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Josef K.'s (A + x) Problem: Kafka on the Moment of Awakening 1
Author(s) -
Morris Joel
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
the german quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.11
H-Index - 10
eISSN - 1756-1183
pISSN - 0016-8831
DOI - 10.1111/j.1756-1183.2009.00062.x
Subject(s) - surprise , perception , moment (physics) , psychoanalysis , event (particle physics) , psychology , orientation (vector space) , epistemology , philosophy , social psychology , mathematics , physics , classical mechanics , quantum mechanics , geometry
This article argues that moments of awakening in Die Verwandlung and Der Proceß provide spatial and temporal indices in which Kafka's protagonists attempt to re‐orient themselves in a world where previous empirical grounding has been undermined. In particular, I explore a deleted passage from the manuscript of Der Proceß , in which Josef K. explains his lack of surprise at his arrest by giving a short lecture on the psychology of awakening. K. relates how awakening, the “riskiest moment of the day,” is a decisive epistemological event, requiring a great amount of cognitive composure to keep the world from slipping into incoherence. These comments also offer a unique instance of Kafka's engagement with a contemporary work of psychological theory. They resemble a passage from Max Brod and Felix Weltsch's 1913 book on perception, Anschauung und Begriff , in which the authors explain the difficulty of perceptual orientation upon awakening through their concept of the “memory‐image,” expressed in the formula (A + x). K. intimates that this is one way he might be able to understand his arrest: by locating it, at the moment of waking up, as a problem of (A + x).