PHANTASMS OF THE MUTATED BODY: KAFKA’S CRITIQUE OF ANTHROPOCENTRIC REASON
PHANTASMS OF THE MUTATED BODY: KAFKA’S CRITIQUE OF ANTHROPOCENTRIC REASON

Summary/Abstract: This paper tries to propose an interpretation of Kafka’s Die Sorge des Hausvaters and of the strange creature called Odradek. This useless, meaningless being that is part wooden spool, part human recalls the Dadaist practices and manifestos. One can easily see Odradek as a liberated senseless object and one can even detect a certain Dadaist humor of the useless machine in his figuration, even if Kafka rejected the dada movement: “Dada is – a crime […] The spine of the soul has been broken. Faith has collapsed.” More than this, even if in Odradek one can see a critical perspective on capitalism, Kafka’s creature pushes at an extreme point the reflection on human and the non-human. This paper uses Bruno Latour and Jacques Derrida’s views in order to better understand all the complex significations Odradek can assume in a critical discourse.

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