Architecture in Fictional Literature: Essays on Selected Works E-Book
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- Herausgeber: Bentham Science Publishers
- Sprache: Englisch
The art of architecture is an important aesthetic element that can leave a lasting impression in one's mind about the values of a society. Today's architectural art, education, and culture have gradually turned into engineering practices and more technical pursuits. Architecture in Fictional Literature is a book written with the aim of understanding the concept of living spaces as portrayed in works of fiction and to open the doors to a new perspective for readers on the art of architecture.
It is a collection of essays written by educators and literary critics about how architecture is presented in 28 selected literary works of fiction. These selected works, which include well-known works such as Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame, Kafka’s The Castle, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, among many others, collectively attempt to illustrate facets of human life in a lucidly expressive way while also having an architectural background added in the narrative. Each essay is unique and brings a diverse range of perspectives on the main theme, while also touching on some niche topics in this area, (such as spatial analysis, urban transformation and time-period settings), all of which have exploratory potential.
With this collection, the contributors aspire to initiate the transformation of architectural education by including a blend of literary criticism. By building a foundation of architectural aesthetics, they hope to bridge the gap between the artist and the architect, while also inspiring a new generation of urban planners, landscape artists, and interior designers to consider past works when designing living spaces. Architecture in Fictional Literature is also essential to any enthusiast of fictional works who wants to understand the fictional portrayal of living spaces and architecture in literature.
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Seitenzahl: 562
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006
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PREFACE
Nevnihal ErdoğanThe origin of our work, “Architecture in Fictional Literature: Essays on Selected Works,” dates back to our years at the Faculty of Architecture of Istanbul Technical University, where we studied with Hikmet Temel Akarsu, a writer who studied architecture and devoted himself to literature. Our friendship started in 1977 and throughout the years saw a great many discussions engaged, communications made, and passions affirmed about architecture and literature. Even though we both studied architecture, we were troubled by the uniformisation, standardisation, and industrialisation of architectural practices both in our country and globally, which slowly turned the world into an unpleasant, pale, and unexciting place. As moderate architects, we tried to go in different ways rather than be a part of this colourless adventure. While I headed towards the academic world, my co-editor, Hikmet Temel Akarsu, was on his way into the world of great emotions in literature. However, what we both had in mind was how we could put an end to this dismal trend in architecture and what could be done to add the missing spiritual element.
At some point, our views coincided. In order to generate a new climate in architecture and to add excitement and spirit to the architectural state of increasingly similar cities, we realised that it was necessary to improve the emotional education of architects. One of the primary methods was to introduce them to the architectural universe in the literary works of great writers.
This was the starting point of the project. And when I was appointed dean of the faculty of architecture, where I was a professor, I realised that I had the opportunity to accomplish this ambition. With Akarsu, we selected one hundred great works of world literature that emphasise architecture and assigned articles of analysis to academics, writers, architects, and intellectuals who could best analyse them. Concurrently, we started working with painters to revive the architectural universe of great literary figures with illustrations.
When the book came out, it attracted great attention and was sold out in a short time. More importantly, it brought about a new wave of discussion around the field of architecture in Turkey while also triggering different approaches in the intellectual sphere.
The aim was to bring together and evaluate essays penned by authors, architects, and artists of relevant expertise, which embodied their analyses and commentaries on literary works written on architecture, urban planning, and design and that had influence over our civilisation.
In a professional field like architecture with such a strong artistic aspect, it is essential for architect candidates to receive qualitative aesthetic and cultural training. The starting point for this study was the idea that a structure or an environment created by an architect who has gone through profound, artistic-cultural training and internalised the global culture would be more liveable and aesthetic. In this regard, it is crucial that great literary works are known well in order to establish, within the community and among architects, a new aesthetic perception. While architectural education and the profession itself aspire for a qualitative architectural medium, awareness should be raised within, first, the field. and then the community.
Furthermore, as a result of technological advancements, the approach to the education of architecture, urban planning, and interior design has gradually changed. Technical design, project production, and engineering computations are substantially carried out on computers and are usually typical. Thus, going beyond standardised project production methods, aesthetic theories, creative ideas, broader knowledge of the world, the ability to make the right decisions, and command of global cultural repertory have come to be the core of architectural creation. The means of realising these achievements that provide a supplementary force to architectural creation is evident. Today, the reading and internalisation of literary, artistic, and philosophical works regarding the basic themes of architecture have become essential in the education of this field and in forming qualified architectural circles for a conscious and intelligent creation process.
In this book, there is an examination of how architecture is handled from 28 major literary works selected from the masterpieces of world literature. They are examined by expert academicians and authors in an article format. An illustration describing each work has been added.
Today, real literature is widely being disregarded. A more superficial and mostly visual art world has come into prominence. This impedes the development of a profound spiritual perception and qualitative cultural accumulation. This can only be counteracted with real literature. The method put forward in this project aims to rectify this downturn among architects and designers. In turn, this indirect method will transform architectural thought and application.
