“It does not have to be Palestine” – Zionist Dreams and the Poetics of the Dysfunctional Guard in Kafka’s Later Work

Abstract

Departing from the long-standing polarized debates around Kafka’s personal relationship to Zionism as well as the marks of Zionist ideas and culture on Kafka’s works, we try to analyze aspects of Kafka’s poetics within this context, rather than trying to ascribe a fixed ideological content to his writings. Against this backdrop, we give a reading of less-known texts from the later period of Kafka’s śuvre, in particular small, lyrical forms, with a focus on Kafka’s treatment of the Exodus myth and the motive of the dysfunctional guard or watchman..