"Brücke dreht sich um!". A Deconstructionist Reading of Kafka's "Die Brücke"

Abstract

Franz Kafka's (1883-1924) Die Brucke is one of the less well-known texts by one of the most prolific authors of literary modernity. However, this short prose text embodies prevalent questions of literary modernity and philosophy as it reflects the crisis of language in regard of identity, communication, and literary production. Placed in the context of fin-de-siecle's discourse of language crisis, this article provides dialogue between Kafka's Die Brucke and Hannah Arendt's (1906-1975) philosophy of thinking and speaking in The Life of the Mind. Contrary to Arendt's understanding of the metaphor as a carrying over between the mental activities of the solitude thinker and reconciliation with the pluralistic world shared with others, this article argues for deconstructionist reading of Die Brucke as tool to reevaluate Arendt's notion of shared human experience ensured through language and illustrates the advantages of poetic texts within philosophical discourses.