paul-denicola-literature-pure-mediality

It is my position that the disruption of any form of judgment and binary logic by way of
the “urteil” as ordeal of undecidability leads to a series of narrative disturbances or
ruptures that occur at particular points in Kafka’s text. These ruptures are often read as
instances within the text that disrupt the narrative flow of what appears to otherwise be a
fairly straight-forward short story. I contend that Kafka used these instances in a far more
complex fashion: as reminders to his readers of the problems of a structuralist system that
sees communication as a clear flow between sender and receiver. The ruptures are used
to re-orient a view of the primordial of communication as neither linear nor orderly, but
rather as groundless and always in process. These occurrences are not merely momentary
breakages within the structured forward movement of the narrative, but serve as Kafka’s
vehicle to express an a-metaphysical worldview and an always-interconnected theory of
communication, one of Pure Mediality.
I have chosen to focus on three particular instances of rupture in “The Judgment”
specifically; the fiancé’s comment to Georg’s decision to have become engaged, the
father’s declaration that Georg is without a friend in St. Petersburg, and finally the
sentencing of Georg by the father to “death by drowning” (75). In each of these instances,
the ruptures, “challenge meaning and tempt the reader/teacher to look for answers outside
the text…” (Ulfers, 1) Yet it is not outside of the text that meaning can be located, but
inside, as one can attempt a solution of the texts problems from within by an investigation
of its structure.
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