With this anthology, the aim is to initiate this transformation. In order to restore, enrich, and render the cities of the future more liveable, these masterpieces have to be carefully read, scrutinised, and internalised. This is vital, not only for students but also for architects, urban planners, artists, and anyone with a consciousness for urban living.
With today’s changing world, architectural education requires more interdisciplinary collaboration. Technological advancements, globalisation/localisation, sustainability, and ecological issues’ influence are in conjunction with more progressive attitudes, design, art, technology, and even architecture. Keeping pace with developments in this vein, architectural education can renew and transform itself while producing new aesthetic perceptions and insights into existence. Through a comprehensive understanding of the studied relationship between literature and architecture, the current trivialisation in aesthetics and culture can be challenged and new approaches rendered possible.
When we received the proposition from Bentham, we questioned if we would produce a version of the book that would be relevant to the world outside Turkey. We embraced this idea with enthusiasm but reduced the number of works to 28, as we had to go with writers who were well-known in the world of literature. The articles were completed with careful and comprehensive analyses and proofread meticulously. Those who read “Architecture in Fictional Literature: Essays on Selected Works” will find in-depth sentiments and observations that great writers contributed to architecture, along with inspiration to review their perspectives on this art form.
We thank Bentham Publishing for taking the initiative to realise this project that aims to spark fresh discourse in architecture through literature, the 28 authors who contributed, translator Ertuğrul Pek and critic Emre Karacaoğlu, who proofread the work, and Mrs. Joan Eröncel, who oversaw the edits.
List of Contributors
An Architectural Reading of Franz Kafka’s The Castle
Emel Cantürk Akyıldız1,*Abstract
The works of Franz Kafka have a very rich metaphorical context of space and architecture. By using spatial and architectural metaphors, he represented the modern world and the experiences and feelings of the modern individual, such as insecurity, fear, alienation, and despair. The “dark and sometimes surrealistic” novel, The Castle, published after Kafka’s death in 1926, also focuses on alienation, bureaucracy, and the despair of modern man’s attempts to stand against the system. It is full of architectural and spatial metaphors waiting to be interpreted by the reader. What these metaphors point out often goes beyond their physical existence; thereby, a multi-layered meaning is created. Any interpretation of this multi-layered meaning requires the understanding and deciphering of the implicit and symbolic meanings of the objects, architectural elements, and spaces. The fact that architecture and space are the prerequisites for all kinds of human activities makes it inevitable that they play an important role in literature, as they do in any subject that concerns human life. However, the spaces in The Castle not only form the stage where human life takes place but go beyond that and become an expression of the psychological effects created by the social and cultural conditions of the modern world on individuals. What is told in the castle is not the space itself but its meaning. In this context, the article focuses on the architectural interpretation of the novel by deciphering the possible implicit and symbolic meanings of the architectural elements and spaces, which are narrated throughout the novel.
INTRODUCTION
Franz Kafka, as one of the most significant figures of 20th century literature, mainly addressed the themes of alienation, anxiety, and despair that were derived from the experience of modernity and dominated the daily life of early 20th cent-
ury Europe. His stories, narrating the despair of the protagonists who faced incomprehensible social-bureaucratic powers and were excluded from society, deal with concepts such as alienation from society, bureaucracy and power, identity, and a sense of belonging.
The “dark and sometimes surrealistic” novel, The Castle, published after Kafka’s death in 1926 with the support of his close friend, Max Broad, also focuses on alienation, bureaucracy, and the despair of modern man’s attempts to stand against the system. As in every Kafka story, the Castle begins with a protagonist, with no past and an uncertain future, suddenly finding himself at a place - this time a bridge. One night, the protagonist of the novel, the land surveyor K., crosses a bridge and comes to the village of the castle. Although K. has been called to enter the service of the castle, he can never convince anyone and encounters many bureaucratic obstacles; thus, his struggle to reach the castle, which will continue throughout the novel, begins. The struggle of K. becomes a constant, vicious cycle of perpetual interrogations, various bureaucratic obstacles, officers who can never be found, people who cannot be assured of their existence, and the menacing atmosphere of the village. The meaninglessness of K.’s endless struggle to reach the authorities of the castle is also embodied in the uncertain, ambiguous, and complex spatial organisation of the castle. The unique time-space setting of the castle, which goes beyond real-time-space, gives the reader the impression that they have entered a surreal world.
