In the story, the situation between Georg and his friend are totally different.  Georg represents the bourgeois class in the society. Firstly, in the business, Georg is successful because his company has to “double the staff, sales had quintupled” and a future sale will be more prosperous. However, his friend’s business has been “stagnating” for quite a while. In the daily life, Georg has been engaged to Fraulein Frieda Brandenfeld, a girl from a wealth family. However, his friend is a bachelor and lives alone and isolation in the Russian. Therefore, Georg is more successful than his friend. Georg and his friend looks like have good relationship because they wrote letter to each other and care about each other. Georg seems to understand and concern about his friend’s situation and tries not to make his friend feel hurt because the different status between them. In fact, Georg is not really care about his friend. Because even though his friend lived in miserable, he still does not want to ask his friend to come back. He assures by himself that his friend would feel embarrassed and remind him of his failure.  Also, in the story, Georg seems to not want to tell his friend about his engagement to a girl from a wealthy family. In fact, he already informed his friend about this thing in three letters. Therefore, Georg flaunts his accomplishments to his friend actually, and the unfortunate life of his friend make him satisfied with his life and accomplishments.

Frieda senses that Georg’s does not want his friend to know their engagement and she wants to let Georg’s friend attend her wedding. However, He told the girl that: “I don’t want to bother him…. But he would feel pressured and put upon, he might envy me and, feeling dissatisfied and incapable of ever overcoming that dissatisfaction.” Georg’s words show that he concerned to his friend’s position, he assures that his friend would envy him and feel dissatisfied to him. However, this is only his imagine because he never wants to know the thinking of his friend. Frieda response that: “if you have such friends, you should never have gotten engaged in the first place.”  In addition, Frieda feel offended may be because she thinks that Georg’s decision not to tell his friends the engagement to her is selfish, and Georg doesn’t care about her. Then, Georg response that: “That’s how I am, and that is how he must take me.” Georg’s words show his selfish and he is not really care about his friend.

There’s a boyhood friend of Georg who is in a foreign country. They keep contact with each other through mails, but I don’t think their relationship is that close because they even don’t know the real thoughts and they just talk about something insignificant. As for the friend, he doesn’t know the change of Georg. On the other hand, Georg doesn’t really want his friend to know much about his recent situation to avoid to hurt his friend.

The experiences between the friend and Georg are totally different. The friend is single and doesn’t have much contact with neither the local colony of his compatriots nor the native families. In contrast, Georg has a fiancé and is going to marry with her. As for business, the friend’s business has a bad fate. However, Georg’s business is booming and develops rapidly.

Georg hesitates all the time whether tells the friend that he is going to marry with a girl from a well-to-do family. His hesitation or say the existence of the friend threatens the relationship between Georg and his fiancé because his fiancé feels offended and doesn’t think Georg should have an engagement with her if the feeling of the friend is more important than hers. Also, the existence of the friend threatens the relationship between Georg and his father, and results in the outbreak of the fight between them.

The dissatisfaction and doubt of Frieda is an opportunity for Georg to face with his heart and to think about what would be the right way to treat with his friend.

I think the reason why Frieda feels offended is that she disagrees with the uncandid way how Georg treat with his friend. She may think if Georg can’t be frank to his friend, he won’t be frank to me either. The words that Georg tells himself are important because Georg tries to face with his heart at the moment and prepares to tell the truth to his friend straightforward. This is the moment that Georg changes.

After reading this story, I don’t think the friend really exist. I believe the friend is another side of Georg, which Georg fears and doesn’t want to face, which are the pressure and power from his father, loneliness, and failure. After the argument with his father, Georg finally collapses and choose to kill himself.

In Franz Kafka’s Judgment, Georg and the friend were business man. But they are opposite to each other. In the passage, the friend was in the foreign country Russia and running a business that didn’t profit for a while. Georg was the one who stayed at home and his business had unexpectedly increase over the two years.  Also, the friend who was a bachelor that didn’t have social relationships with local Russia families. In the other hand, Georg who was engaged with a girl from well-to-do family and had social life. The friend was described as ” he was a big child who simply had to listen to the successful friends.” The friend might represent people who is not able to use of his/her own reasoning without guidance of others (Kant’s idea). In the passage, the friend was described as immature and incapable of doing business. In the other hand, Georg was able to use his rational thinking ability to improve the business.  The description that Georg used to describe the friend shows that Georg felt proud of himself. He was better than the friend in everything. He is the one who can independently solve anything.

