Law and Sacrifice in Kafka and His Readers

Abstract

Victims of an uncanny legal system pervade Kafka’s writings. Whether the representation of the law in these works implies a sacrificial logic depends significantly on the meaning assigned to Kafka’s idea of the law. Despite the innumerable interpretations of Kafka’s law-related texts it remains uncertain whether the law in his works is to be understood primarily in juridical, social, and political terms or in metaphysical, theological, and religious ones. This uncertainty, besides eliciting myriad, sometimes contradictory, interpretations, has inspired numerous views, themselves often disparate and conflicting, about the relationship between law and sacrifice in Kafka’s works. The present article explores this relationship and how it has been regarded by some of his most important interpreters.