paul-denicola-literature-pure-mediality

and delineating space, we are faced with the constrictions inherent to inside/outside,
either/or thinking. While the creation of parameters may be useful in psychological
ordering, one must realize that the imposition of closure is a created fiction.
3.6 Un-Judging “The Judgment”
I now turn my attention to a close reading of “The Judgment”, a reading which explores
the text as a work engaged in something quite different from what its’ title suggests-
something that could actually be referred to as an active “un-judging.” By this I mean that
the text consciously works on the level of avoiding closure and thereby exposes as
fictitious a teleological/ arch-eological worldview which situates judgment as the
endpoint of that system. “The Judgment” as text is the space in which we initially see
Kafka’s departure from any perspective on conclusiveness or verdict, which is always
tied to the common understanding of law. From this point moving forward, the motif of
suspended judgment and incessantly deferred closure will permeate the entirety of his
literary work.
As Kafka’s first work, and that which is universally considered to be his literary
breakthrough, he comments significantly in his Diaries about his writing process during
“The Judgment”:
This story, "The Judgment," I wrote at one sitting during the night of the 22 nd -
23 rd , from ten o’clock at night to six o’clock in the morning. I was hardly able to
pull my legs out from under the desk, they had got so stiff from sitting. The
fearful strain and joy, how the story developed before me, as if I were advancing
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