Transformations during the trial. A contribution to the analysis of the conflict between father and son in Franz Kafka's story The Judgment and in Ludwig Winder's novel The Riding Whip
2017
Abstract
The conflict between father and son is a topic the authors belonging to the Inner Prague Circle have in common. Apart from this topic Winder's novel The Riding Whip and Kafka's story The Judgment are linked together by the topos of the trial understood as an instrument of power and the experience of humiliation which is a fundamental human experience of the 20th century.
Based on Elias Canetti's theory of power and transformation the article brings a contrastive analysis of transformations experienced in both texts by father and son during their trial.