Readers of Metamorphosis will expect The Giant Mole to be about such a mole, will expect the mole to appear, eyes blinking, nose twitching, out of some giant molehill. But the strange premiss of the story by no means definitely exists. (Indeed there is a degree of ambiguity with all of Kafka's animals.) Even the first line communicates the fact that the narrator has clearly not seen the mole: "Those, and I am one of them, who find even an ordinary-sized mole disgusting would surely have died of disgust..." The mole's existence is repeated as fact, but the fact is not backed up with certain evidence.

How does the disappointment work? Let us examine it in other Kafka stories.

Kafka was disappointed with the ending of Metamorphosis. He is not the only critic to have felt let down in this way. The narrative power of the insect idea gives way in the final section to what seems like a naïve optimism. No horror at all. But then horror is not the predominant aspect of Kafka's æsthetics in any case. Kafka felt that his last pages were not equal to his first ones, which shows how little he understood the story. it has a complete structure. (See relevant section.) The ending is in every way the opposite of the beginning, or represents a clear development on from it. The going out into the country, the selling of the flat, the day of happy leisure. Ironically Metamorphosis, famous as one of Kafka's darkest stories, ends with an expression of unsullied optimism. (That is, there is no darkness to hold on to, rather like in the opening sentence of The Judgement. Compare some critics.)

What is important is how disappointing some people find this. The same kind of disappointment can be found throughout The Castle. One can be disappointed that it is not Metamorphosis or The Trial, but it disappoints in many other ways. It disappoints people who expect a plot to develop, or a religious allegory, or something other than its relentless darkness, emptiness and silence. People who hope that K. will reach the Castle are disappointed, as are those who hope he will be turned away or that he will choose to reject the Castle. (He forgets about it.)

He hears from the Superintendent that he has not been taken on as Land Surveyor, that the telephone is irrelevant, that Schwarzer has no authority, that no one is throwing him out (as he can see, in fact) and that the only valuable part of the letter from Klamm is the signature. The second letter he receives from Klamm appears unaware of what has actually happened. It is probably a form letter drawn up to be sent out should a Land Surveyor appear. (The Superintendent has already mooted the possibility that an Land Surveyor might be summoned, or that a decision might have been taken over the summoning of one; so it would make sense for the administration to put together letters that might be sent out should a Land Surveyor actually appear, to ensure that every possibility is covered.)

Olga tells K. that Klamm's appearance is uncertain, and that Barnabas might not be speaking to Klamm. Barnabas leads K. home, not to the Castle, and we feel K.'s disappointment. The angelic garb hides workman's overalls. Erlanger crowns the disappointment by making clear to K. that the organisation and K. are not necessarily relevant to each other.

Why is this disappointment significant? Essentially we are frustrated in terms of what we want out of the story, and in the case of critics become determined to get something out of it, come what may. The story withdraws itself from us. Kafka as a writer is capable of withdrawing himself completely, which often has an interesting effect on the reader. On what the reader does. The best response would be to give up trying to get what we were trying to get, and to discover what the story in fact has to offer us.

"A mole, larger in size..." The objective precision of the words and the effect it creates. Compare Metamorphosis for both undermining effect and allowing you to create your own. Effect of rereading! Even undermining from start. Premiss undermines itself: again contrast with Metamorphosis.

What do I mean by the disappointment aesthetic?

In principle the story is about how a bystander, the businessman narrator, hears the story of the teacher's paper about the mole, and becomes involved, in an attempt to vindicate the teacher. But the teacher proves hostile to this intervention, and at length puts up so much resistance that the businessman of his own accord withdraws. He not only withdraws, he requests that all copies of the pamphlet be returned to him.

One critic read this as a brief morality tale: the businessman involves himself in something that is not so to speak his business and suffers for it. This is definitely a possible way of reading it. It is perfectly consistent with what happens. But it does not completely sum up the story, which in its own way, without any machines of torture or giant insects, comes over as desolate and depressing. The cynical and melancholy attitude of the teacher is hardly prepossessing. Further, Kafka is not really in the business of writing morality tales as such. In the meeting between the businessman and the teacher, which takes up the second half of the story, the businessman has already asked for copies of his pamphlet to be returned. The principal theme of the encounter is not the withdrawal of the businessman, but the manner of his withdrawal.

As with many of Kafka's stories we should look to the ending to get a clearer view of what happens and the direction the story is taking. Kafka's stories are by and large complete; indeed, in connection with this very story he writes, "the story, if it has any justification to exist, bears its complete organisation within itself even before it has been fully formed". (Diaries 19/12/14.) In consequence the ending of a Kafka story is of vital importance, since that is the point which is reached, the point to which the story is travelling.