In his works, Kafka did not mention either the First World War or the social and political environment of the period and did not describe the realities of the outside world “as they were”. Instead, he tried to express the pressure, fears, and loneliness created by society and the authority through various metaphors that are open to interpretation. By using mostly spatial and architectural metaphors, he represented the contemporary world and the experiences and feelings of the modern individual, such as insecurity, fear, alienation, and despair. As Koncavar emphasised (2010: 45), Kafka tried to manifest the realities of the current world with images and metaphors as a modernist writer who realised the social changes and transformations in his time and the alienation of individuals to society and themselves. Spatial and architectural categories have considerable weight in Kafka’s metaphorical expression, and his distinctive style, called Kafkaesque, corresponds to a certain spatial and architectural narration. Kafka uses space as a symbol and reflects himself symbolically to space (Tümer, 1984: 86). For this reason, Kafka’s novels are generally evaluated as space-weighted novels, and the events and facts that are intended to be told in these novels are narrated through the spaces where they take place.
The Castle, full of buildings, houses, inns, castles, towers, rooms, corridors, walls, windows, doors, and stairs, has a very rich metaphorical context of spaces and architecture. In The Castle, the buildings are so central to the story, but at the same time, they are not really there or are not what they seem to be or are impossible to reach. These ambiguous and complex spaces, disorienting both the protagonist and the readers, express the confusion and despair of the “modern man” caught by impersonal and incomprehensible forces. The complex, and oppressive forces of the modern world are embodied in the ambiguous architecture of spaces and buildings whose boundaries and functions cannot be clearly drawn. So many points about the castle have been left unclear that the reader gets lost in this obscurity. The frosty and dark atmosphere of the houses in the village embodies the fear of the ruled and the alienation of individuals from society, while the portraits of the rulers hanging on the walls, the windows, keyholes, and peepholes express the uneasiness of being constantly observed by the authority. This mode of expression, in which the characterising concepts of the modern world, such as alienation, insecurity, and fear, is expressed through a complex and ambiguous architectural and spatial organisation, indicates a deep understanding of the effect of architecture on human behaviour and psychology.
The Castle is full of architectural and spatial metaphors waiting to be interpreted by the reader. What these metaphors point out what often goes beyond their physical existence, thereby creating a multi-layered meaning. Any interpretation of this meaning requires the understanding and deciphering of the implicit and symbolic meanings of the objects, the architectural elements and spaces. The Castle expects the readers to find and extract the meanings beneath the symbols by themselves, thus providing various interpretations.
ARCHITECTURE OF THE CASTLE: AMBIGUITY AND COMPLEXITY
Anyone who wants to interpret the novel in an architectural context would undoubtedly begin their interpretation with the castle, which is at the centre of the novel. The castle is the building in the middle of the insecure, uncanny and ambiguous atmosphere conveyed throughout the novel; moreover, it is the castle itself that creates that atmosphere. The first scene of the novel begins with K. arriving at the village of the castle one evening, but the castle is not visible, so neither K. nor the reader can be sure whether the castle actually exists:
“It was late evening when K. arrived. The village lay deep in snow. There was nothing to be seen of Castle Mount, for mist and darkness surrounded it, and not the faintest glimmer of light showed where the great castle lay. K. stood on the wooden bridge leading from the road to the village for a long time, looking up at what seemed to be a void” (Kafka, 2009:5).
When K. sees the castle, he realises that it looks more like a village than a castle, which confuses and disappoints K. and the reader once again:
“Altogether the castle, as seen in the distance, lived up to K.’s expectations. It was neither an old knightly castle from the days of chivalry, nor a showy new structure, but an extensive complex of buildings, a few of them with two storeys, but many of them lower and crowded close together. If you hadn’t known it was a castle you might have taken it for a small town. K. saw only a single tower, and could not make out whether it was a dwelling or belonged to a church. Flocks of crows were circling around it. His eyes fixed on the castle, K. went on, paying no attention to anything else. But as he came closer he thought the castle disappointing; after all, it was only a poor kind of collection of cottages assembled into a little town, and distinguished only by the fact that, while it might all be built of stone, the paint had flaked off long ago, and the stone itself seemed to be crumbling away” (Kafka, 2009:11).
The flocks of crows circling the tower make the scene even more gloomy, causing the reader to sense the bad luck that may come next. The fact that all the buildings in the castle are made of stone, it is noteworthy that “stone” is used as a metaphor of strength and endurance. However, the crumbling of the stones, the deterioration and aging marks that appear in the buildings seem to refer to the deterioration and decay in the social order that the buildings – the castle – represent. It should not be accidental that Kafka chose the metaphor of a castle to express the domination and pressure of authority and bureaucracy over the modern individual. As a medieval architectural category, the castle is the symbol of the “ruling class” and “absolute dominance/authority”. The castle rules the entire village, similar to the feudal order in which the medieval overlords ruled over the entire farming population. On the first night of his arrival, K. learns that the village belongs to the castle, and that even accommodations in the village is subject to the permission of the castle. Therefore, what is symbolised by the metaphor of castle is the “social order” that consists of the absolute rulers and those who are strictly bound to the rules and traditions, without questioning them.
