Throughout the story “The Judgement” by Franz Kafka, the role of the friend in St. Petersburg is extremely confusing and there are numerous explanations as to what his role is. I do not think there is any clear cut answer or “right” answer as to what role the friend plays in this story.

The imaginary and mysterious friend is described as ” a big child with a fully exotic beard poorly concealing the face.” Yes, these words give the reader a decent image of what the friends face looks like but that is about it. I am not sure why Kafka states the status of the friends facial hair before mentioning characteristics of his personality. This bothered me a great deal.

I struggled to come up with any similarities between George and his friend. A major difference that I noticed was the “successfulness”  of George compared to the failure of his friend. Kafka uses the word “fled”, implying the friend ran away from something. Kafka could have very easily used the word “moved”, instead he used “fled”. I learnt from this that the friend was clearly having some struggles and not having a great life where he was so he was escaping something and fled to St. Petersburg.

” His friend was settling in as a bachelor for good.” Why did this friend have no interest in getting married? Perhaps, it has something to do with his lack of interest in community and being social as a whole. Kafka mentions the friend did not have close ties to the colony. I think this friend was an anti-social human being and this is one of the many reasons that he fled to Russia.

This nameless friend causes a lot of complexion and confusion to George’s life. George discusses in great detail whether or not he should tell his friend that he plans on getting married. It is unclear to me whether or not I would consider George and this friend close friends. It seems as if they have some everlasting connection and clearly George has an interest in keeping in touch with him, but I feel as if George always has to think before telling him something and this is not healthy. More importantly, this nameless friend damages/ruins George’s relationship with his father. As we all know, in the end George commits suicide. Although I can not definitively say George would not have committed suicide had his father not spoken with the friend, I strongly believe George would not have killed himself. I am wondering as to why George’s father cared about this friend so much? What are the positive characteristics that George’s dad saw inside this friend?

Overall, this friend caused a lot of unnecessary complexity to George’s life and eventually caused his suicide.

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Each characters in the story The Judgement can be defined as: Georg is the represented Kafka himself; Frieda Brandenfeld is mentioned as Felice Bauer, Kafka’s fiancee; and I think “the friend” in Russia whom has never given a name is the character of Kafka’s inner self. We know that Georg and his friend communicated mostly through letters. I see the letters as Kafka’s conflict to himself for being Georg or the friend (to be rich or poor and to be married or a bachelor. There are plenty of examples in the article showing his confusing thought.

It is audaciously to say Kafka has schizophrenia that he created a virtual friend as the other side of him. We can see a lot of details of Georg’s friend in first couple pages, but the friend of him has never had a name. Therefore, I think Kafka has his reasons to make the virtual character. Kafka might hope to go to St. Petersburg, Russia, but he was also afraid of losing things he had in his hometown since his friend is described as “having no ties with the local colony or his compatriots and almost no social dealings with native families, he was settling in to become a bachelor for good.”(p.58)

As I know, Kafka had been having conflict with his father in real life, so he might want to escape from the place living with his father that he said in The Judgement his friend didn’tgo back to visit even when Georg’s mother passed away. Kafka might be really yearn for the life in Russia. Somehow, Kafka knew that to abandon everything to Russia was an immature decision, he wrote: ” he(the friend) was a big child who simply had to listen to the successful friends who had remained at home.” On page 60, I see Kafka’s self conflict again. When Georg and his father’s business has grown, his friend tried to persuade Georg to move to Russia instead of congratulated him. And then Kafka was struggling again: “Georg always limited himself to writing to his friend about trivial occurrences.”

On p.61, it mostly described Kafka’s dilemma of his marriage. “Well, we are both at fault; but I would not have it any other way now.” can be analyzed Kafka felt regret to his engagement.The words Georg told himself was so complex that he said “That is how I’m, and that is how he must take me,” and “I cannot tailor myself into a person who might be more suitable for a friendship with him that I am.” I would read that as Kafka was persuading and reminding himself that he had to get marry with his fiancee and to forget the life he had been yearning for in Russia.

We could see as many conflicts as I mentioned above inside Kafka’s heart through only first few pages. Kafka might have schizophrenia like as I said because he kept fighting to himself to make choice in his life expressing through his writings. He writes in profundity and philosophically that I just tried my best to guess, but I believe there will never be an answer for the explanation of his writings.