The Knock at the Manor Gate
Encyclopedia
The Knock at the Manor Gate is a short story
by Franz Kafka
. The short story--one of many pieces of what is now considered flash fiction
--illustrates many important themes in Kafka's works. The narrator details a ride with his sister on the way towards home. His sister playfully knocks on the door of a large house. This knock proves to have grave consequences. The owner is a person of great power and sends troops after the two of them. The narrator
describes the tale as one of warning, that small actions can have big consequences in life, as he is about to be tortured.
.
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...
by 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...
. The short story--one of many pieces of what is now considered flash fiction
Flash fiction
Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category...
--illustrates many important themes in Kafka's works. The narrator details a ride with his sister on the way towards home. His sister playfully knocks on the door of a large house. This knock proves to have grave consequences. The owner is a person of great power and sends troops after the two of them. 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...
describes the tale as one of warning, that small actions can have big consequences in life, as he is about to be tortured.
Analysis
At least one interpretation of the short story centers on how the horrific events unfold without warning, though there is a cause and effect explanation if one looks at how the story correlates with chaos theoryChaos theory
Chaos theory is a field of study in mathematics, with applications in several disciplines including physics, economics, biology, and philosophy. Chaos theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions, an effect which is popularly referred to as the...
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