Kafka's Chinese Essay

We Builders Of The Wall

There are three moments in Kafka in which the argument is central. They are The Great Wall of China, which is an argument, Josephine the Singer, likewise, and the Bürgel scene, which consists of Bürgel's argument interspersed with K.'s attempts to fall asleep.

In all three the essay begins with a question. In The Great Wall of China the narrator enquires into the reason for the piecemeal construction of the wall. The narrator of Josephine wonders why she has the influence she does on a race that has no enthusiasm for music. Bürgel asks why secretaries are unhappy with the nocturnal interviews.

In all cases the question, which begins with a tiny anomaly, leads to an account of the entire situation, only at length to prove unanswerable. Or rather to demonstrate a mystery to us, something we may comprehend but not limit.

The Great Wall of China whose argument ostensibly finishes halfway through, although it is really answered in the closing sentences of the story, begins by asking something about the building of the wall which would seem peculiar, namely its piecemeal construction. The work, we are told, was not undertaken without thought. The high command would certainly not will anything inexpedient. (Or rather, can the high command have willed anything inexpedient? ...Paraphrasing Kafka is dangerous.)

It uses this question to describe the building of the wall and in relation to that the high command, which is not to be identified with a mere emperor. Various aspects of the wall are explored, such as the enthusiasm of the people for its construction, its academic comparison with the Tower of Babel, and the narrator's own experience of its recent history.

Finally the narrative concludes that the high command has existed from old time, and the decision to build the wall likewise. This does not exactly answer the question, although it does put us in mind of the narrator's attitude to the high command, whose orders are inscrutable. A deeper, perhaps spiritual purpose is implied.

In the second half the narrative, which could superficially appear to be a different narrative by a different hand (an interesting ambiguity), sets out to describe the different institutions of China, of which its author has been making a study. This part of the story is interesting for its fragmentation, as it turns into a series of anecdotes that describe how separate the villages are from each other in China, and equally, in the parable, how packed is its populous capital.

The ending, however, is significant. Significantly, in this half of the story, in attempting to describe the institutions of China, the narrator has really been describing its people, and how remote from one another they are. This remoteness is a fault in the people, which cannot be resolved by analysing it. (It undermines the ground beneath the people's feet!) Perhaps, I speculate, the fundamental purpose of the wall was to give the people a sense of unity, a common purpose. By being sent off to far parts of the empire they would meet other subjects and feel they were achieving something valuable at great sacrifice, which from any other point of view might seem futile. In the earlier part of the narrative the narrator comments on the overpowering sense of unity everyone experienced at the time.

It is interesting to note that the narrative does not say anything about this as an explanation. Perhaps there is a good reason for this. It is also interesting to note that the narrative moves backwards, from a powerful sense of unity to the fragmentation that it insists actually characterises China and its peoples.

This story is as little like a story as anything Kafka ever wrote. What we do not see in it is the personal development of a single central character.

Set up 01 March 1999

Last updated 17 March 1999

© R. Millar 1999