The Medieval castle is an inaccessible and impenetrable type of building, protected by thick walls. In the novel, however, the castle has no walls, but it is still impossible to reach, as the labyrinth-like streets in the village make the people lose their way, preventing them from reaching the castle. On his first journey from the village to the castle, K. discovers that the roads go near the castle but do not reach it:
“… it [main street of the village] did not lead to Castle Mount but merely passed close to it before turning aside, as if on purpose, and although it moved no further away from the castle, it came no closer either. K. kept thinking that the road must finally bring him to the castle, and, if only because of that expectation, he went on. Because of his weariness he naturally shrank from leaving the road, and he was surprised by the extent of the village, which seemed as if it would never end, with more and more little houses, their window-panes covered by frost-flowers, and with the snow and the absence of any human beings—so at last he tore himself away from the road on which he had persisted […] and suddenly he stopped and could go no further” (Kafka, 2009: 13).
Throughout the later chapters, K. would try to reach the castle and the chief executive Klamm, who had appointed him, but he would never succeed. K.’s inability to reach neither the castle nor the castle officials reveals the individual’s helplessness in the face of authority and bureaucracy, and shows that no matter how hard he tries, he cannot find any answer. The “inaccessibility” of the castle is a spatial reflection of the insurmountable distance between the castle officials and the people of the village. Even when one goes in the castle, neither the reader nor the novel characters can answer the question of whether it really is the castle. The intricate, complex and ambiguous interiors of the castle increase the feelings of suspicion and insecurity. Just as the boundaries of the castle, the layout of the interior spaces is ambiguous and complex, so the functions and boundaries of these spaces remain undefined:
“Then we wonder: is what Barnabas does service to the castle? He certainly goes into the offices, but are the offices really the castle? And even if the castle does have offices, are they the offices which Barnabas is allowed to enter? He goes into offices, yes, but that’s only a part of the whole, for there are barriers, and yet more offices beyond them’ […]. You mustn’t imagine those barriers as distinct dividing-lines; Barnabas always impresses that upon me. There are barriers in the offices that he does enter too; there are barriers that he passes, and they look no different from those that he has never crossed, so it can’t be assumed from the outset that beyond those last barriers there are offices of an essentially different kind from those into which Barnabas has been” (Kafka, 2009: 154-155).
The ambiguity of the boundaries of the spaces makes it impossible to know whether one is inside or outside. Even the barriers themselves do not define a specific boundary, just as the functions of spaces separated by barriers are not clear. Thus, Kafka builds a complex network of a relationships between power, architectural space, and psychological impact. The labyrinth-like spaces of the castle that are impossible to comprehend become an expression of the institutions that lack transparency and do not function. In this complex spatial configuration, the only element that defines a sharp boundary is perhaps the desk in the room that Barnabas enters, which divides the room into two parts and thus becomes the spatial symbol of the distance between the villagers and the castle:
“Usually Barnabas is taken into a large room which is an office, but it is not Klamm’s office, it is not any one person’s office. All down its length this room is divided into two parts by a desk at which people stand, one part of the room being narrow, where two people can only just avoid colliding, and that’s the officials’ area, and one part broad, the room for members of the public, the spectators, the servants, the messengers” (Kafka, 2009: 157).
In this room, where people wait for hours or even days to be answered, the officials standing and reading the books that lie open on the desk and squeezing past each other when changing places while reading, the officials dictating something incomprehensible and the clerks who “have to keep jumping up to catch up what is being dictated”, are various expressions of the ridiculous situations that bureaucracy causes.
It is noteworthy that as well as spatial metaphors, the metaphor of “sleep” is used as a means of representing the distance between the castle and the villagers and the desperation of K. against bureaucratic organizations. Kafka appears to have established a symbolic relationship between the fact that the officials are constantly “as if they are sleeping” and that the bureaucracy is “ignoring” individuals. Throughout the novel, the officials’ eyes are always closed, as if they are living in a dream, and their eyes are not visible even in their portraits hanging on the wall.
INNS, HOUSES AND ROOMS
Although the castle is at the centre of the novel, events mostly take place in inns, houses and rooms. Almost all of these spaces are multifunctional, and often with several functions taking place at the same time. The spaces are dominated by complete disorder and chaos. Inns, for example, serve not only for accommodations, but also the function of work, as in the Castle Inn, where gentlemen from the castle conduct their “hearings” and do paperwork. The village mayor’s house is another example of a space where functions of both housing and working are carried out together. The owners of the Bridge Inn, living in a room separated from the inn’s kitchen by a screen, K. staying in the classrooms of the village school with his assistants and fiancée Frieda, are other cases of the multifunctional spaces that appear throughout the novel. This spatial organisation is similar to the pre-modern traditional spatial organisation, where the functions of working and housing take place in the residential space, and the distinction of public and private space has not yet emerged.
