SOURCE: Tobias, Rochelle. “A Doctor's Odyssey: Sickness and Health in Kafka's ‘Ein Landarzt.’” The Germanic Review 75, no. 2 (spring 2000): 120-31.

In the following essay, Tobias examines the character of the doctor in “Ein Landarzt” in order to analyze his purpose of and the question of to whose sickbed is he called.

Of all the accusations made against the country doctor in Kafka's tale by the same name, none seems more harsh than the one the patient whispers as the doctor is laid next to him in bed: “[Du] kommst nicht auf eigenen Füßen.”¹ While this observation would scarcely seem to compare with the usual charges made against the doctor—he has been accused, for example, of selfishness, passivity, and inconsiderateness²—it nonetheless is more condemning, because it is based on the simple fact that the doctor does not arrive at the sickbed by his own means. Rather, he...