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    An Imperial Message: The Relays of DesireAuthor(s): Herman RapaportSource: MLN, Vol. 95, No. 5, Comparative Literature (Dec., 1980), pp. 1333-1337Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2906494 .Accessed: 08/09/2014 20:18

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    NOTES

    An Imperial Message:The Relays f Desire

    HermanRapaport

    Kafka's fiction often confronts ts critics with a collapsed or collapsingcenter of authority, dead or powerless father, who condemns those n hisorbit to a circuitous ruin. No one or nothing s in control; no one has thepower to authorize. And yet all the subjects till eem to be controlled ndcontinue to work. This paradox of inertia nd ceaselessactivity, f master-lessness ombined with ontinued servitude, s the central feature f one ofKafka's most nteresting arables, "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft."

    Michel Foucault's description f certain exts s heterotopiass particularlyrelevant for Kafka's parable, because it names the possibility f a text orsystem composed of disconnected infrastructures, text made up ofasymmetric arts which an only work or operate provided there s a condi-tion of disorganization r entropy, mechanics of resistance, rustration,dysfunction.1 afka's texts, ike the heterotopias oucault describes, displaythis kind of perverse operating procedure whose economy s initiated bythe collapseof the center, ften represented s the death of the father, ndhaving clear Oedipal aspects.

    It is in the Oedipus complex that we might ocate the mechanism ofresistance the "machine desirante," o appropriate Deleuze and Guattari'santi-Oedipal term) that at once accounts for the absent father nd makespossible the work of his subordinates n the shadow of his absence.' TheOedipal situation s responsible for at once an imposition f its regulatoryapparatus over the father, ts "symbolic" ontent n the Lacanian sense,which results n the slaying f the father, nd a suffering f guilt and lossof control that such an absence of the father naugurates. What we mustrealize is that such a complex or mechanism of desire does not serve somuch to inhibit r limit Kafka's writing o a simple principle, constella-tion or dynamic which n itself ecomes a substitute or the center effacedwithin he text, ut that uch a complex is an entropaic principle of disper-

    MLNVol.95 Pp. 1333-13370026-7910/80/0955-133301.00 ? 1980byTheJohns opkins niversity ress

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    1334 HERMANRAPAPORT

    sion that curiously nergizes a thematic r semantic field of fragmentary

    particles.In the parable, "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft," one can clearly see themanner n which the "you" or "Du" wishes the end of the father, he deathof the Emperor, and how that wish carries with t a letter, lbeit an oralone, that disperses tself hroughout he circular kingdom, nergizing thetext with its frustrating, ut nevertheless directive force: its desire.Nowhere is the content of the message revealed, but that s not so muchbecause the message is a secret, but because it is so very apparent. Thesituation f the "jammerlichen Untertanen" r "pitiful ubject" "miserabledependent" is an intended pun) who waits for the Imperial message, amessage that s not personal, but official, etrays the content. For whatother message could an insignificant ubject receive if it were neither n"invitation" or a "pardon"? What other message would a humble servantlong for?

    The message participates n an economy of contradictory esire:fortda 4 On the one hand the father must die; the Emperor must be on hisdeathbed (fort ). ut on the other hand the subject must receive the mes-sage that the father s still here da ). Like Freud's little Hans, the "Du" ordreamer of the parable is attempting o gain or imagine mastery ver aparent, and in the Kafka parable this constitutes wishing mastery ver afather y at once desiring him dead and alive.What carries he force of thisambivalent, Oedipal network of desire is the message which delicatelyaffirms he simultaneity f two wishes that are contradictory nd yet mu-tually upportive. The one wish, et us call it thefort-wish, ould like theEmperor to die, because the dreamer of the parable (us) would like to bethe father. The slaveswould like to become the master. However, n orderfor that wish to be realized, the father r Emperor must never truly isap-pear, since he is the Lawupon which ven usurpers depend, without whichthere would be no such thing s usurpation. Thus there has to be a da-wish,the desire that the Law be upheld and exercised. This Oedipal network fdesire is carried by the message in two distinct enses: as pardon and asinvitation. As pardon, the message carries both the subject's "crime," thebreaking f the Law or denial of the Father fort-wish), nd the fact hat heLaw is still n effect, hat the Father s still xercising power, s still present(the da-wish).As invitation, he message requests that hesubject come intothe father's presence (da-wish) even if time and space preclude such ajourney, such a possibility fort-wish). here is, finally, he Emperor's ask-ing the servant to repeat the message, the repetition ompulsion, whichestablishes t once that the message has, indeed, left he deathbed (isfort )and yet remains within the possession of its author or authorizer, theexerciser of the Law (isda ).

