Plot

The short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 details the creation of the Tower of Babel

Tower of Babel

The Tower of Babel , according to the Book of Genesis, was an enormous tower built in the plain of Shinar .According to the biblical account, a united humanity of the generations following the Great Flood, speaking a single language and migrating from the east, came to the land of Shinar, where...

. The narrator

Narrator

A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

 notes how many different people, from various nationalities had a hand in the construction. The massive scale of the project creates so many logistical and societal complications that it becomes impossible for civilization to ever achieve the original plan, or to even seriously believe in the plan. But the project continues on in an insincere manner, because everybody is too deeply involved to be able to leave.

Analysis

The story can be interpreted as Kafka's criticism of the layers of bureaucracy that follow projects, as well as his reaction to the changing city he lived in at the time. While some scholars have noted the story's relevance to elements in the Torah, others have noted Kafka's use of realism, utilized by later writers such as Stephen Crane Kafka noted the piece in at least one of his letters, and claimed it was inspired by his study of the Midrash

Midrash

The Hebrew term Midrash is a homiletic method of biblical exegesis. The term also refers to the whole compilation of homiletic teachings on the Bible....

and the rising pollution he noted in Prague.