Progression, Speed, and Judgment in ―das Urteil‖; or What Kafka and a Rhetorical Theory of Narrative Can Do for Each Other

This essay seeks to open up some two-way traffic between Kafka the narrative artist and the rhetorical theory of narrative. More specifically, I seek to identify the narrative logic underlying what I take to be the irreducible strangeness of Kafka's ―Das Urteil‖ (1916) and then to use the results to expand the explanatory power of rhetorical theory. I choose ―Das Urteil‖ as my case study for three reasons. First, although I do not view the story as representing the quintessence of Kafka's narrative practice, it is a significant milestone in his career. ―Das Urteil‖ is widely acknowledged to be, in Frederick Karl's words, ―the first of [Kafka's] mature works‖ (434), and Kafka himself regarded the eight-hour writing session on the night of September 22-23, 1912 that ended with his completion of the story as one of the formative experiences in his development as a writer. Second, the story has received extensive, insightful comments from critics, thus relieving me of the burden of producing an original reading of the story and allowing me to focus on explaining the underlying sources of its strangeness, which I also take to be a source of its power. In other words, like many other critics, I want to respect and hold onto the story's strangeness rather than trying to master it— even as I offer an account of its underlying logic. Third, in some recent work, I have been examining the interconnections between the concepts of progression and judgment, and Kafka's story provides an especially good location from which to extend and test that work. With respect to progression, ―Das Urteil‖ opens up issues about how we determine narrative speed and about the nature of surprise endings. With respect to judgment, ―Das Urteil‖ invites a consideration of the connection between the complexities of both interpretive and ethical judgments of the characters and their actions and the ethics of Kafka's storytelling itself. Let