The Judgment

A young man, Georg, writes a letter to a friend living far away in St-Petersburg. He had hesitated to announce his upcoming marriage to the friend, as he was reticent to create an obligation to come back for the wedding, but finally decided to do so at the insistence of his fiancée. When he talks about this to his father, whose business he has mostly taken over and developed since his mother’s death, the old man reacts violently, first accusing his son of having invented the friend, then telling him that he has contracted an alliance with the friend against a fiancée depicted as a seductress. Georg tries to defend himself, at first feeling pity, then anger, for his diminished father, but the father wins the confrontation and condemns his son to die drowned – a sentence Georg promptly carries out by throwing himself under the nearest bridge.

The Stoker

For an indiscretion with a maid, Karl has been sent to America by his parents. As his ships docks in the New York City harbor, the young man realizes that he has forgotten his umbrella in his cabin. Leaving his luggage with a ship acquaintance, he rushes back, only to get lost and end up in the cabin of the ship’s stoker. The two men strike a discussion, and Karl decides to support the stoker’s complaint against his officer to the ship captain. The two men find the captain in a large room, with a following of other men, and bring the case to his attention. Unfortunately, the stoker ruins this artful introduction by mangling his explanations, hindering his cause instead of defending it. In the animation that follows, Karl is recognized by a Senator uncle alerted to his presence by a letter from the loving maid. Much to his dismay, Karl is dragged along the man and forced to abandon the stoker to fend for himself.

In the Penal Colony

A tourist visiting a penal colony is required by the new director to attend a ceremony – a complex, almost mystical way to execute a man for a minor offense. The executioner, an officer faithful to the memory of the previous colony’s director, implores him to support his methods to the new director. The tourist, quite disgusted by the method, refuses. The officer then decides to be the last one to die through his machine, but every ounce of dignity is denied to his sacrifice as the machine breaks down and kills him without grace. The tourist flees the colony, followed by an inmate and a guard he barely manages to leave behind.

A Fratricide

This very short story depicts a stabbing in a street, at night, with a cold precision. It could seem very pedestrian but for two elements nagging the reader: one is the presence of a witness, Pallas, who seems to condone the murder but will speak out against the murderer; the second, of much greater interest to me, is the title. Even more radically than with the opening sentence of Metamorphosis, Kafka kills the apparent source of tension in the story, revealing its murderous object before even revealing a single narrative detail; and yet, the motive is never explained, and the fraternal relation between the men neither confirmed nor denied, leaving to the reader free choice to interpret that “fratricide” literally, figuratively, or anything in between.