The Law and the Void: Hans Christian Andersen and Franz Kafka. Two Modern Parabolists

Abstract

Of Franz Kafka, Walter Benjamin aptly wrote: ‘everything he describes makes statements about something other than itself’. Indeed, we are constantly challenged to decipher what Kafka’s meticulous prose is pointing at, though the story itself works on its own premises. The inherent polysemy of ‘Eine kaiserliche Botschaft’ (‘An Imperial Message’) or ‘Ein Hungerkünstler’ (‘A Hunger Artist’) suggests, instead, the ancient parable tradition. But Kafka’s modern parables diverge radically from the tradition. They obey a law, yet it is elusive, hence they are examples of the modern parable. In this article I take as my starting point Gila Safran– Naveh’s claim that Kafka is chronologically the first in the modern parable tradition. I assert that Hans Christian Andersen’s much earlier fairytales ‘Skyggen’ (‘The Shadow’), ‘Ole Lukøie’ and ‘Hjertesorg’ (‘Heartache’) can legitimately be interpreted as modern parables as well, because there is a striking structural similarity between them and the Kafka stories. In my article I focus on the parabolic character of Andersen’s tales since — unlike in Kafka’s stories — this topic has not yet been discussed by scholars exhaustively. Kafka’s short stories serve merely as a benchmark of the modern parable. Generally, I suggest reading many of Andersen’s stories as literature that sabotages the didactic parable.