Naumachie des Schreibens. Kafka, Gewalt und Meer
Naumachy of Writing. Kafka, Violence, and the Sea

Summary/Abstract: In his few texts about the sea, Kafka depicts it as a space of violence. He therefore brings it in connection with the metaphor of a weapon: either a concrete weapon as a sword or a trident in "The Man who Disappeared" and in "Poseidon" or an abstract weapon such as the one from "The Silence of the Sirens". Historical processes rich in violence, such as colonization, enslavement and exile are conceived together with mythical confrontations. Kafka modernizes scenes of battle on the sea with an image of a bureaucrat ruling the sea: a figure of power and control over resources, i.e. a clerk in charge of possessions and sentencing. The pen becomes the weapon, either pedantically noting everything down or writing one’s self out of that power situation by means of literature.

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