SOURCE: “Guilt and the Feeling of Guilt,” in The Problem of “The Judgment”: Eleven Approaches to Kafka's Story, edited by Angel Flores, Gordian Press, 1977, pp. 114-32.

In the following essay, Stern explores the role of guilt in Kafka's “The Judgment” and discusses autobiographical aspects of the story.

1.

“The Judgment” is one of the few stories Kafka was proud of having written and continued to find satisfactory; with it begins the work of his maturity. It was composed in the night from September 22 to 23, 1912, and published later that year. It is dedicated to “F”, Felice Bauer, whom Kafka had met for the first time that summer; the peculiar irony of the dedication is patent to any reader.

I have chosen it for interpretation for three closely connected reasons. First, as an outstanding and outstandingly clear example of the way Kafka draws autobiographical material into his fictions.¹ An interpretation of...