg use these false realities?
"Finally he put the letter in his pocket and went out of his room, angling across a small passageway into his father’s room, which he had not been in for months. There was really no need to do that, since he was always dealing with his father at work and they took their noon meal at the same time in a restaurant."
“Stay where you are. I don’t need you! You think you still have the strength to come here and are holding yourself back only because that’s what you want. But what if you’re wrong! I am still much stronger than you. Perhaps all on my own I would have had to back off, but your mother gave me so much of her strength that I’ve established a splendid relationship with your friend and I have your customers here in my pocket!”
How does George distancing himself from his father increase his father's power over him?
George's father truly holds a lot of power over George, that's why. He appears to be physically weak, but a recurring theme throughout the story is false appearances. At first we see George to be the one in power, but truly in the end, it turns out that the father has the God-like power, condemning George to "death by drowning." It relates to Kafka's letter to his father, where parent figures, or in this case, the father, can hold a lot of mental power over the child, and this idea is emphasized by pushing the boundaries of the power from not only mental control, but also physical, to convey the message as fully as possible.
"He was thinking about how this friend, dissatisfied with his progress at home, had actually run off to Russia some years before"
"one perhaps advise him to come back home again, shift his life back here, take up again all the old friendly relationships—there was certainly nothing to prevent that—and in addition rely on the help of friends?"
"he would feel constrained and injured; perhaps he would envy me"
ReplyDelete"up to now you knew only about yourself! You were truly an innocent child, but even more truly you were a fiendish person!"
Why does Georg assume how his friend would react and how does this show that Georg is a "fiendish person?"
Georg has taken on the responsibilities of the family, and the responsibilities of life after his mother's death, and this causes him to feel like it is his responsibility to know what is best for everyone, even his friends. Georg assumes that everyone around him revolves around his decisions, when that isn't completely true. He puts himself in a position of power over friends and family, but finds that his father has a great amount of power as well; his father's words strongly affect him, even though his father is merely an old, weak man that Georg has to take care of.
Delete"It would mean telling him that his friends were the only ones with any sense,and that hee was jsut a grown-up child who should merely obey his successful friends that had stayed at home. And was it even certain that all the pain that would ahve been inflictted on him would be to any purpose?"
ReplyDelete"So now you know what existed outside yourself; up to now you knew only about yourself! You were truly an innocent child, but even more truly you were a fiendish person!- And therfore know this: I now condemn you to death by drowning!"
What does his opinion of his freind characterize/depict the things he is blind to in his life?
"He carried his father to bed in his arms. He experienced a dreadful feeling when he noticed, as he took a couple of paces to the bed, that his father was playing with the watch chain on his chest. He could not put him in the bed right away, so firm was his father’s grip on this watch chain."
ReplyDelete"Essentially you’ve been an innocent child, but even more essentially you’ve been a devilish human being!"
How does the childlike description of the father compare to the father's childlike description of Georg and how does this show a shift in power?
When Georg is carrying his father to bed, it is clear that his father is described in a child-like way. Then when his father calls him an "innocent child," the role of the child has switched. When the father is compared to the child, it is only in the way that he is needy and cannot do things on his own. When Georg is described as a child, it is in the way that he needs advice and needs to be told what is right. The power shifts to his father when he tells Georg that he has been secretly writing to his friend. This weakens Georg and strengthens the father... hence the power shift.
DeleteThe father's description makes him seem like a very young child, even a baby, whereas the description of George makes George seem like a child who can think and act on his own. How can George be innocent and devilish? He is not, because he is obviously not innocent and he is subconsciously devilish. Maybe he can be said to be innocent because he is not consciously being cruel to his friend, at least not anymore, because he has tricked himself into believing that he is helping his friend. The watch chain is a metaphor for George's father's control over George no matter the time or his age. George's describing his father as a baby demonstrates his father's power over him still, because a baby is very reliant on its parents (or George) and can drain the parents' energy so much that it has "power."
Delete"That's how I am and that's how he's got to accept me...I can't remake myself into a person who might be more suited to be his friend than I am" (3).
ReplyDelete"So now you know what existed outside yourself; up to now you knew only about yourself! You were truly an innocent child, but even more truly you were a fiendish person!"(9).
Why is Georg able to have such a clear view of what would be best for his friend, even though his father is obviously convinced that he doesn't think about anyone but himself?
Maybe Georg's father is right and Georg just thinks he has a clear view of his friend, but he really doesn't.After all, he isn't attempting to make any compromises or sacrifice anything for his friendship which shows how self-centered he is. If he really cared about other people and wanted to make his friendship work he would be willing to put in an effort. Maybe this shows that he doesn't even care about himself if he doesn't work for any relationships in his life. Maybe he is depressed and is not only hurting those around him, but himself
Delete"And so Georg confined himself to continually writing his friend about nothing but insignificant events, as they accumulate disorderly in one's memory when one thinks back on a quiet Sunday. His only wish was to leave undisturbed the mental picture of his hometown that his friend must have created during the long interval, a picture he could live with."
ReplyDelete"Now that you believed you had got the better of him, got the better of him to such an extent that you can seat yourself on him with your backside and he won't move, this fine son of mine has decided to get married!"
How does Georg's father use Georg's isolation and lonliness to have power over him? How might marriage interfere with this?
Georg getting married would completely change his relationship with his father. Since he would probably move out, his father wouldn't have that much power over him except for when they were at work, which is already where they talk the most anyways. I think Georg's father uses Georg's isolation as a kind of manipulation. Since Georg is alone all the time, his father uses that as a factor against him, even questioning Georg if his one true friend is real. Also, the negative reactions towards Georg's fiance give his father power. Georg's father manipulates the most significant things about Georg's life to have power over him.
