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Nancy Hoogsteder

Vulnerability of the hero in Franz Kafka’s last story Josephine the singer, or the Mouse Folk

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In Geert Mak’s pamphlet there are statements that appeal to me. I quote: in the end we have to go to the very source: to people who are uprooted and humiliated, the rage of the non-western world that is constantly increasing.

In this respect I remember Girard’s answer in an interview, I think it was in Le Monde, when the interviewer asked him if his theory of mimetic rivalry could be applied to current international problems. He affirmed this.

Therefore I think that we are obliged to disseminate our knowledge of mimetic rivalry each according to our own possibilities, in our own field. My field is the theory of literature. I only think it is a pity that  Arab culture has not had a middle class with a novel - writing tradition so that we are confined to western literature.

Summary

The vulnerability of Josephine.

Let me first give you a summary of the story:

The narrator tells us that the mouse folk have a singer called Josephine. She is praised to the skies. The narrator also tells us that, being a mouse herself, she is an exception  because she is the only one who loves music although the mouse folk are not a music - loving race.We are not informed about  her task among the mouse folk. He claims that they understand her singing but Josephine denies this. Gradually we also hear unfavourable things  about her. Suddenly we learn that the narrator belongs to the opposition, that’s to say, only partly. Bit by bit dispararaging remarks are made, such as “she doesn’t sing at all” or, she is simply wheezing, piping. One day she isn’t even able to produce a sound. A short time later she has disappeared. And it was precisely this very disappearance that attracted my attention: Has she disappeared or has she been expelled from the group? Was she eliminated and why was that?  

Let us just go through the text again:

A crisis

In the beginning a crisis could be determined. It is mentioned that the life of the mouse folk is very hard and that they are  permanently trying to shake off their every-day cares. Every day brings apprehensions and terrors. Because the narrator tells us that he belongs partly to the opposition, we can draw the conclusion that unity among the mouse folk was non-existent.

We are also told that, when the mouse folk get bad news, Josephine feels that she must sing. “To get bad news”: does the narrator suggest  by saying this that the danger comes from outside? Do the mouse folk have enemies? Or does he only mean irregularities, problems in the community itself?  Is the unity of the mouse folk at stake?

The problem is of course that the narrator belongs to the community and that his statements are biased . Only once the word enemy is mentioned, in connection with the insinuation that, through  Josephine’s singing, the attention of the enemy may be focused on the mouse folk.

That she sings only to create unity among the mouse folk may well be a possibility.

In “Violence and the sacred” it is mentioned that the classic literature of China explicitly acknowledges the  propitiatory, conciliatory function of sacrificial rites. It is through the sacrifices that the unity of the people is strengthened. The Book of Rites ( A.R. Radcliffe-Brown) affirms that sacrificial ceremonies, music, punishments and law have one and the same end; to unite  society and establish order.

In the story we can read that, when Josephine sings, even the opposition listens with drawn breath and soon sinks in the feeling of the crowd, which is warmly pressed body to body.

Is she a priest?  Is she singing to avert danger? In that case it is explicable that she sings in hard times. In primitive societies sacrificial ceremonies were held to avert crises .

We know from “Things hidden” that these ceremonies had no fixed day and this reinforces the argument that Josephine is a priest. That also explains why she does not only sing but rises up, stretching  her neck and trying to look over the heads of her people .We can read in “Things hidden” that there are rituals that demand unanimous  participation in a sacrifice. The immolation is reserved for those who are specialized in sacrifice, priests or others, whose religious level is higher than that of the rest of the community.  

Then suddenly the light dawns:

Josephine acts in the name of everyone. That also explains why she claims not to sing like everybody else. It is therefore also clear that she insists that many members of the community are  present and when  she stands for quite a long time without a sufficient audience, messengers are sent out to summon fresh listeners. We can read that she is kept in ignorance of the fact that this is being done.

In the story it is said: “[…] we have an inkling of what singing is, and Josephine’s art does not really correspond to it . So is she singing at all?” The narrator wonders why she has such  enormous influence. We hear that she does not want mere admiration, she wants to be admired for her dedication, her mustering every force to save her people.

Since squeaking is one of their thoughtless habits, one might think that the mice would also squeak in Josephine’s presence.We can read that her art makes the mouse folk happy. But her audience never squeaks, it sits in mouselike stillness. The narrator is irritated and makes the remark: “as if we had become partakers in the peace we long for” (Of course they are partakers, but the narrator and so many other mice have forgotten.)    

From the beginning of her singing, Josephine has been fighting to be excused from daily work but the mouse folk refuse this demand.

