Abstract
I think it right that the Dostoyevskian material presented here should be shown to have some relevance to this quality of ‘das Peinliche’, the unbearable, painful, and awkward character of the times and especially of Kafka’s time. It may seem superfluous to go in search of literary models in which ‘das Peinliche’ is prefigured when one reflects that Kafka embarked on this story only a few weeks after the outbreak of the First World War, but there is no contradiction here between literature and reality, and no escapism in turning to literature. The fact that the story draws specific inspiration from a number of literary sources, one of whom is Dostoyevsky, does not mean that it has little to do with the reality of 1914. On the contrary, In der Strafkolonie is intimately connected with that reality, and contains, in parabolic and condensed form, Kafka’s reflections on the unfolding European conflict and the culture which it fostered and on which it fed.
Ihr Aussetzen des Peinlichen trifft ganz mit meiner Meinung zusammen, die ich allerdings in dieser Art gegenüber allem habe, was bisher von mir vorliegt. Bemerken Sie, wie wenig in dieser oder jener Form von diesem Peinlichen frei ist! Zur Erklärung dieser letzten Erzählung füge ich nur hinzu, daß nicht nur sie peinlich ist, daß vielmehr unsere allgemeine und meine besondere Zeit gleichfalls sehr peinlich war und ist und meine besondere sogar noch länger peinlich als die allgemeine. [Br 150]
Kafka in a letter to Kurt Wolff, 11 October 1916
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Notes
Ulrich Schmidt, Von der “Peinlichkeit” der Zeit. Kafkas Erzählung In der Strafkolonie, JdS 28 (1984) pp. 407–45.
Wayne Burns, ‘In the Penal Colony: Variations on a Theme by Octave Mirbeau’, Accent 17 (1957) no. 2, pp. 45–51
Cf. Schopenhauer, Sämtliche Werke, Hrsg Arthur Hübscher, Wiesbaden, 1948, Bd VI, p. 321
T. J. Reed, ‘Kafka und Schopenhauer: Philosophisches Denken und dichterisches Bild’, Euphorion 59 (1965) 160–72
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© 1992 W. J. Dodd
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Dodd, W.J. (1992). Dostoyevsky Underground: In der Strafkolonie. In: Kafka and Dostoyevsky. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21860-8_7
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