DeleteGeorg's father uses Georg's isolation to his advantage by never pointing out what Georg has been blind to the whole time, allowing the father to live a more free life in his old age witohut constantly being watched by his son. Marriage would cause Georg to wake up to the events of the world and get out of his onn little bubble, making him unmalitulatable to the father and a better and more interesting friend to his freind in St. Petersberg, causing the father to lose evne more power over his son. One of the few things he can hold over his son's head is that the one he calls freind does not call him that back and rather goes to his father for all of the news of his childhood home, but once the father loses this power over the son, then he will lose the freedom he enjoys, such as being an important part in the company and not being treated like an old and dying man by his son. With this power he will has with Georg's isolation and lack of awareness the ability to shape Georg into what type of man he wants him to be, but when Georg starts to become aware of things around him then he no longer cares and basically tells him to kill himself.
Delete1.
ReplyDelete“And you’ve shut the window as well?”
“I prefer it that way.”
“Well, it is quite warm outside,” said George
2.
"You sit by the closed window, and the air would do you so much good."
How do the symbols of windows and air prove to be significant to the plot of the story, and how do they reflect George's father's power?
The windows represent communication between Georg and his father. Georg's father is closed off to him, hiding in his room in the dark. Georg comes into his room to try and talk to him, to open up the window, to make some kind of connection with his father about telling his friend about his engagement. The father, when Georg walks in, is sitting in the corner of his room surrounded by photos of his wife. The closed window represents the past, where is father still lives without moving forward, and the air would do him well because he needs to move on from his past. Georg's father, although he is old, tries to keep his power by refusing to open the window simply because he does not want to, and because it is his own personal choice. This power his physically shifted as Georg has to help his father dress in his old age.Georg's father lives in darkness, which is deliberate discommunication(?) because that is his personality. Although his father tries to shut out the world, signs from it, like the heat outside, still radiate through the windows, and his son can still come in through the door and present contact from the outside world to him, making it impossible for him to completely shut out everything. His father, in his old age, knows one life, and holds onto it, as it is seen through his very scheduled lifestyle.
DeleteThere is a relationship between Georg's fathers' power over him and isolation. Shutting windows means shutting out an outside world, a world of unknown, and closing yourself in to what you think is a safer environment. Georg has only three relationships: one with his fiancee, friend, and father. His father has a way of making him feel guilty, especially because the two can both connect through their feelings of lonliness.
Delete"At that moment a simply endless stream of trafic was passing over the bridge."
ReplyDelete"So now you know what existed outside yourself; up to now you knew only about yourself! You were truly an innocent child, but even more truly you were a fiendish person!"
How does the endless stream of traffic correspond to Georg looking at what exists outside of himself? What is the significance?
The stream of traffic is a representation of everything that exists outside of Georg. It continues when he is gone, and doesn't depend on his existence. Before this conversation with his father, Georg was so self-centered that he couldn't understand that there were things going on in the world that were unrelated to him and that these things would go on without him. Once Georg is gone, the world will continue without him, so it puts his self obsession in perspective. Even if a person is so important to others or even to themselves, the world continues without them. Georg sees himself as the only or the most important person in his life, and by doing that, he would be the person most upset by his own death while everyone else moves on.
Delete"You wanted to cover me up, I know, offspring of mine, but I'm not covered up yet" (7)
ReplyDelete"His only wish was to leave undisturbed the mental picture of his hometown that his friend must have created during the long interval, a picture he could live with." (3)
How does the covering of people and events present a false reality, and how does Georg use these false realities?
"Finally he put the letter in his pocket and went out of his room, angling across a small passageway into his father’s room, which he had not been in for months. There was really no need to do that, since he was always dealing with his father at work and they took their noon meal at the same time in a restaurant."
ReplyDelete“Stay where you are. I don’t need you! You think you still have the strength to come here and are holding yourself back only because that’s what you want. But what if you’re wrong! I am still much stronger than you. Perhaps all on my own I would have had to back off, but your mother gave me so much of her strength that I’ve established a splendid relationship with your friend and I have your customers here in my pocket!”
How does George distancing himself from his father increase his father's power over him?
“I really only wanted to tell you, ... that I’ve now sent a report of my engagement to St. Petersburg"
ReplyDelete"angling across a small passageway into his father’s room, which he had not been in for months"
Why does George choose now to talk to his father about the letter to his 'friend'?
"You were truly an innocent child.... condemn you to death by drowning!" (9)
ReplyDelete"Dear parents, I did always love you." (10)
How can the words of Georg's physically weak father affect him so strongly?
George's father truly holds a lot of power over George, that's why. He appears to be physically weak, but a recurring theme throughout the story is false appearances. At first we see George to be the one in power, but truly in the end, it turns out that the father has the God-like power, condemning George to "death by drowning." It relates to Kafka's letter to his father, where parent figures, or in this case, the father, can hold a lot of mental power over the child, and this idea is emphasized by pushing the boundaries of the power from not only mental control, but also physical, to convey the message as fully as possible.
Delete"He was thinking about how this friend, dissatisfied with his progress at home, had actually run off to Russia some years before"
ReplyDelete"one perhaps advise him to come back home again, shift his life back here, take up again all the old friendly relationships—there was certainly nothing to prevent that—and in addition rely on the help of friends?"
Does moving help solve problems or worsen them?