Problem of the Judgement: Eleven Approaches to Kafkas Story

One of the most puzzling short stories in all literature, "The Judgment" (Das Urteil) is crucial to an understanding of Kafka's entire subsequent work; all of his themes are here in tantalizing miniature. The apparently simple text of the story opens this book as if in a challenge to interpretation; the eleven analyses which follow make for an exciting and illuminating controversy.