All of the houses in the village share the features of being single-roomed, dimly lit or completely dark, and substandard and various functions being carried out devoid of the concept of privacy. The first house that we encounter in the novel, Lasemann’s cottage, also has only one room and all functions are carried out in this room without any privacy. The room is in total disarray, where clothes are being washed near the door, two men are having a bath in steaming water in a large wooden tub, and a few children are playing around a sick woman, who is holding a baby at her breast. It is reasonable to interpret the crowded, chaotic and dimly lit atmosphere of this house as a symbol of poverty and misery experienced by the villagers. K.’s room at the Bridge Inn, where he settled when he came to the village, is no different from other houses. The depiction of the room describes the poverty and misery that are experienced by villagers and shared by K.:
“They had been able to give him only a little attic room at the inn, which was a small place (...) In fact all that had been done was to clear the maids out of the room, which otherwise appeared unchanged, with no linen on the only bed and just a couple of bolsters and a horse-blanket, left in the state it had been in after last night, with a few pictures of saints and photographs of soldiers on the walls. The room hadn’t even been aired; obviously they hoped that the new guest would not stay long, and they were doing nothing to keep him” (Kafka, 2009: 24).
The house of the village mayor, where K. went to discuss his appointment, is an example of multifunctional, chaotic residential spaces constantly appearing throughout the novel. As he was ill, the village mayor received K. in bed. In addition to the fact that the file cupboard stuffed with papers is located in the mayor’s bedroom, and the fact that his wife also serves as his assistant indicates that the village mayor’s house also functions as a workplace. While the mayor explains the bureaucratic obstacles regarding the appointment of K., his wife, who assists him, is looking for the relevant papers in the cupboard, and the papers scattered in the room create a chaotic environment.
These chaotic dwellings, which serve both housing and working functions as in the village mayor’s house, are an expression of the intervention of the authorities into the private sphere of individuals, and the ambiguity of the boundaries of public and private spaces. Kafka’s choice of the metaphor of “dwelling” in the expression of the boundaries between private and public appears to be related to the fact that, beyond its housing function, dwelling is the most subjective place that functions as a mechanism by which the relations between the inner world/outer world, the self/the other, public/private are “regulated”.
The dwelling is an “inside” as opposed to an “outside”, a place in that it always means “generating order” (Korosec-Serfaty, 1985: 72). And “home” is “a place of security, within an insecure world, a place of certainty within doubt, a familiar place with a strange world, a sacred place in a profane world (Dovey, 1985: 46).
Therefore, home is the only place in which the individuals can protect themselves from the danger and chaos of the outside world, forming the frame of their private life. However, at the castle, the boundaries between public and private space have become so ambiguous and intertwined that home is no longer a place that builds the private life of individuals. It is involved in the bedlam of the outside world. The thoughts of K. shed light on this metaphorical expression:
“Nowhere before had K. ever seen official duties and life so closely interwoven, so much so that sometimes it almost seemed as if life and official duties had changed places” (Kafka, 2009: 55).
The displacement of life with official duties, and the infiltration of public space into private space, are felt everywhere in The Castle. As Duttlinger notices (2013: 99), “The power of the castle does not reside in procedures and regulations but in the way, it invades the lives of individuals in their most intimate moments.” One of the most striking expressions about the loss of privacy and intimacy is that K. had to live in one of the classrooms of the school with his fiancée Frieda and his assistants. If he accepts working as the school janitor, K. will be allowed to live in the school, but the school does not have any place other than classrooms, and the conditions offered to K. completely lack the privacy required by the individual and the family to establish their lives:
“In return you have the right to live in one of the classrooms, whichever you choose, but if the children are not being taught in both rooms at the same time, and you happen to be in the room where they are being taught, you must of course move into the other room. (…) I mention only in passing, for as an educated man you will know such things for yourself, that you must strictly uphold the dignity of the school, and in particular the children must never, for instance, have to witness any unpleasant scenes in your domestic life during lessons” (Kafka, 2009: 85).
K. and Frieda had to live in a classroom, which was also used as the school gymnasium – the gymnastic equipment was everywhere. They were given neither a bed to sleep in nor any wood to heat the room. They spent the night on the floor and woke up the next morning to find themselves half-naked surrounded by curious schoolchildren and an angry teacher. With the children and the teacher entering the classroom in their most intimate moment, their private space was completely invaded:
“I really can’t have this. Here’s a nice thing! You have permission to sleep in the classroom, but that’s all; it’s not my duty to teach the children in your bedroom. A school janitor and his family lying in bed until the middle of the morning! Shame on you!” (Kafka, 2009: 114).
Thus, not only was his private life exposed, but K. also faced humiliation.
