The Vulture (short story)

"The Vulture" (German: "Der Geier") is a short story by Franz Kafka, written sometime between 1917 and 1923.

Plot summary

A vulture hacks at the protagonist's feet until a man passing by asks him why he doesn't do anything about it. The protagonist explains that he is helpless to resist, though at first he tried to drive the vulture away, when he saw that it was about to attack his face he stopped, preferring to sacrifice his feet. The onlooker exclaims, "Fancy letting yourself be tortured like this!", and offers to go and get a gun to shoot the vulture. The protagonist asks him to hurry. The vulture listens to the conversation, then takes wing and thrusts its beak into the protagonist's head, killing him, but also drowning in his blood, as it flows on "filling every depth, flooding every shore."^[1]

Analysis

This text has often been compared with Kafka's Prometheus, with the vulture substituted for the eagle.^[2] Vultures were believed by the ancient Egyptians, and later by Renaissance thinkers, to be invariably female, and self-impregnating.^[3]

The title of the text, "Der Geier", is also laden with diverse connotations. The term "geyer" is Yiddish for "peddler", and is a common German surname. Engels' 1850 The Peasant War in Germany highlights the life of Florian Geyer, the nobleman who died fighting alongside the peasants in the 16th century German Peasants' War, and whose ill-fated Black Company became much celebrated in German-language song and fable.

References and allusions in other media

Israeli artist Yosl Bergner created a series of etchings inspired by the story named The Vulture by Franz Kafka in 1990.
Jorge Luis Borges selected the story for inclusion in The Library of Babel, a series of short volumes published by Italian publisher Franco Maria Ricci starting from 1975.^[4]
A comics adaptation of the story, illustrated by Peter Kuper, is included in Give It Up!.
A parody of the story appears as part of the short story "The Notebooks of Bob K." by Jonathan Lethem, which is collected in Kafka Americana. In the story the vulture is replaced by the Batman villain The Penguin.

References

^ Kafka, Franz. The Complete Stories. New York City: Schocken Books, 1995. 442-443.
^ Menninghaus, Winfried. Disgust: The Theory and History of a Strong Sensation. 2003, page 442.
^ Anderson, Wayne. Freud, Leonardo Da Vinci, and The Vulture's Tail: A Refreshing Look At Leonardo's Sexuality. 2001, page 6.
^ Page at www.fantascienza.com

Franz Kafka (works)

Novels

Short stories

1902–1912	"Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart" "Description of a Struggle" "Wedding Preparations in the Country" "The Judgment" "The Stoker" The Metamorphosis "The Aeroplanes at Brescia"
1914–1917	"In the Penal Colony" "The Village Schoolmaster" "Before the Law" "Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor" "A Country Doctor" "The Hunter Gracchus" "The Great Wall of China" "A Message from the Emperor" "A Report to an Academy" "A Dream" "Up in the Gallery" "A Fratricide" "The Next Village" "A Visit to a Mine" "Jackals and Arabs" "The Bridge" "The Bucket Rider" "The New Advocate" "An Old Manuscript" "The Knock at the Manor Gate" "Eleven Sons" "My Neighbor" "A Crossbreed" "The Cares of a Family Man"
1917–1923	"The Refusal" "A Hunger Artist" "Investigations of a Dog" "A Little Woman" "The Burrow" "Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk" "A Common Confusion" "The Truth about Sancho Panza" "The Silence of the Sirens" "Prometheus" "The City Coat of Arms" "Poseidon" "Fellowship" "At Night" "The Problem of Our Laws" "The Conscription of Troops" "The Test" "The Vulture" "The Helmsman" "The Top" "A Little Fable" "Homecoming" "First Sorrow" "The Departure" "Advocates" "The Married Couple" "Give It Up!" "On Parables"

Short story
collections

Diaries and
notebooks

Letters
and essays

Plays

The Warden of the Tomb

Category

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