Kafka’s poetics of the Grotesque: Questioning the Animal in Kafka’s oeuvre

Abstract

Kafka’s works abounds in animal figures that occupy an ontological liminality. They are nether truly animals nor exactly humans but always pushes towards a zone where the categories become immaterial. In addition to causing literary disorientation, these figures serve to offer stringent critique of our anthropocentric idealism that sustains our species identity. By carefully examining the dialectical interplay between knowledge and ignorance, the articles attempt to situate Kafka’s non-human figures as expressing a deeper connection between concepts of animality and idea of literature.