For Kafka, the room as a metaphor represents “the origins of Man before he fell from grace and the place that Man can return to, to reconstruct his identity” (Rahmani, 2014: 60). The “room” in which an individual builds his/her subjective life – or home or any space that belongs to them – is a “place of autonomy and power in an increasingly heteronomous world where others make the rules” (Dovey, 1985: 46). In this context, as K. does not have a room of his own, he also lacks such autonomy and power. The room that does not belong to K. is far from being a place where K. can construct his identity, because it is open to being interrupted and invaded by “outsiders.” In this case, not only the room, but also the very self of K. is invaded. It is even more evident that the “inside” of the house/room represents “the self”, while the “outside” represents “the others”, if a homological relationship is established between the house and the body – or, as in the example here, the room and the body.
The way Kafka uses the metaphor of “room” throughout the novel makes reference to this homological relationship between the body and the room. Although K. does not have a house/room to ensure his autonomy, the rooms at the Castle Inn indicate exactly the opposite. The rooms, in which the gentlemen from the castle stay, construct a clear boundary of the self and the other through their doors, and provide a sense of autonomy to their dwellers. In the chapter where the servants distribute the files to the gentlemen who are staying in the inn, the files are carefully piled up just outside the door, and in case of any problems, servants could negotiate with officials only through the crack where the door stood ajar. Meanwhile, the servants are struggling with the “rooms themselves” rather than with the gentlemen staying in the rooms:
“The servant was not giving up in his battle with these obstinate little rooms—to K. it often seemed a battle with the rooms themselves, since he hardly saw anything of their occupants” (Kafka, 2009: 242-243).
As a result of the relationship between the room and the self, the rooms appear to be identified with those who stay within them.
THE WINDOWS AND THE DOORS
Through the novel, the windows, the doors and the peepholes stand out as other frequently used architectural metaphors. The doors and the windows are the basic elements that both separate the interior space and the exterior space and establish the connection between each other, providing the arrangement between the public space and the private space. These openings make the passage into “another world” possible. “The symbolic value of the house openings observed in various kinds of habitations proves the universality and the perenniality of the communication with the other world” (Eliade, 1983: 74, cited in Korosec-Serfaty, 1985: 72). Throughout the novel, Kafka visibly uses the doors and the windows in terms of their symbolic values, as symbols of noncommunication as well as communication between different worlds.
The window ensures the relationship between the inside and the outside. Although the window is chiefly designed to allow the gaze from the inside toward the outside (Korosec-Serfaty, 1985:72), every window allows an observation from both sides, even if there is no one looking through the window (Colomina, 2010: 264). Therefore, the window not only allows the one inside to see the outside but also causes the inside to be seen from the outside. Most of the houses and rooms depicted in the village have only one window – or opening. These rooms are usually dimly lit or dark. The metaphor of the dark room obviously can be interpreted as a symbol of the fear against the oppressive and authoritarian control of the castle and restricted freedom of individuals. These dark spaces with small window openings function as a mechanism of defence and a hiding place. For example, K.’s first impression of Lasemann’s cottage, where he entered when he got lost while trying to reach the castle, is given as follows: “It was a large, dimly lit room. Coming in from outside, he could see nothing at first” (Kafka, 2009: 13). What makes the room dim and prevents the person coming from the outside from seeing the inside is that the only window - or light source - is located opposite the door.
As a result of this strategic positioning of the window in the space, the inside of the house cannot be seen immediately by the person who enters, while those inside instantly notice someone who enters. Therefore, a sense of safety is created for the “insiders”. Private space provides the individuals with a certain level of control, in contrast to the public space where they are being watched by the castle. A very similar use of the window is also found in houses that Adolf Loos designed. Loos uses the window only as a light source, not as a frame for looking outside (Colomina, 2010: 238). At the Moller House, for example, a sense of safety has been created by positioning the seating element in front of the window so that the light comes from behind the person sitting on the sofa:
“It takes some time for anyone who enters the living room to cross the rather dark entrance and climb the stairs to notice a person sitting on the sofa. On the other hand, the person sitting on the sofa immediately notices a person who moves in, just like the audience in the theatre lodge immediately notices a player entering the stage” (Colomina, 2010: 234-238). Thus, Loos tries to establish a radical difference between inside and outside; this difference reflects the split between one’s private life and social life (Colomina, 2010: 273).
Kafka similarly uses windowless or very small windowed dark interiors as expressions of the effort to separate private space from public space, the effort to eliminate the possibility of being seen and observed from the outside. For instance, the window of Gestacker’s cottage “was so very tiny that, now it had been opened, you couldn’t see the whole face of the person behind it, only that person’s eyes” (Kafka, 2009: 16). By this small window, the border between the inside and the outside is clearly drawn and the interior is protected from the outside world.