In this case the story ends with the teacher sitting in the businessman's house, and the businessman apparently unable to get him to go. He reflects that "it seemed an impossible idea even to show him the door." (Kafka's stories often end on an infinity or an impossibility.) So on the one hand the businessman has interfered, seen the error of his ways and withdrawn; on the other the teacher is in his house and showing no signs of being about to leave. We finish, as with many of Kafka's short pieces, in what I think of as an extended moment. In this case it is an uneasy moment demanding resolution, to which no resolution seems just around the corner.

There is a balance in this also. The businessman has intruded into the teacher's quiet life; now the teacher intrudes into the businessman's. But is maintaining the balance the only point of this ending?

What is the attitude of the teacher? On the surface he is friendly, while underneath the businessman detects a hostility in his manner. But even this hostility may not be the whole story. At one point the businessman observes that the teacher seemed to show a keener penetration where he himself was concerned than in relation to the mole. We could say that The Giant Mole is the story of the granting of a wish, the wish being in this case the businessman's to become involved in the teacher's affairs. This is what he gets, even if he does not like it.

One of Kafka's shorter pieces, Fellowship, may have something to say here. Fellowship is the story of five friends, and how they come out of the house of one of them one after the other. The only problem is a sixth person who wants to join them. They resist. They are five, and do not want to be six. But this is of no avail. "But no matter how much we push him away," the narrator concludes, "back he comes." This is another situation that is not going to be resolved. The story moves from a picture of fellowship, in which there are five friends who do everything together, to a more complex picture, in which the fellowship between the five friends is used as a way of pushing a sixth person away. Indeed fellowship is precisely the thing that they are resisting. We see friendliness on the part of the sixth person who is not put off and continues to attempt to join their fellowship.

In the same way a vestigial friendliness may be detected in the behaviour of the teacher in The Giant Mole. The teacher comes to visit the businessman of his own accord. Having arrived, he remains, possibly like a mole one cannot get rid of from one's lawn. Behind the hostility and the cynicism, which undoubtedly exist, lies a continued willingness to associate.

Perhaps it is his victory that enables the teacher to remain, like a motorcyclist performing a lap of honour. Perhaps the point is that the businessman must not merely withdraw his pamphlet but must also put up with the teacher's presence. The teacher observes that of his own accord the businessman took up the story and of his own accord puts it down again. The clear implication is that, regardless of the teacher's clearly expressed opinions about that intervention, the businessman is free to act as he will; he is not doing the teacher's bidding. This, even though it is what the teacher actually wants. The critical point, I suppose, is that the businessman has so to speak been taken over by the teacher. If it is a battle of wills the teacher is the dominant.

But within that there is the friendliness I suggested above.

There are similarities between this story and certain aspects of The Judgement. The passage on the deceitfulness of old people. The narrator observes that "when something decisive happens...suddenly these old people rise before you like strangers, show that they have deeper and stronger convictions, and now for the first time literally unfurl their banner...it is as if the self-evident had degrees of validity, and their words now were more self-evident than ever." This echoes the transformation effected in Georg Bendemann's father, when he leaps to his feet on the bed, casting off the way he had formerly appeared to his son. It also echoes the construction "truly...still more truly" which Mr Bendemann adopts.

There is more than an echo of The Judgement here. All Kafka's stories up to and including The Great Wall of China recall The Judgement in various ways: The Giant Mole recalls its structure and the relationship of its characters. Where Georg and his father are separated at the end, however, the businessman and the teacher are apparently inseparable, come together instead of being rent asunder. A father-son relationship may perhaps be discerned.

In the same way, just as Georg's father says what he says out of love for his son (well I presume, since he is concerned about his son coming of age), so perhaps the teacher does what he does out of a kind of love for the businessman. He does allow him complete freedom of movement, which is a sign of love. And in the process of being cynical about the world he does come closer to him. And in showing more concern for the things the businessman does than he did attempting to prove the mole's existence, he shows a human concern, albeit behind a mask. Indeed, his responses to the businessman seem more on a moral level, to stop the man doing something that is bad for himself, than on a level of mere self-protection which is a little late at this stage and would make for a less interesting story.

What he does corresponds to Socrates' definition of love in Plato's Symposium: he imposes his personality on the other person and asks for love in return. Or for something which is not any better defined in the story as it stands.

It may be that the reason the teacher wants the pamphlet to be forgotten about is that he invented the mole.

Set up 17 March 1999

Last updated 17 March 1999

© R. Millar 1999