Criminal Apprehensions: Prague Minorities And the Habsburg Legal System in Jaroslav Haek's the Good Soldier vejk and Franz Kafka's the Trial

Author: Jenifer Cushman

Source: Rodopi Perspectives on Modern Literature, Literature and Law. Edited by Michael J. Meyer. , pp. 51-65(15)

Publisher: Rodopi

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Abstract:

In their seminal work on Franz Kafka, Towards a Minor Literature, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari classify the writings of Franz Kafka as "minor literature," works that challenge the hegemony. Like the German-JewishBohemian-Austrian Kafka, the Czech nationalist Jaroslav Ha scaron

ek experienced difficulty negotiating Prague's "territories," the multiple geographic, linguistic and national terrains of the Habsburg-dominated area. Germans, Czechs, and Jews met in unequal terms at the turn of the last century, however, and Ha scaron

ek and Kafka move from different starting points in opposing directions through their theoretical spaces of Prague. As a result, while both Ha scaron

ek's vejk and Kafka's The Trial expose absurdities within the Habsburg legal system, the kind of humor and method of criticism indicated in the texts are quite dissimilar. Indeed, there is a sanctuary space in Ha scaron

ek's text for those "in the know," a comfort zone that Kafka does not provide in his "deterritorialized" writing; Josef Scaron

vejk is able to evade public authority through word play, but Josef K. is ultimately convicted by his "criminal apprehension," his guilty conscience in the inhuman system. An examination of portrayals of representatives of legal authorities (police officers, guards, and soldiers) in the two novels provides insight into the question as to whether Ha scaron

ek's novel, like Kafka's, meets the criteria of minor literature.

Document Type: Research article

Publication date: 2004-06-01