The Great Wall by Kafka - Answer to Question One

When I was in high school, I remember reading Franz Kafka’s “the Great Wall of China.” But reading is not automatically understanding: I came back and read it again, this time having in mind I had really been there.

In the first person, Kafka writes through the eyes of a young Chinese village boy. He was observing his father being told something to his ear. Then, his father revealed to the most unbelievable news as he told him:

“[A strange boatman – I know all those who usually pass here, but this one is stranger – has just told me that a great wall is going to be built to protect the emperor. For it seems that infidel tribes, and demons among them, often gather in front of the imperial palace to shoot their black arrows at the emperor.]”  (p.70) *

(Kafka, Franz. The Great Wall of China and other short works. Trans. From German by Malcolm Pasley. Penguin Books, 2002.)

* : The reason why this part is in brackets is because, as the authors explain, this paragraph was considered by Kafka as a work in progress.

Kafka helped me pick out from the wind the answers I was trying to answer. To better understand what I mean, I suggest you read the e-version of Kafka’s work:

http://records.viu.ca/~Johnstoi/Kafka/greatwallofchina.htm

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Passages that help answer Question One:

How did a nation come together to finish this Wall?

“One could not, for example, let them lay one building block on top of another in an uninhabited region of the mountains, hundreds of miles from their homes, for months or even years at a time.   The hopelessness of such a hard task, which could not be completed even in a long human lifetime, would have caused them distress and, more than anything else, made them worthless for work.   For that reason they chose the system of building in sections.  Five hundred metres could be completed in something like five years, by which time naturally the supervisors were as a rule too exhausted and had lost all faith in themselves, in the building, and in the world.”

“Thus, while they were still experiencing the elation of the celebrations for the joining up of a thousand metres of the wall, they were shipped far, far away.  On their journey they saw here and there finished sections of the wall rising up; they passed through the quarters of the higher administrators, who gave them gifts as badges of honour, and they heard the rejoicing of new armies of workers streaming past them out of the depths of the land, saw forests being laid low, wood designated as scaffolding for the wall, witnessed mountains being broken up into rocks for the wall, and heard in the holy places the hymns of the pious praying for the construction to be finished.  All this calmed their impatience.”

  “The high regard which all those doing the building enjoyed, the devout humility with which people listened to their reports, the trust that simple quiet citizens had that the wall would be completed someday—all this tuned the strings of their souls.  Then, like eternally hopeful children, they took leave of their home.  The enthusiasm for labouring once again at the people’s work became irresistible.  They set out from their houses earlier than necessary, and half the village accompanied them for a long way.”

  “On all the roads there were groups of people, pennants, banners—they had never seen how great and rich and beautiful and endearing their country was.  Every countryman was a brother for whom they were building a protective wall and who would thank him with everything he had and was for all his life.  Unity! Unity! Shoulder to shoulder, a coordinated movement of the people, their blood no longer confined in the limited circulation of the body but rolling sweetly and yet still returning through the infinite extent of China.”

  “What was the need for the wall, which was definitely something concrete, the result of the labour and the lives of hundreds of thousands of  people?” (p. 62)

  “The only conclusion left is that the leadership deliberately chose piecemeal construction.    But building in sections was something merely makeshift and impractical.  So the conclusion remains that the leadership wanted something impractical.  An odd conclusion!  True enough, and yet from another perspective it had some inherent justification.”

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