Concluding (Somewhat) Inconclusively
Reflecting on three stories that describe men lost in something they can’t control, and trying to assert that what they are secure in is themselves. I find it difficult to make any singular claim about Kafka and his relationship to the dream. I merely wish to offer that the notions of alienation and isolation associated with his work can be understood as positive, maybe even powerful. Dreams alienate us from ourselves- they inform us that there is something our minds can only access under restrictive circumstances (sleep); but Kafka found a way to shake the restraints of sleep. The introduction to Deleuze and Guattari’s claims that “Kafka’s work is in no way susceptible to an anthropological or psychological explanation but is essentially the bearer of an affirmation without reserve” (Bensmaia xiii). It is the optimism inscribed in his literature that provides the most insight into dreaming.
Freud imbued dreams with the notion that through analysis, they can help solve the problems of waking life. Thus far, there has been little scientific proof for these claims and traditional psychoanalysis has been abandoned as a mainstream therapy. In response, dream theories began to take strict physiological bents- now dreams are not insightful, they are just “leftovers” from chemical processes. Kafka makes room for dreams to have a different sort of meaning, what they provide us with is a window into what cannot be clearly known, but what can be perceived and experienced- constituting a different kind of knowledge. He did not need to deconstruct the dream to find its meaning; he provided an array of characters that lived it. The dreams in Kafka’s journals, the references to dreams in his letters, the use of dreaming and dreamlike elements in his literature are not just vehicles for interpretation, but they are an indiscernible part of the whole of Kafka, and ultimately, his readers.
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The picture is a clip from the Orson Welles' version of The Trial Le Procès, 1962
Read more:
Kafka Meets Freud... and Whatever that Means: Introducing the link between them
Just what makes Kafka so Kafkaesque?
One popular (and quite possibly missguided) way of reading Kafka’s Dreams:
More than Metaphor
A Country Doctor: How Many Lit Critics does it take screw in some meaning?
Kafka on Trial: THE TRIAL and its Potentiality
Concluding (Somewhat) Inconclusively
Further Reading
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