While the window establishes visual relations between the inside and the outside, between private and public space, the door enables the transition between these spaces. As Simmel writes (1976: 96), “through the door, one gains access at will either to one’s intimacy or to the indefinite outside” (Cited in Korosec-Serfaty, 1985: 92). The closed doors that K. faces throughout the novel can clearly be interpreted as expressions of the impossibility of reaching Klamm and therefore the castle. One night, K. went to the Castle Inn, and found out Klamm was there, but the door of the room where Klamm was staying did not open for K., and K. could only see Klamm “from a distance” through the peephole in the door:
“But she kept her eyes lowered, and said quietly: ‘Would you like to see Mr Klamm?’ K. said he would, and she pointed to a door on her left. ‘There’s a little peephole there; you can look through that.’ […] Through the small hole, which had obviously been made in it for purposes of observation, he could see almost the whole of the next room” (Kafka, 2009: 35-36).
In such statements, the doors are considered as elements symbolising the border between the castle officials and the villagers. Even if it were possible to approach an official from the castle, the “closed door” completely eliminates the possibility of encounter. Opening the door is a prerequisite for establishing communication between inside and outside. The fact that K. can only see the officials through the peephole behind closed doors –just as the villagers– can be interpreted as an expression of the impossibility of communication between the castle and K. The symbolisation of the border between the castle and K. by the door metaphor also appears in the chapter where K. was called by the castle secretary, Erlanger, and went to the Castle Inn to meet him. Kafka describes the corridor where the secretary rooms are located as follows:
“You could only just walk upright along the corridor; door after door opened off the sides of it, all the doors close to each other, and the walls did not go all the way up to the ceiling, presumably for ventilation, since there were probably no windows in the little rooms off this low-lying, cellar-like passage. The disadvantage of the gap at the top of the walls was that the corridor and inevitably the rooms too were noisy. Many of the rooms seemed to be occupied, and the occupants of most of these were still awake, for voices, hammer-blows, and the clinking of glasses could be heard” (Kafka, 2009: 213).
The noise caused by the walls of this narrow, tunnel-like corridor, which do not go up to the ceiling, increases the stifling and chaotic atmosphere of the hallway. However, this small gap in the walls also allows the rooms behind the closed doors to be seen without entering. Instead of opening the door to find out if Erlanger was available to meet K., the servant had to spy into the room through the gap between the wall and the ceiling:
“The servant got K. to raise him on his shoulders and then looked down into the room through the space above the corridor wall. ‘He’s lying on his bed,’ said the servant, clambering back down to the floor, ‘fully clothed, but I think he’s asleep’” (Kafka, 2009: 213).
Thus, the closed door of Erlanger makes the border between K. and the castle visible. The only way to cross this border is to “go through the door”. Indeed, late at night, K., tired and sleepless, opened one of the doors in the hallway to find an empty room and entered the secretary Brügel’s room. Upon entering, “the requisite barrier between members of the public and officials, however flawlessly it may be present to outward appearance, is relaxed” (Kafka, 2020: 229).
Brügel told K. that he “can now control everything if he wants to, and need do nothing but somehow or other make his request” (Kafka, 2009: 235-236). But K. was so exhausted that he fell asleep when Brügel was speaking. When he was very close to the solution, he missed this “opportunity”. In the morning, signs of life were heard on the corridor, and the doors started to be opened and closed constantly:
“The corridor itself was still empty, but the doors were beginning to move. They kept being opened just a little way and quickly closed again, there was a positive percussion of such opening and closing of doors in the corridor…” (Kafka, 2009: 239-240).
Meanwhile, the servants were distributing the files to the gentlemen, but since K. was there, the secretaries did not leave their rooms to prevent this encounter. The doors that were opened and closed constantly, the piles of files left outside the doors and the papers that were thrown into the corridor and flying in the air created complete chaos. The officials only were able to leave their rooms when the landlord and the landlady came and moved K. away from the corridor:
“… the doors now opened wide, the corridor was teeming with life, there seemed to be coming and going as if it were a narrow but busy alley, the doors ahead of them were obviously waiting impatiently for K. to come past, so that they could let the gentlemen inside those rooms out…” (Kafka, 2009: 246).
The way the door element is used throughout the novel shows that, like many other architectural elements, it gains existence beyond its functional value, in the metaphorical sense that defines the boundary between the inside and the outside, the self and the other.
MODERNITY, GEOGRAPHICAL ABSTRACTION AND HOMELESSNESS
The interpretation of the spatial narration of The Castle, in a broader context, requires handling the unique time-space setup of the novel as well as the buildings, spaces and various architectural elements associated with them. Although the story told in The Castle focuses on the realities of the modern world and the place of the individual in this world, the feudal atmosphere of the village, which is under the direction of the castle, paradoxically indicates a pre-modern world that no longer exists. And K., who stepped into this pre-modern world, is the symbol of the modern individual, seeking to support his sense of self and sense of belonging through integration into a local community; but he no longer belongs to the world he left or the new world he has stepped into.
