Wittgenstein und Kafka: Die kaiserliche Botschaft in der Erzählung Franz Kafkas „Beim Bau der chinesischen Mauer“

Abstract

This article is about Franz Kafka's work "At the Construction of the Great Wall of China". The work refers on the one hand to the building of an endless and gaping Wall and on the other hand to the unshakable belief of the Chinese people that there is an all powerful emperor. The individual inhabitant of the vast state of China is nurtured from childhood by the building of the Great Wall and waits in vain for a message, which according to legend the emperor himself has sent for him. In the light of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein's theory, Kafka's work studies the absolute dominance of the "language game", which has governed the life of the Chinese people for generations. The rules of this "language game" and their blind adherence reinforce the illusory expectation of the imperial message, which is supposed to reach even the remotest inhabitant one day. The name "emperor" ensures the indestructible existence of himself in an endless present and the voluntary compulsion of the citizen-worker to build a Wall not as a border between the people and supposed enemies, but rather between himself and his world.