Now it is said that she uses unworthy methods. She claims that she has hurt her foot at work, but most mice believe that she simulates. The narrator tells us that the mouse folk get a “theatrical performance as well as a concert” now. When it was mentioned that she was limping I was reminded of the famous cripples of literature of all time: Oedipus, Hephaistos and Jacob of Genesis.

To me it was clear that Josephine will be a victim.  

A victim

From the “Scapegoat” we know that the more signs of a victim an individual bears, the more likely he or she is to attract disaster. The whole range of victim signs can be found in myths.

Looking upon Josephine we could observe in the first place that she is a woman, in the second that  she is small, but most of all that she is an exception; she is the only one who loves music, moreover she knows how to convey it.

The narrator tells us, already at the beginning of the story, music will vanish from the lives of the mouse folk if she dies.

I think that we could compare her position with that of a king. A king in primitive societies was a pre-eminently a victim because on the one hand a  king belongs to the very heart of the community but at the same time his position isolates him from his fellow men so as to render him casteless. 

The mouse folk, according to the narrator, have not the slightest idea what her position is and why they must come together when Josephine wants to sing. The narrator has the impression that Josephine needs protection but she herself thinks the opposite, she believes it is she who protects the people.

But then I think that she comes to realize that she cannot struggle against so much lack of  understanding and perhaps obstruction, but  most of all that she cannot avert danger anymore. 

Josephine’s last performance reminded me of how the suicides of the Astecs have been described. In the Scapegoat we can find the following description:

 “The gods are lined up on two sides. There is a fire. It was said that the man, who is standing near  the fire will jump into the fire of his own free will. The idea that the victims could escape seems unlikely. If one of them had the idea to escape, the two parallel lines could quickly form a circle closing in on him or her.” 

Girard strongly advises us to remember this circular or almost circular configuration which will reappear with or without the fire, and with or without any apparent victim.

In Kafka’s story we see Josephine’ s supporters ( or enemies?) in the background, begging and imploring her to sing. And in the end when she moves off, Josephine does not want to be helped by her supporters; she goes away by herself “measuring with cold eyes the crowd”.Does she know about the dynamics of the scapegoat? 

 Girard made a statement about novelistic conclusions. “Toutes les conclusions romanesques  sont des conversions” he said. 

 I have thought a long time about this notion “conversion”.Could I consider Josephine’s behaviour to be a conversion?

Girard has distinguished two categories: A solitary hero who rejoins other men and a “gregarious” hero gaining solitude. Is Josephine gaining solitude? She does not have all the mice under control, therefore she moves off. She comes to recognize that she is no longer the only one  who can save the mouse folk. Does it mean that she renounces slavery ?

In my PhD thesis I have already stated that romanesque conclusions in Kafka’s prose are out of the question, at most one conclusion could be added: that of  “Josephine the singer”.

 Because of the snide remarks of the narrator that she is mistaken in her calculations, that Josephine has profited since the beginning of the childishness of the mouse folk,  that she stands almost beyond the law and that she destroys the power she has gained over people’s hearts, I conclude that Josephine has slipped from the hands of the mouse folk.

 After so many years the end of this story is  still a problem for me. I have already  brought in the part of the narrator in Kafka’s prose. In the “Judgement” there is a third person who tells the story, that is to say for a short time and then the situation is seen from the eyes of the hero himself. In this story the narrator belongs to the mouse folk and his statements are therefore not objective.

 I started with the vulnarability Geert Mak mentioned in his pamphlet. Of course he meant  the vulnerability of the people of the Netherlands whereas I offered you an entirely different kind of vulnerability: the vulnerability of a hero in prose. Is Josephine’s vulnerability of a totally different order? Or is there a connection? 

Could one draw conclusions from a “hero on paper” as to the problems that are facing us?

What was the course of Josephine’s predicament?

The community had no idea what Josephine’s task implied.

I think all this could be attributed to the notion of “ignorance”.

Ours is therefore the duty to dwell firstly on the resemblances between religions and, last but not least,  to bring about a common moral autonomy that is acceptable to everybody, not one based either on the Bible, the Koran or the Torah or on the written word of no matter which religion.

 We may wonder whether the stepping down of  Josephine was a kind of concept  for the situation that had arisen.

Josephine had a grasp of the situation of the mice whose understanding of rituals was no longer existent.

Could this be called magnanimity, tolerance?

I hesitate to give an answer myself. Because I don’t want to explain everything from Girard’s

point of view and drag in the notion of tolorance.

What is evident is mimesis and an attempt at elimination. But tolorance?

I am afraid that tolerance was not an issue in Kafka’s lifetime.