Kafka and the nostalgy of fullness: the search for "Law", inevitable suffering and a possible action

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the concept of "law" in Franz Kafka's work, its multiple interpretations, as well as the difficulty of Kafkaesque characters in understanding the function and meaning of "law". In view of the numerous difficulties of this investigation, we will analyze the processes of anguish, guilt and agony that arise from this continuous task, as well as how these affects are also, to a large extent, forms of expression of the "law". We will analyze tools to deal with this difficulty in identifying both the rule and the correct action, as well as seeking to understand the impasses of this continuous method of producing meaning, in the game of meaning and the symbolic construction of the world. Finally, in view of the continuous and inexhaustible need to identify the "law" and to interpret its meanings, we will analyze the possibility of a literary interpretation present in the philosophy of Albert Camus to interpret the anguish of the kafkaesque man, in the struggle to rediscover or reconstruct the space of lost "metaphysical" fullness. In the end, we conclude that, in the face of the inevitable agony of the incessant need to identify and interpret the "law", Albert Camus's interpretation of the absurd effort is feasible, in philosophical terms, to give meaning to the task of living according to rules.