Sacrifice in Kafka - Literature Essay Samples

In Franz Kafkas stories The Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, and The Fasting-Artist, the protagonists, Gregor Samsa, the officer, and the fasting-artist, each make apparent sacrifices. These characters give their lives for others, but their deeds are unacknowledged by those they should benefit, who neither enjoy nor even understand the sacrifices made for them. The only one who can truly appreciate a sacrifice is the victim himself.The most prominent example of this tendency appears in The Fasting-Artist. The artist fasts for public admiration, so that ladies can have the place of honor holding his body and crowds can come to look at him. He thinks that fasting is not a sacrifice at all; he knewhow easy fasting was (212) but his ability to eat the food supplied to him by watchmen who cannot understand the honor of his art (210) shows that it costs him at least some effort when his audience does not appreciate his sacrifice. He feels that his true sacrifice is lying in bed alm ost at his last gaspthe consequence of the premature ending of his fast (215) which he does, again, because after about forty daysthe audience fell away (212). So great is his dedication to sacrifice and to his art that, when business worsens, he is willing to join a circus and understands that he should notbe placedin the middle of the ring as a star attraction (216). But while at the circus he leans that people are not interested in seeing him; they merely pass his cage on their way to see the animals. Eventually the circus keepers stop keeping track of the days the artist has fasted, and his sacrifice is no longer for his audience, but for himself and for his art. The curious aspect of the fasting-artists performance is that his sacrifice for art is indistinguishable from the art itself. As the only one aware of his fasting, the Artist is the only one able to appreciate it, and he even tells his overseer that he shouldnt admire (218) the fast. The artists plea shows that eve n those who try to admire his work do not understand it. Just try to explain to someone what the art of fasting is. No one who does not feel it can be made to understand what it means (218) the narrator tells us, and indeed the ludicrousness of public exhibition fasting, the appeal of which display no reader can comprehend, underscores the private nature of the artists performance. The artists fasting is an end in itself. No one but himself is around to appreciate his death from starvation, a sacrifice for an ignored art, as the world was cheating him of his reward (218).Gregor Samsas sacrifice somewhat resembles the fasting-artists; it is just as unappreciated, but more beneficial to others. Gregor hates his job as a traveling salesman; if [he] didnt have to hold back for the sake of [his] parents [hed] have handed in [his] notice long since (77), but he works to support his parents and sister, none of whom work. He keeps only a few odd coins for himself (98), giving most of h is salary to his parents. He also plans to raise the money to send his sister to a conservatory to practice the violin. Gregors work to help his family and pay off their debt is more easily appreciated by the reader than the artists fasting is, but Gregors family is less appreciative than the artists audience. They had simply got used to [Gregors giving his family his salary], both the family and Gregorit no longer gave rise to any special warmth of feeling (97). Gregors family does nothing to help him pay off the debt, all the while concealing from him the fact that they have been saving money he earned, instead of using it to pay off the debt to Gregors employer and thus let him change jobs sooner. Gregors sacrifice, great as it already is, becomes even heavier when he turns into a giant insect. At first both he and his family are in denial; Gregor attempts to go to work, having no intention at all of deserting his family (83), and his mother speaks of the time when Gregor re turns to us (103), as though he will recover. His sister Grete brings him food and cares for him; milk had always been his favorite drink, and that was surely why his sister had put it down for him (92). But his father, who never mentions any hope that Gregor will change, drives him back to his room threaten[ing] to deal him a deadly blow (91). Gregors family is only willing to help him as long as they believe that he may recover, and when he persists in his insect state, they neglect him. As soon as the money they have saved runs out, Gregors parents and sister are forced to work and find that they have no taste for sacrifice. Herr Samsa becomes prone to saying What a life this is. Such is the peace of my old age' (110). Grete neglects to clean Gregors room; streaks of dirt ran the length of the walls (112). Eventually she gives up on him completely, saying of Gregor, we must try and get rid of it' (119). Though Grete claims that the family has done everything humanly pos sible to look after it [Gregor(!)] (119), it is ironically Gregor who remains more human than his family, who now refer to him as it. He never stops wanting to sacrifice himself for them in whatever way he can. He does his best to spare them