Delusions of agency: Kafka, imprisonment, and modern victimhood

Chris Fleming, John O'Carroll

    Research output: Book chapter/Published conference paperChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

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    Abstract

    This chapter explores levels of imprisonment in Kafka's The Trial. These levels include legal arrest, social containment, and humiliation, and linguistic entrapment. We then trace the modernist narrative dream-structure of the novel in order to tease out thematic issues of guilt and innocence. The trajectory of the novel offers an analysis of some key features of modern victimhood. It analyses the modern scapegoat, and does so in terms of victimage within institutional and bureaucratic contexts.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationFreedom and confinement in modernity
    Subtitle of host publicationKafka's cages
    EditorsA Kiarina Kordela, Dimitris Vardoulakis
    Place of PublicationNew York
    PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
    Chapter2
    Pages29-48
    Number of pages20
    ISBN (Electronic)9780230118959
    ISBN (Print)9780230113428
    Publication statusPublished - 2011

    Publication series

    NameStudies in European culture and history

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