The Nature of Space in Kafkas The Castle :: Kafka Castle Essays

The Nature of Space in Kafkas The Castle From the end of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of World War I, great developments in technology and cognition brought about significant changes in the way man viewed time and space. The necessity of clear train schedules led to the development of World Standard Time and the mob of private time. In regards to space, with which this paper deals, man moved into other subjective realms beyond the two and three dimensions described by Euclid. In fact, with Einsteins theory of relativity, the come of spaces inherent in life increased beyond calculation to equal the number of moving reference systems of all the matter in the universe. This theory echoes Nietzches coeval philosophical theory of perspectivism, where space only consists of points of view and interpretations, non objective facts. Thus, these two doctrines signaled a breakdown of the old notion that there is a item-by-item reality, a single, absolute space. Space became subj ective and relative, man could not be sure of what it was that unfeignedly surrounded him and made up his physical world. Creative artists, painters and novelists, act to deal with this new concept. Attacks were made on traditional notions that there is only one space and that a single point of view is equal to an understanding. Writers, specifically, responded with triple perspectives depicting different views of the same objects in space in order to demonstrate that the world is always different as it is perceived by heterogeneous observers at varying times. Man had to come to grips with the fact that with such a plurality of space, he cannot know, understand, or even see the physical world completely. Thus, it is not surprising that Kafkas final work, The Castle, which emerged out of the pluralism and confusion of this age, deals with this new notion of space, this new relativity of the world surrounding man. While the book can be looked at on a spiritual level, with the r ook symbolizing divinity or the ultimate spiritual meaning of mans existence, in regards to space, the castle could also symbolize the actual literal, physical world. Through the nature of K. and his quest, the different ways the Castle is perceived by K. from various viewpoints along his quest, and the inability of anyone to know the true nature of the castle officials, Kafka