SOURCE: “Franz Kafka's ‘Das Urteil’: An Interpretation,” in Monatshefte, Vol. LV, No. 1, January, 1963, pp. 13–22.

In the following essay, Ruhleder discusses the major thematic concerns of Kafka's story.

1.

If Max Brod had not published Franz Kafka's statement explaining the true meaning of the last sentence of his Novelle “Das Urteil,” everybody would indeed reject such an interpretation as far-fetched. For Kafka said to Brod: “Do you know what the last sentence means? When I wrote it, I had in mind a violent ejaculation.”¹ With these words Kafka explained the true meaning hidden under the reality of the image in the last sentence: “In diesem Augenblick ging über die Brücke ein geradezu unendlicher Verkehr.”² The bridge is already mentioned in the sentences preceding the last, but the word “bridge” cannot contain the meaning “ejaculation,” either alone or in the context of the sentence; the first half of the sentence...