the sight of him; after realizing that his sister hates to see him, he transport[s] a sheet to the sofa on his backthe task took him four hoursand arrange[s] it in such a way thathis sister would not be able to see him (100). He continues to try to take financial responsibility for his family. Whenever the conversation turned to the necessity of earning moneyGregorfelt hot all over with shame and grief (99). He fantasizes of tak[ing] the familys affairs in hand again (111). Even his death appears to be in response to his sisters wish that he would vanish; his dying thought is that his own opinion that he must disappear wasfirmer than his sisters (122). Yet by this point, Gregors family has ceased to think of him as human. Though they app reciate his death, using it as an excuse to take a day off from work and to evict their detestable lodgers, they cannot appreciate Gregors motives. If it were Gregorhe would have gone away of his own accord' (120) Grete claims in Gregors hearing before his death, but never realizes that he does, as she believes that he cannot understand human speech. Indeed, Gregors family completely forgets him after his death; they are content to let the charwoman deal with his corpse, and Herr Samsa even check[s] her [story of its disposal] firmly with an outstretched hand (125). They flee the apartment which Gregor had picked out for them (125), leaving all traces of his memory behind. Gregors family refuses to acknowledge any of his sacrifices, perhaps out of guilt for ignoring him, perhaps for license to ignore him. As soon as they have established that the insect in their house is not Gregor, they have no obligation to care for it. Yet Gregor never doubts his familys identity, though he has changed merely in shape while they have changed their entire attitude towards him. Though much of his sacrifice is externally imposedGregor hardly requests his family to neglect himhis death is ultimately a selfless and human act, all the more so because his family does not acknowledge it; Gregors sacrifice is his tie to both humans and humanity.The officers sacrifice, on the other hand, can hardly be considered humane, though it is just as self-directed. The penal colonys officer, who tries, prosecutes, sentences, and executes prisoners convicted of crimes such as insubordination, shows a voyager the colonys method of execution: death by a machine that carves the commandment violated on the condemned mans flesh. According to the officer, enlightenment dawns (137) on the condemned mans face as he understands the gravity of his crime, and justice triumphs. The voyager, understandably upset by the process of justice in the colony, is resolved to condemn the means of execution , which the colonys new commandant opposes; this will mean the end of the practice. Upon learning of this, the officer kills himself with the machine, inscribing Be Just! into his own flesh. If he is reacting to the voyagers condemnation, the officer has given his life for justice, or at least what he considers justice. But although he is the only remaining vocal supporter of this justice, the only one who would consider it just, he fails to benefit from his sacrifice. In his dead face, no sign of the promised deliverance could be detected; what all the others had found in the machine, the officer had not found (152). Similarly, the voyager irrationally finds that if the procedure was really on the point of being abolishedpossibly as a result of the voyagers own intervention, to which he felt himself committedthen the officer was now acting perfectly rightly (149). The victim of the sacrifice suffers and the beneficiary gains; this is the way a sacrifice is supposed to work. But nothing about the officers punishment makes logical sense.The officers and voyagers reactions are a reversal of our expectations, just as the officers suicide is; after all, it makes no more sense for the officer to punish himself for injustice by means of injustice. If, however, the officer is executing himself (a just act, according to his morality) for executing himself (an unjust act, according to the voyager), the situation makes more sense; the officer finds no enlightenment because his punishment was unjust, while the voyager believes it to be right because the officers crime was judged by the voyagers standards. By this logic, neither the officer nor the voyager is making a sacrifice. A true sacrifice for the officer would have been for him to abandon his beloved machine, while for the voyager it would have been not to object to the condemned mans execution. The only sacrifice the officer makes, giving up any future administration of justice, is imposed on him.While the lack of appreciation of all three protagonists contributes to their deaths, the officers death is appreciated. The role-reversal of his self-condemnation reveals why his death is not a sacrifice; it is a sentence. The fasting-artist starves out of dedication to his art, Gregor out of devotion to his family, but the officers death literally destroys his precious apparatus, ending and not furthering his cause. Satisfaction from sacrifice is limited to those who die neglected, for they care far more about their causes than those they die for do.