Judgement Through Fiction Analysis

Reflections of Judgment Through Fiction When reading through various works of fiction, we sometimes come across material that almost speaks directly to us, or may even describe our current situation or feelings. Although the works are truly fictitious, the inspiration for these stories comes from deep within the mind of the author, who is human, and human emotions tend to bleed through fiction. This is how we can find a surreal connection to so many stories that never actually occurred. Some common threads between the short stories I have read are family, conflict, and judgment. Our lives and that of our families are filled with conflict and we all have been accused of judging unjustly, whether it is of others or possibly ourselves. The …show more content…
Kafka had a struggling relationship with his own father, who would beat him and called him a failure for not becoming a businessman like himself. This seems to directly mirror his work in “The Judgment”, where the character’s father disapproves of how he is living his life. At one point, the father exclaims, “You wanted to cover me up – I know that, my little offspring – but I am not yet under covers.” This can relate to how Kafka really felt about his real father. He failed to live up to his father’s expectations and he could never get those thoughts out of his mind.
Sibling rivalry is a constant conflict between family, whether it is acknowledged or not. In “Sonny’s Blues”, Sonny feels like he will never live up to his older brother’s expectations. In “The Rich Brother”, the elder brother, Pete, is wildly successful and thinks that his younger brother, Donald, is a directionless dreamer, also failing to live up to his expectations. Both of these stories show the human elements of frustration with family through works of fiction. They illuminate the sacrifices one is willing to make for that family member in need of …show more content…
Not only does the father judge his son for his life, but the son also is judging himself, and careful to make other judge him lightly. George has spent his life trying to prove to his dad that he can run the family business, possibly even better than his dad. However, his dad harshly judges him for caring so much about what others think. He wants his son to grow into a man of his own, take a chance at life, just as his friend in St. Petersburg had tried. During a fit of rage, the father exclaims “So now you know what there was in the world outside of yourself. Up to this point, you’ve only known about yourself.” This sentence becomes too much for George to bear, and he drops from a bridge into the water committing suicide. Still stuck to his fear of being harshly judged by others, George even times his jump with that of a passing coach to mask the sound of his