Coda: Erinnerungen an die Kaldabahn, Der Unterstaatsanwalt, Der Dorfschullehrer

Abstract

It remains to look briefly at three stories on which Kafka worked contemporaneously with Der Prozeß. Erinnerungen an die Kaldabahn [T 549–53, 684–94] was begun in the middle of August 1914, but was abandoned in order to press on with the novel. Der Unterstaatsanwalt [H 367–73] was probably begun later in 1914, and Der Dorfschullehrer [BeK 220–39] on 18 December. Both seem to have been abandoned in January 1915 [cf. T 715], though Kafka worked on Der Unterstaatsanwalt again in March [cf. T 733]. There are certain commonalities between all three works, though only in the first two are there obvious thematic ties with the fiction of punishment and exile, while Der Dorfschullehrer represents a break with this kind of writing and has important affinities with Kafka’s later fiction.