“KAFKA [post 4] The Years of Insight” by Reiner Stach: Third-person self reference and “ghosts,” a term some people use for their alternate personalities

Third-Person Self-Reference

“Having overstepped the mark between self-observation and dissociation [the mental mechanism of multiple personality], he stood beside himself…

“This radicalized form of self-observation—stepping outside himself—now sought expression, and Kafka quickly found a suitable linguistic form. He began to experiment with third-person discourse when describing himself…No sooner was Felice Bauer back from her trip than she received the first samples.

“Dear Felice, you recently asked me several fanciful questions about F’s fiancé. I am now better able to answer them, for I observed him on the way home in the train. It was easy to do, because there was so much crowding that the two of us were sitting literally on one seat. Well, in my opinion, he is totally wrapped up in her…” (p. 29).

Note: Alternate personalities usually prefer to remain incognito, and so answer to the person’s regular name (the name of the host personality). But sometimes they slip and refer to the host personality in the third person. Search “third-person self reference” or “illeism” for past posts.

Ghosts

“Kafka never wanted to interpret his works. The question is whether he could have done so. What, for example, do the unending, impenetrable hierarchies of the officials in The Trial and The Castle mean; what do they stand for?…

“Early on, Kafka had introduced the concept of ghosts…‘To each his own: you get the guests, and I the ghosts,’ he had once written to Felice in jest. Shortly thereafter, however, he reported in detail how he had lured the ghosts to him over the years and that they kept growing in number… ‘nameless in the multitude… If one were writing, they were all benevolent ghosts, but if one were not writing, they were devils.’

“…in The Castle, the fiends (who work mainly at night) are no longer a chaotic mob but emissaries of a system…

“…he frequently used images of this kind in letters, as well, and he made a point of stressing the attacks of the ghosts as though it were a matter of real events playing out right in front of everyone. Kafka was evidently not afraid of the question of whether he ‘really’ believed in ghosts, and he presumably would have conceded that it was a matter of projections of forces within the psych—after all, he himself used the term ‘inner conspiracy’ on occasion. But…They were psychological facts and had a substantial influence on his life, and it was therefore in his best interest to act as though they were real” (pp. 443-446).

Search “ghosts” for past posts.

Reiner Stach. Kafka: The Years of Insight [2008]. Translated by Shelley Frisch. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2013.