Frieda respond to the existence of the friend by “if you have such friends, you should never gotten engaged in the first place.” Frieda directly pointed out that Georg did not want to tell and invite the friend to their wedding. Frieda was criticizing Georg’s reaction toward the friend, Georg was trying to prevent the friend to come to their wedding. He was the one who hesitated to reveal the wedding to the friend but he blamed for both himself and Frieda (“we are both at fault”).  His hesitation and complain made Frieda felt disappointed and angry, that is why Frieda said “I really do feel offended”. After Frieda’s response, Georg suddenly decided to tell the wedding with the friend. This shows that Georg was not mature at all, he was the one that can be affected by others. Other people can make/affect his decisions. Georg’s response, “that is how I am, and that is how he must take me”. He was still believed that he is the one who had the most power and the friend must do as he said because the friend had no choice at all. The friend was so problematic because he had the ability to influence Georg. The friend made Georg became immature, incapable of dealing things on his own.

The story The judgment by Franz Kafka basically deals with the relationship between Georg and his father based on the author’s life story. The main character Georg has a fiancee named Frieda Brandenfled from the author’s real fiancee’s name.

In the story, Georg and Frieda talk about sending a wedding letter to Georg’s friend, who is in Russia. For Frieda, as she wants to meet all his friends, she insists on sending the wedding letter to the friend in Russia, whereas Georg is disinclined to send the wedding letter to his friend in Russia for the friend’s given life-style that he goes to Russia ALONE and for Goerg has succeeded his business, but his friend has almost failed with his business in Russia. Georg, however, respects his fiancee’s opinion and he decides to send the wedding letter to his friend. Before he sends the letter, he meets and tells his father for sending the wedding letter to his friend in Russia. From discussing with his father, an issue comes out. Before his mother’ death, Georg and everything were controlled by his father. After his mother’s death, however, his father who is strict, strong, and patriarchal has lost power than before and his father feels this. From this moment, Georg probably surpasses and controls his father and the business. His father also feels that from their conversation. So, he questions the existence of Georg’s friend in Russia because the friend in Russia is actually his friend, not Georg’s friend and he accuses Georg of deceiving him of the happenings of the business. Georg’s father claims that Georg wants him dead and he is being selfish as well. So, his father condemns him to death by drowning and he realizes everything is an illusion by conversation with his father and then he just follows his father’s order for his family’s happiness.

As I mentioned before, this story is based on the author’s life. So, here, Georg’s father represents the author’s father who was strict, strong, patriarchal and big like Georg’s father. The author’s father also operated business too. In general, Russia is regarded as extremely cold country among the public. For the author, his youth and life were like Russia and Russian because he was in cold and lonely condition under his parents. Also, At that time, because of social, political, and economical conditions in Europe, the author’s parents supported him to write literature which meant he was under his parents. So, here, Georg represents the author himself, his friend in Russia represents literature and Russia (?), Georg’s father represents the author’s father, I think.

Write a blog post that is a close reading of the exchange between Georg and his fiancée Frieda in Franz Kafka’s The Judgment. We’ll begin by focusing mostly on the first five or so pages of the story on Friday and will look at the relationship between Georg and the Friend and how Frieda plays into it. Consider the differences between Georg and the Friend, what they both do, how they are described, and what they might ‘represent’. How does Frieda respond to the existence of this Friend in the exchange with Georg? What might be so problematic about the Friend? What does the Friend threaten? That is, why does Frieda say “I really do feel offended” (61) and what is so important about Georg’s response, “That is how I am, and that is how he must take me” (62)?

I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.

– Letter to Oskar Pollak, 27 January 1904

Yesterday it occurred to me that I did not always love my mother as she deserved and as I could, only because the German language prevented it. The Jewish mother is no ‘Mutter’, to call her ‘Mutter’ makes her a little comic […], we give a Jewish woman the name of a German mother, but forget the contradiction that sinks into the emotions so much the more heavily, ‘Mutter’ is peculiarly German for the Jew, it unconsciously contains, together with the Christian splendor Christian coldness also, the Jewish woman who is called ‘Mutter’ therefore becomes not only comic but strange. Mama would be a better name if only one didn’t imagine ‘Mutter’ behind it.

– Diaries, 24 October 1911

The tremendous world I have in my head. But how free myself and free it without being torn to pieces. And a thousand times rather be torn to pieces than retain it in me or bury it. That, indeed, is why I am here, that is quite clear to me.

