Play Before the Law: Kafka and the Spaces of Justice Cover Image
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Игра пред закона: Кафка и пространствата на справедливостта
Play Before the Law: Kafka and the Spaces of Justice

Author(s): Stoyan Stavru
Subject(s): Philosophy, Language and Literature Studies, Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Studies of Literature, History of Philosophy, Epistemology, Ethics / Practical Philosophy, Aesthetics, Political Philosophy, Philology, Theory of Literature, Philosophy of Law
Published by: Институт за литература - БАН
Keywords: Kafka; “Before the Law”; justice; trial; law; philosophy

Summary/Abstract: The article analyzes allegories and metaphors in Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law.” The literary text is interpreted through the philosophical lenses of Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Derrida, Hannah Arendt, Slavoj Žižek, and Gershom Scholem. The central motif of the “door” is explored as a symbol of access to law and as a dual phenomenon of transcendence and immanence. The ambivalence of law is examined as well. On the one hand, it is read as a sacred, inaccessible authority (in the eyes of the man from the country). On the other, the law is interpreted as an intrusive force in everyday life (as exemplified by the judge’s repeated incursions into the painter’s studio). The present analysis links Kafka’s vision of law to the structural ambiguities of the legal system and the tension between legality and justice.

  • Issue Year: 68/2025
  • Issue No: 3
  • Page Range: 18-53
  • Page Count: 36
  • Language: Bulgarian
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