Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart
Encyclopedia
"Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart" (German
: "Der Unredliche in Seinem Herzen") is the name usually given to Franz Kafka
's earliest surviving work of fiction, a short story which he wrote in 1902 and survived only because it was included in a letter to his friend Oskar Pollack.
(German: Briefe 1902-1924), where it is embedded within the letter sent to Pollack.
Biographer Frederick Robert Karl, however, claims that Impure in Heart was intended to be the letter's addressee Oskar Pollak , an assessment also endorsed by Sander L. Gilman, who saw the story as an outgrowth of Kafka and Pollak's "passionate relationship" which "stressed the rhetoric of the body in a homoerotic setting". Mark M. Anderson claims that this "tense, erotically charged encounter" anticipates a similar struggle between two modes of life in Kafka's "Description of a Struggle
" and is notable for "the centrality of the city/country distinction and the allegorical use of clothing" which reappear throughout his writing.
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
: "Der Unredliche in Seinem Herzen") is the name usually given to Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
's earliest surviving work of fiction, a short story which he wrote in 1902 and survived only because it was included in a letter to his friend Oskar Pollack.
Background
It is unclear whether "Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart" was written explicitly for the letter Kafka sent to Oskar Pollack (postmarked 20 December 1902) or if he had worked on it previously. All that Kafka writes about the story is that it is "new and hard to tell.". It is similarly unknown whether Kafka considered publishing the story, or even thought of it as a stand-alone piece. The story has never been included in any collection of Kafka's fiction and appears only in Letters to Friends, Family, and EditorsLetters to Family, Friends, and Editors (Franz Kafka)
Letters to Family, Friends, and Editors is a book collecting some of Franz Kafka's letters from 1900 to 1924. The majority of the letters in the volume are addressed to Max Brod. Originally published in Germany in 1959 as Briefe 1902-1924, the collection was first published in English by Schocken...
(German: Briefe 1902-1924), where it is embedded within the letter sent to Pollack.
Plot
The story describes a meeting between Impure in Heart, a dandy who lives in a big city "that got drunk night after night and was frantic night after night," and Shamefaced Lanky, a tall and awkward man who has "crept off to hide his face in an old village" and knits "woolen socks for the peasants." Impure in Heart talks to Shamefaced Lanky at length; at first his words turn into finely dressed "little gentlemen" who make their way across the room and crawl into Lanky's ears. He goes on to tell Lanky "a merry mix" of stories while "stabbing his pointed cane into Lanky's belly", until he is content, then smiles and leaves. When Lanky is left alone he begins weeping and asks himself a series of questions about the visitor and himself, before finally returning to his knitting.Interpretation
According to Kafka's close friend Max Brod:- Shamefaced Lanky is Kafka himself, while Impure in Heart is a portrait of his former classmate at the gymnasium, Emil Utitz (1883-1956), then a student of Philosophy and follower of Franz BrentanoFranz BrentanoFranz Clemens Honoratus Hermann Brentano was an influential German philosopher and psychologist whose influence was felt by other such luminaries as Sigmund Freud, Edmund Husserl, Kazimierz Twardowski and Alexius Meinong, who followed and adapted his views.-Life:Brentano was born at Marienberg am...
.
Biographer Frederick Robert Karl, however, claims that Impure in Heart was intended to be the letter's addressee Oskar Pollak , an assessment also endorsed by Sander L. Gilman, who saw the story as an outgrowth of Kafka and Pollak's "passionate relationship" which "stressed the rhetoric of the body in a homoerotic setting". Mark M. Anderson claims that this "tense, erotically charged encounter" anticipates a similar struggle between two modes of life in Kafka's "Description of a Struggle
Description of a Struggle
"Description of a Struggle" is a short story by Franz Kafka.-Origins:"Description of a Struggle" is one of Kafka's earliest stories that was not destroyed and is usually the earliest included in collections of his work...
" and is notable for "the centrality of the city/country distinction and the allegorical use of clothing" which reappear throughout his writing.