–Diaries, 21 June 1913

I am nothing but literature and can and want to be nothing else.

– Diaries, 21 August 1913

I.

The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his “natural superiors”, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous “cash payment”. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom — Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation.

II.

The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.

III.

The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself.

But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons — the modern working class — the proletarians.

In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed — a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.

passages taken from: marxists.org (1888, Translated by Samuel Moore with Friedrich Engels)

MINJI KIM

Our group presented about the history of African slaves in the U.S. The story All Gods’ Chillen Had Wing and other poems explain African slaves’ hope (freedom) in the U.S. They were exploited and treated as like animals than human itself under WHITES in the U.S. It is quite similar to Hawaiian folktale The Despotic Chief Of Kau that describes that Native Hawaiians were exploited as servants by their greedy chiefs.

Both of African slaves and Native Hawaiians were in difficult conditions by their chiefs and societies and have no freedom. Without any income or freedom for themselves, they had to work for what their chiefs wanted. In the story All Gods’ Chillen Had Wing, for instance, African slaves work in a very hard condition. They have no time to take a break and whether they are sick or not, they just go to work like animals and nothing is given to them as rewards. Likewise, in the story The Despotic Chiefs of Kau, Hawaiians go fishing or carry food for their chiefs, but there is nothing for them as rewards. Both of African slaves and Native Hawaiians are regarded as animals or servants, not human to their chiefs.

From the hard condition, both African slaves and Native Hawaiians seek freedom and make freedom by themselves as a revenge. At the end of the story All Gods’ Chillen Had Wing, African slave fly up from the ground they were in and they were animals than human by Whites to heaven that means their freedom and revenge against Whites. The story The Despotic Chiefs of Kau shows similar story too. In the Halaea of The Despotic Chiefs of Kau, for instance, a greedy chief named Ha-la-e-a order his fishermen to go fishing and bring fish to him every time. His fishermen follow his order for several times, but later they get mad at that situation and they carry and put all fish to the canoe to the chief. And, it causes the canoe to sink. By this revenge, they have freedom.

Although African slave were exploited in other country, not their homeland and Native Hawaiians were exploited  in their own homeland, Both had no freedom under their greedy chiefs and societies, but they were regarded as just servants.

The idea of enlightenment, autonomy, and reasoning shaped how people should behave in society since 1600s. The 16^th century philosopher Immanuel Kant gave the answer to what is enlightenment and what influence people unable to be enlightened. People wanted to be enlightened, however, some society’s rational orders impede people from achieving enlightenment. These ideas can be reflected in Ueda Akinari’s Bewitched of how family’s rational order restricted a person from enlightening oneself. In the story, Taro and his father represent the rational order of their family who make decisions and Toyo-o is the person who under the strict control of his family. Although Toyo-o’s life is comfortable under his family’s normalized and rational order, Toyo-o is never capable of achieving Kant’s idea of enlightenment, that Toyo-o’s ability of autonomy, reason, and right of freedom is deprived by such rational order.

People’s mind and action are often constrained or affected by the social custom and culture. Usually, people’s mind is not really who they are and who they mean to be. People are often told to be “reason” is which defined by the society. People have less chance and ability to think and act independently and maturely. This social phenomenon is fully presented in Ueda Akirari’s story “Bewitched”. The background of this story is a patriarchal society, which all men must be masculine, be a master of family and business. But Toyo-o is an “unreason” man who doesn’t meet the social norm. He is a feminine man who likes study Chines, and have no interest in a family business. Therefore, Toyo-o was defined “unreason.” He cannot be what he wants to be. On the other hand, women have a completely different social status from men. At that period of time, women were inferior to men. We can easily realize this phenomenon through this story, it was presented by the name mentioned by the author. Women in this story don’t have a given name even though the characters are important. Women usually were the accessory of men, that’s women’s “reason” position and significance given by that society. In my opinion, I would not agree and support the social phenomenon. On the contrary, I prefer Descartes and Kant’s standpoint. In Descartes’s  “The Discourse On Method,” he believes that the mind is who we are and what we are meant to be. He argues that people should doubt and questions the truth instead just accept them by not knowing the meaning. In Kant’s “What is Enlightenment,” he hopes people have the courage to seek truth for themselves, not just follow the opinions of authorities. He thinks the real enlightenment is when people are free enough to think and act by themselves, people no longer need to rely on other people or authorities’ opinions to judge and understand things.