Fedja van Huêt
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A short story about a man who commits suicide after his father condemns him to death by drowning. Learn about the themes, symbols, and autobiographical elements of this classic work by Kafka, a master of the absurd and the nightmarish.
- Kafka’s Writing Methods
- Kafka’s Own Father
- Revolutionary Russia
- Money, Business, and Power
- Unreliable Information, and Complex Reactions
- Discussion Questions
- Source
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Of all his stories, “The Judgment” was apparently the one that pleased Kafka the most. The writing method that he used for this bleak tale became one of the standards that he used to judge his other pieces of fiction. In a 1914 diary entry, Kafka recorded his “great antipathy to The Metamorphosis. Unreadable ending. Imperfect almost to its very mar...
Kafka’s relationship with his father was quite uneasy. Hermann Kafka was a well-off businessman, and a figure who inspired a mixture of intimidation, anxiety, and grudging respect in his sensitive son Franz. In his “Letter to My Father”, Kafka acknowledges his father’s “dislike of my writing and all that, unknown to you, was connected with it.” But...
Throughout “The Judgment”, Georg mulls over his correspondence with a friend “who had actually run away to Russia some years before, being dissatisfied with his prospects at home” (49). Georg even reminds his father of this friend’s “incredible stories of the Russian Revolution. For instance, when he was on a business trip in Kiev and ran into a ri...
Matters of trade and finance initially draw Georg and his father together—only to become a subject of discord and contention later in “The Judgment”. Early on, Georg tells his father that “I can’t do without you in the business, you know that very well” (56). Though they are bound together by the family firm, Georg does seem to hold most of the pow...
Late in “The Judgment,” some of Georg’s most basic assumptions are rapidly overturned. Georg’s father goes from seeming physically depleted to making outlandish, even violent physical gestures. Georg’s father reveals that his knowledge of the Russian friend is much, much deeper than Georg had ever imagined. As the father triumphantly states the cas...
Does “The Judgment” strike you as a story that was written in one impassioned sitting? Are there any times when it doesn’t follow Kaka’s standards of “coherence” and “opening out”—times when Kafka’...Who or what, from the real world, is Kafka criticizing in “The Judgment”? His father? Family values? Capitalism? Himself? Or do you read “The Judgment” as a story that, instead of aiming at a speci...How would you sum up the way Georg feels about his father? The way his father feels about him? Are there any facts you don’t know, but that could change your views on this question if you did know...Did you find “The Judgment” mostly disturbing or mostly humorous? Are there any times when Kafka manages to be disturbing and humorous at the same moment?Kafka, Franz. "The Metamorphosis, In The Penal Colony, and Other Stories." Paperback, Touchstone, 1714.
A comprehensive analysis of Franz Kafka's short story "The Judgment", which depicts a young man's descent into madness and death after his father's command. Learn about Kafka's writing methods, his own father, and his fascination with Russia and the Russian Revolution.
"The Judgment" ("Das Urteil"), also translated "The Verdict", is a short story written by Franz Kafka in 1912, concerning the relationship between a man and his father.
- Franz Kafka
- Austria-Hungary
- 1913
- 1913
Read the full text of The Judgement, a story about a man's conflict with his father and his friend in Russia. The story explores themes of guilt, betrayal, and alienation in a realistic and ironic style.
A short story by Franz Kafka about a man who is visited by his father and accused of betraying his friend. The story explores the paradoxes of the father's accusation, the son's memory, and the son's engagement. Learn about the composition, the style, and the themes of this classic work of modernism.
Unlike the interior monologue of "Gustl" and the first-person narrative structure of "Country Doctor," "The Judgment" is told in the third person. It presents a third basic possibility of narrative approach for the depiction of Freudian psycho-texts.
Georg Bendemann's judgment at the hand of his father is as inexorable as was that of Franz Kafka at the hand of Felice, who was to create a dilemma between his ideal of bachelorhood — to him, the necessary prerequisite for his writing — and that of a happy family life.
