- During the interaction between father and son in The Judgment by Franz Kafka, what leads you to believe that Georg’s “friend” is real or is not real? If the “friend” is not an actual person, then what is he? Use two or more quotes from the text to defend your argument.
- In Joseph Campbell’s Heroic Journey there is a Call to Adventure, Refusal of the Call as well as a Crossing the Threshold. Which stage do you believe Georg from The Judgment by Franz Kafka is in and why? Also explain why you don’t think he has reached one of the three stages listed, support both of your claims with evidence from the text.
-Vyonna Etheleau
I think the second question is better. In that questions, there are lots of points that you can cover. You can pick from a number of stages in Joseph Campbell’s Heroic Journey and link it to the many different states of Georg in “The Judgement” by Franz Kafka. In “The Judgment”, Georg has many different interactions and each can be interpreted in their own way to match Campbell’s Heroic Journey.
Although the first question can spark very interesting debates between readers, I don’t think I’d be able to answer my position, that the friend is real, with “two or more quotes from the text to defend” my argument. The reason why i say this is because, although the dad keeps denying that the friend exists, when Georg brought up how the friend was at the house before and the conversation that dad had with the friend, the dad didn’t deny that the conversation existed. He neither denied nor agreed that the conversation occurred. He was silent about it, with no more points to use against Georg about the existence of this friend. I took that as “silence is acceptance”, because Georg provided details that the dad did not object to. In this case, I can’t find sufficient text evidence to prove my point, because it is from my analysis of the plot.