K. is clearly the symbol of the modern individual with his endless struggle that ends with disappointments and no resolutions. The fact that K. is a land surveyor can be read as another sign of modernity since land surveying is an invention of modernity as much as the personality of K.; it is a practice unique to the modern world where “nothing that cannot be measured remained on earth”. As Simmel (1969: 49-50) emphasises, in the contemporary world “only the objective, the measurable achievement is of interest” and the “modern mind has become more and more calculating.” Modern man “develops an organ protecting him against the threatening currents and discrepancies of his external environment which would uproot him. He reacts with his head instead of his heart” (Simmel, 1969: 48). Therefore, Kafka must have intended to describe the modern world, which does not include emotions, where everything is handled from an objective point of view, and where calculations and measures are the only important things, with the metaphor of land surveying that exactly matches up with this world.
The unique, abstract time-space setup of The Castle, which does not match the realities of the outside world, is also remarkable. Throughout the novel, the reader can never learn where K. came from, as well as where the castle and the village are. Where is the castle? What is its connection with the rest of the world? Where did K. come from? All these questions are not revealed in the novel. The only clue about where K. came from is given when he first saw the castle and remembered his hometown:
“K. thought fleetingly of his own home town, which was hardly inferior to this castle. If he had come here only to see the place, he would have made a long journey for nothing much, and he would have done better to revisit the old home that he hadn’t seen for so long” (Kafka, 2009: 11).
However, the only thing the reader learns from the passage is that K.’s hometown and the town called “the castle” are not very different. By this geographical abstraction, Kafka possibly remarks that “the question of where we are now is no longer important” in the modern world, where “place” does not have distinctive features anymore, and all places have started to resemble each other. Robert Musil also emphasised that all cities are becoming similar to each other and lose their qualities of being a place, in his famous novel, The Man Without Qualities:
“…in the case of something so infinitely more complicated, such as a city in which one happens to be, one always wants to know quite exactly what particular city it is. This distracts attention from more important things. So no special significance should be attached to the name of the city” (Musil, 1965: 4).
The loss of distinctive features of “places” can be interpreted as one of the reflections of the standardisation brought about by industrialisation and mass production in a wider sense. Kafka refers to this theme in various ways in The Castle. For instance, Arthur and Jeremias, the assistants given to K., are so identical that K. cannot distinguish between them:
“How am I to know which of you is which? The only difference between you is your names” (Kafka, 2009: 20).
Finally, he decides to call them both Arthur and treat them as a “single” man:
“If I send Arthur somewhere you’ll both go, if I give Arthur a job to do you’ll both do it […] How you divide the work between you is all the same to me, only
you can’t make separate excuses. To me you’ll be just one man” (Kafka, 2009: 20).
Arthur and Jeremias may be the symbols of the standardised results of mass production, the places that have become identical, or the cities that have only different names but increasingly similar characteristics since the railroad passed through them.
The loss of distinctive features also appears in the architecture of the village. The buildings in the village are nearly identical, just like Arthur and Jeremias:
“Outwardly, the [Castle] inn resembled the one where K. was staying. There were probably no great outward differences in the whole village, but he noticed small ones at once” (Kafka, 2009: 32).
Thus, architecture in the modern world no longer plays a decisive role. Like everything else, architecture has become standardised. According to Norberg-Schulz (1979), man can only exist in the world by belonging to a “place” with distinctive features, and architecture is nothing more than the embodiment of the spirit of that place. Yet in a world where architecture is becoming increasingly standardised, architecture can no longer create such holistic environments.
The fact that memories of his own hometown are still vivid in K.’s memory and that he feels vague relief by remembering his hometown in his most desperate moments, highlights the importance of the relationship between place and belonging:
“Images of his home kept coming back to him, and memories of it filled his mind. There was a church in the main square there too, partly surrounded by an old graveyard, which in turn was surrounded by a high wall” (Kafka, 200: 29).
Places are not only physical spaces, but also “meaningful locations” where people establish relations and connections (Cresswell, 2004). The place has an experiential quality; it represents a form of “taking root” for human existence and experience (Relph, 1976). However, the modern world is a world where the individual cannot put down roots, so becomes a nomad, and therefore no longer belongs anywhere. Kafka expresses the “homelessness” of the modern man by the fact that K. has left his homeland. When K. arrived in the village, he left behind the world he belonged to and stepped into an unknown world by crossing a “bridge”. However, he no longer belongs to any of these worlds, neither to his homeland nor to the village; he suffers from the pain of being homeless, of being a stranger and of feeling lost:
“Hours passed as they lay there […] hours in which K. kept feeling that he had lost himself, or was further away in a strange land than anyone had ever been before, a distant country where even the air was unlike the air at home, where you were likely to stifle in the strangeness of it, yet such were its senseless lures that you could only go on, losing your way even more” (Kafka, 2009: 40).
