“The Judgement” Xiong

In Kafka’s “The Judgement”, the Major character Georg Bendemann is a young merchant who takes over his father’s business after his mother passed away. Under his leading, the business goes success and profitable. The more successful thing is he meets a lovely girl called Frieda and decides to marry her. Thus, he wants to share this wonderful news with his best friend, a man who lives far away in Russian and recently lives in a bad circumstance. He wants to tell his best friend about his engagement, but considering his friends situation,  the news might makes him feels coerce and aggrieve. To do or not to do, it puts Georg a situation of hesitation However, his fiancée suggests he should tell his friend about the news, in case the friend will hear the wedding news from other people.

“But I have a right to get know all your friends” Georg’s fiancée Frieda first seems curious about why this special friend will not come to their wedding after Georg confirms that he does not invite his friend. Georg tries to express his concerning how this news will hurt his friend. For Frieda, this such concerning mostly come from the care of his friend, not the joy of engagement. She feels a bit disappoint, but she insists. “But wouldn’t he discover our marriage in some other way”? However, Georg still rejects her insistence and it complicates Frieda’s feelings. “Yes, we both to blame for that, but I would not have wanted it any differently”.  Frieda cannot believes the words come from her future husband. The most enjoyable and felicific marriage of them is not his future husband’s purpose, instead, this friend is. “If you have such a friend, Georg, you should not have gotten engaged at all”, the feeling mixes with anger and jealous and it erupts to show Frieda’s determination. The curious of his husband mystery friend makes Frieda feeling exhausting. She used to happy for his husband has such a good friend and want to meet him, but from his husband perspective, this friend belongs to him only, no one can share with him, even his fiancée. The friend accepts all of Georg’s, so Georg wants his Frieda do the same thing for him. But as the closest people in Georg’s life, Frieda feels she have never been accepted into his future husband’s life.  This offends her feelings as well as her esteem and respect.

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