“ A Country Doctor ” is a short narrative written by Franz Kafka ( 1883-1924 ) , a Polish Jew renowned for his typical literature. It is the narrative of a rural physician who is called upon to go to to a patient in fortunes of perfect difficulty-deep in the dark, amid a terrible blizzard, to go 10 stat mis when he has recently lost to the cold the life of his Equus caballus that draws his passenger car. His amah ‘s attempts to seek around for a borrowed Equus caballus are fruitless-as the physician himself anticipates. Acting in defeat he kicks open an old obsolete pigpen, and from it proceeds aid: a groom and two Equus caballuss to his aid-or so he believes-only for the groom to put him up for the journey and so out of the blue remain to ship on carry throughing his violent lecherousness on the physician ‘s defenceless amah, as he has evilly proclaimed purpose.
The physician arrives in no clip and is briskly shown to the patient, who instantly makes his desire to decease in private known to the physician, doing this journey to uncover itself to the physician as an exercising in futility, particularly as he recollects the despairing state of affairs he has left his amah in on history of his ain imprudent going, and as he ab initio fails to see what is ailing the invalid young person. He rejects the old host ‘s courtesy of a drink of rum offered, shaming attending to the patient ‘s instance in malice of his foregone decision.
It shortly becomes clear that he plans to go forth the immature adult male unattended, but amid all the malaise this realization causes on the hosts, he is helped by a maiden ‘s retention of a bloody fabric to see the patient ‘s lesion near his hip-a suppuration ugly ‘rose-like ‘ lesion with big worms writhing indoors. The hosts shortly strip off his apparels and cast him beside the patient on the hurt side as kids sing queerly outside, and the two are left entirely together. The physician is forced to quiet the patient to tranquil decease with somewhat self-excusing statements. He is acute to get away this state of affairs and hastily mount a Equus caballus naked, dragging the other one, the passenger car and fur coat along, but the Equus caballuss make no hastiness, distressingly suspending him in the minute of experiencing empty and wasted.
Challenged foremost with the demand to be capable of reacting desperately to a patient ‘s call in malice of inconvenient timing, distance and conditions ; secondly with the demand to procure agencies in a state of affairs of unforeseen deficiency which highlights his unstable unsociableness ( or that of his neighbors ) ; thirdly, the demand to protect his vulnerable amah from an expressed menace of a sex marauder at a clip when responsibility calls elsewhere ; and fourthly, the demand to do a right professional determination, faced with a patient who wants to be helped to decease and amid feelings and ideas of guilt, the physician is dismayed to happen himself neglecting excessively frequently.
Even after he finds these challenges dashing, he is left to wallow in defeats he encounters: one being his ultimate inability to deliver his amah ; he is incapable of being desperately helpful to her despite significance to be all along since he left for responsibility. Thingss do non work out for him as he had hoped, though ab initio it is a defeat to him every bit good that she is abandoned to this vile groom who prefers to please himself in her wretchedness over attach toing the physician as the physician had expected.
Yet another is that he finds himself unable to handle his patient-he does non stop up bring arounding him. Furthermore, the patient does non even wish to be cured ; he wishes to decease, and is hostile to the physician ‘s attending. The physician finds the whole journey amounting to a response to a false dismay, with added professional defeats, which rubbed it in how genuinely unhappy and humiliated it makes his life.
Initially, the decease of his faithful old Equus caballus was a defeat that he hoped to get the better of, but it persists as he finds that the Equus caballuss he is freshly sing merely function to perplex his quandary, as if by some confederacy of fortunes, in the mode which they ride him off when he wishes to remain and assist his scared amah ; and they walk him of all time so easy back whereas he wishes to get away his unpleasant ordeal and return to deliver his already his already molested Rosa.
Possibly we can name this short narrative a incubus. Possibly it is a actual nightmare-that is plausible-owing to the psychological strength of the narrated experience. The writer about seems to hotfoot and club together the physician ‘s experiences, giving him such small control, and all along portraying how intense the physician ‘s emotions and ideas are over the whole ordeal. Or it may be viewed as a metaphorical incubus ; a narrative of events that anyone would detest to see in existent life as they fictionally occurred to the state physician, the chief character of the narrative. Arguably, though, some events in the narrative occur in a mode someway fraught with enigma, such as the plot-convenient and plot-rescuing presence of the pigpen, from which come this groom and these Equus caballuss which serve to intensify the physician ‘s personal crisis ; the arch and uncharacteristic but extremely cognizant vocals which the kids sing and the ‘intelligent ‘ behavior of the Equus caballuss.
But there are subjects which emerge in this narrative.
One is the quandary of professional business and domestic or private duty. This subject is demonstrated particularly in that minute when the physician impotently witnesses his amah being ambushed by the groom, as he is ridden off in his passenger car to work. The predicament hangouts him throughout his call of responsibility, and is on a regular basis brought to stark recollection as he works, doing in him an inner restlessness and emptiness. Some observers have shown this subject as being pertinent in Kafka ‘s life-he is torn between felicity in relationships and his composing calling.
Another is the moral complexnesss professional moralss face, as in the instance of mercy killing in the medical profession. Is it right to bring around a patient who wishes to decease? Should a physician have to do such a determination? Might a physician sometimes lack the will or organize to be helpful to a patient owing to a personal or private crisis? What happens so? Should he be forced to work-is such irresistible impulse successful anyhow?
Furthermore, there is an evident thematic confederacy of fortunes, and its possible to alter a individual ‘s position to life. Is it an ordinary thing-and is it good?
Particularly because we see another subject: the physician is plunged into an experiential crisis. All what he values in his life -both private and professional-is under onslaught, and he fails to fulfill his ain criterions and outlooks of himself. Is private life worth giving for profession-particularly if profession is potentially life-saving? Could it be that giving private life ends up destructing one ‘s professional competency? Clearly though, the picks sometimes may hold to be reciprocally sole, and the single hazards enduring helpless sorrow whichever manner.
Kafka, Franz. “ A Country Doctor ” . Trans. Ian Johnston. Nanaimo, BC: Malaspina University-College, 21 Feb. 2009. Web. 18 May 2010.
Soman, Ebey. Literary analysis: The Country Doctor, by Franz Kafka. Helium, Inc. Web. 21 May 2010.
Bernardo, Karen. Franz Kafka ‘s “ The Country Doctor ” . www.storybites.com. Web. 21 May 2010.
