Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Judgement while reading through a psych lens

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Psych Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Judgment
Something good about this short story by Franz Kafka is that it leaves a huge room for interpretation by the reader. Thus, the reader can be left to selectively to choose the aspects that they fancy and award them the interpretations they wish. That does not, however, mean the analyses should be erroneous or inexistent. Subliminally, albeit subtly, the issue of the unresolved Oedipus complex in this story cannot be overlooked, and this paper sets out to illustrate just how it leaked onto the literary piece, ‘The Judgment.’
Greek mythology is ancient as they go, and can only compete with the Shakespearean literature when it comes to popularity. As a consequence, the legend of Oedipus is easy to follow. A child is born to the king of Thebes and would have been brought up in the palace, but for an oracle pronounced about him before birth (Bernstein 395). So the father, King Laius, leaves the infant to die in the forest, but the boy lives and grows, unknowingly kills the father in self-defense and goes on to marry his mother after solving a riddle. Unbeknownst to anyone, the prophecy is fulfilled. This is the basis of Sigmund Freud’s theory that explains an innate rivalry between young boys and their fathers over the affection of the mother. Funnily, this affection is not just the unconditional love between relations, but actual sexual desire. This jealousy makes the infant boy to unconsciously wish to eliminate the competition, the father.

Naturally, the complex resolves by itself between the ages of three to six years, but failing to resolve is not without ramification.
In this text, the closest we come to the depiction of a son who loved his late mother is in the narrator’s description of how lightly George’s friend had taken the news of his late mother. It was as if “the sadness of such an event is completely inconceivable in a foreign country” (Kafka 2). The dry tone of the letter must have been a mockery of the pain of losing his mother. It could be this pain of loss that made him more determined in the business (Kafka 2), or maybe he took it as an opportunity to grow in strength and authority over his father. George’s father quickly mentions to his son that the death of his wife was “was a much bigger blow to me than to you” (Kafka 7). Whether this was the truth cannot be fully established, but it is easily noted from the story that the father has a twisted fondness for agitating his son. Therefore, he could be doing this to wound him more. According to Freud, the Oedipus complex easily resolves when the child starts identifying with the same sex parent (Borovečki-Jakovljev and Matačić 352). It is at this point the young boy starts associating with the traits of the father and seeking approval from the same sex.
George looks up to his father with adoration and is portrayed as one desperate for his father’s pat on the back that he kneels for him and is willing to close the business if he only says the word. His voice is that of a man who has not gotten the privilege of being affirmed by his father, and this is a symptom of the unresolved Oedipus complex (Ahmed 65). The father does little to salvage the situation and even accuses his son as the one who “goes merrily through the world, finishing off business deals which he had set up” in addition to saying that George’s friend would have been a better son (Kafka 10). The friend in Russia is a representation of the negative Oedipus complex in that. Although it is clear that ‘mother –fixation’ as a symptom of failed resolution of the Oedipus complex is absent in George, the rivalry between these two men, the open admiration for his father coupled with fear at the same time suffice to conclude that he has not overcome it.
According to Barbeau (22), the Oedipal complex in this story is inverted in that instead of George being the jealous one it is the father who is insecure. George also takes up most of the responsibility roles in the family which include running the family business and nursing his father aging father. On his part, the father takes up the childish behavior of throwing covers when he is tucked into bed and plays with his watch chain while being carried. Barbeau further alleges that when the father says he will sweep Frieda, George’s betrothed, from his side, it is a sign of envy. In this inverted way, George’s fiancée takes up the position of the mother, the object of competition. This approach is a bit convoluted and even one writer recommends that “Kafka’s stories must be treated, at best, as distorted applications of the Oedipus” (Barbeau 24).
“Unsuccessfulness in resolving the Oedipus complex is, according to Freud, the main reason for neurosis” (Borovečki-Jakovljev and Matačić 352). Neurotic symptoms include anxiety and obsessive behaviors, the obsession to please his father. Even though George is successful in business and growing in strength, he has not extricated himself from the powerful claws of his father, who seems threatened by the advancement of his son and calls him “a devilish human being” (Kafka 12). He even interprets little acts of kindness like being covered in bed (Kafka 9) as attempts against his life and refuses to remain covered. The father resents his George’s assumption the paternal role of caring for him and running the family business, in essence, replacing him. When George’s father has finally issued the verdict and sentences him to death by drowning, George executes the sentence himself without hesitation. Just like Oedipus, he self-destructs, though George restates his love for his parents in death. Perhaps it is the neurotic tendencies that drive him to his death by the bridge.
It is of note that, whether there is a classic semblance of Kafka’s story with the Greek mythological character Oedipus or such similarity is absent, the Oedipus complex will still be used as a frame of reference. Tags like ‘convoluted’ and ‘inverted’ may be used, but still, Oedipus remains in the description. In this story there are traces of the unresolved Oedipus complex scattered throughout the piece Borovečki-Jakovljev and Matačić 359). There is also a lot of resemblance between this story and the life of its author. This story reflects Kafka’s own history of growing under domineering father and having a foreign friend (Brod 14) and the only way he lived to tell it is that he did not commit suicide like the character George.

Works Cited
Ahmed, Sofe. “Sigmund Freuds psychoanalytic theory Oedipus complex: A critical study with reference to DH Lawrences Sons and Lovers.” International Journal of English and Literature 3.3 (2012): 60-70.
Barbeau Jr, Robert Russell. “The Compulsion to Repeat and the Death Instinct in Franz Kafka’s” “The Judgment and The Trial.” (2006).
Borovečki-Jakovljev, Sanja, and Stanislav Matačić. “The Oedipus complex in the contemporary psychoanalysis.” Collegium antropologicum 29.1 (2005): 351-360.
Brod, Max. Franz Kafka, a biography. Schocken, 1960.
Kafka, Franz. “The Judgment.” Handout. Print.
Bernstein, Arnold. “The Story of Oedipus.” Psychoanalytic Review 63.3 (1976): 393-407.