Kafka's Use of Lightness
How does Kafka lighten each of these stories?What animates these stories (pushes them forward, provides conflict and finally resolution?) How does the title impact our reading of the story? In "Unhappiness," what does one make of the girl/ghost? In defining how Kafka treats reality in his story "Unhappiness," it is important to remember the complementary relationship that exists between lightness and weight, one cannot exist with out the other. Therefore reality-which is usually considered a very weighty concept-must be accompanied by some lightness and described with some abstractions. Without abstraction and general lightness, a story can easily become unreadable. To study how each element of the pair is presented in a story, is the most truthful path leading to a description of the author's/narrator's way of dealing with reality. As a title and as a frequently used word, "Unhappiness"-one of the heavier weights under the umbrella of reality-is widely recognized as something purely negative that might set the tone for a similar kind of story to follow. Unhappiness is a very real word that drags along some very weighted equities: sorrow, misery, pain, loss, des
The significance or enlightening part of this story is reached through studying the narrator's use of lightness in his own mind to define reality. The weight of his description of unhappiness, which, like death, universal expansion, and many other tenets of reality, is something the human mind does not frequently enjoy dealing with, is accompanied by the lightness of it. This narrator can handle his own reality because he treats it so lightly, subsequently allowing the reader to treat it just as lightly. His own conceptualization of himself includes both his unhappiness and his ridiculousness. Regardless of whether he actually ever raced around his room at all, in his own mind he saw himself running around his room, doing childish things in front of a mirror, and at times envisioned this girl he may have had a risque relationship with as having ghost-like attributes. Kafka's aim with this story was to present on paper, a way that lightness can be applied in more ways than the third-person description of reality. Lightness is a concept that can be applied to the weight of all things in life. It can be employed universally to make anything difficult to stomach, like the concept of unhappiness, not something to ignore or to fear, but rather an unknown to be explored. The truth of all concepts under the umbrella of life and reality, is to
Some common words found in the essay are:
Kafka Kafka, lightness weight, own mind, narrator's reality, description reality, story unhappiness, accompanied lightness,
Approximate Word count = 911
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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