Abstract
Franz Kafka's work has always seduced us into metaphor. Always partly anchored in our notion of the real, always simultaneously inscribed in a mentality beyond, his novels and stories invite an interpretative activity that will explain the fantastic in terms of the real. Hence the frequency with which we ask of an image in Kafka, or of an entire text, What does it mean? Why the cockroach? for example. In responding to the question, we construct a second world, parallel to the text, which accounts as fully as possible for any troublesome mystery which the text introduces. Our goal is demystification, and our assumption is that the text is parable, a symbolic system whose terms transfigure literal representation. Most criticism of the short story Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer, written in 1917, makes this assumption. Typically, it asks, What is the wall? Herbert Tauber is not unusual in his assertion:
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