    The message, we are told, will never reach the subject of the dream, acollective "subject" as it turns out, because such a message is itself thecondition of frustration r entropy which energizes the heterotopian which

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    M L N 1335

    the messenger s running so hard and tiring o quickly. The symbol forsuch an energizing but entropaic sign is the sun which the messengercarries on his breast, the sign of the Imperial courier. The sun is a mostfitting ymbol, ecause it represents not only the dissemination f power,energy, force, but also the debilitating ffect hat such power often pro-duces, the over-burdening ffect he heat of the sun has upon, say, a mancrossing desert on foot. This sort of effect, oth energizing nd impotent,is certainly manifest n the parable, for the message or "truth" of theOedipus complex, a message that must be communicated o rapidly before

    the Emperor dies, is forestalled even in the chambers of theinnermost

    palace. And even if the messenger succeeded in getting beyond thesechambers,

    ... niemalswird r sie iberwinden; nd gelange hm dies,nichtswaregewon-nen; die Treppen hinabmusste r sich kampfen; nd gelange hm dies,nichtsware gewonnen; ie Hofe waren u durchmessen; nd nach den Hofen derzweite mschliessende alast ..5

    And so on. Even if the messenger could get beyond the Imperial palaceitself, e would only be in the center of an even far greater capital filled obursting with ts own refuse. And, "Niemand dringt hier durch und garmit der Botschaft eines Toten." This line is very important because itaffirms hat t s above all the Oedipal message, the message that ongs forthe death of the Emperor (thefort-wish) hat cannot traverse easily, butrather stands before an awesome accumulation of fragmentary ettings:stairs, ooms, courtyards, rowds, gates, refuse. t is the longing for deaththat s forestalled efore ts own entropaic desire. But if death frustrates tsown working out, if the death wish is blocked, the da-wish which makesitself known in terms of the pardon or invitation rom the father s alsostymied. The message of presence or exercise of the Law cannot arrive,and it is in this sense that one can say the father never properly dies norproperly xists. Like Amfortas f the Parzival egend, or Edgar Allan Poe'sM. Valdemar, the Emperor is but liminally ctive. He is the threshold orlimit where the two contradictory esires of the "subject" in Lacan's senseof the term) play themselves ut, and his message is the oral sign of thisviolent crossing point wherefort nd da insist.

    It goes without aying, however, that a kind of transference s experi-enced in the parable, for the message is the relay back to the "subject," nanswer from the threshold where the violent nterplay f desire occurs.6And this answer, this "truth" f the Oedipus complex which comes fromthe father, acan's Autre, imply manifests tself n terms f a repetition fthe barrier between "be gone " and "come back ", which is to say both,"you are forgiven" nd "you are not forgiven," r, to put it still notherway, "enter my presence" and "don't enter my presence." This messagefrom he Emperor is precisely what s needed for the Oedipus complex tomaintain tself, ince the Oedipus complex encapsulates desire, the wish

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    1336 HERMANRAPAPORT

    for something hat s missing r out of reach. As long as the message from

    the father promises fulfillment f desire while at the same time energizingthat desire by delaying or deferring tself, he circuit from "subject" tofather and father to "subject" remains unbroken, endlessly forestallingclosure.

    What we have in its full terror s a machine of desire, the Oedipuscomplex, that both organizes and disorganizes, hat energizes an economyof relays within Kafka's text mperiled by a steady entropaic force. Here amechanics of frustration, esistance, erhaps even dysfunction perates, amechanics authorized by the collapsing center or the dreaming "subject."

    It is a mechanics hat s "condensed" in the parable and that could, in wayswe have not already touched upon, be applied to the entire story ut ofwhich the parable may be taken, "Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer,"itself heterotopia f fragmentary alls,departed emperors, filialdesires, nshort, ludicrous network f relations whose incongruity s forever n thethreshold of coherence.

    LoyolaUniversity

    NOTES1 "Les hat~rotopiesnquietent, ans doute parce qu'elles minent ecretement e lan-

    gage, parce qu'elles empechent de nommer eci et cela, parce qu'elles brisent esnoms communs ou les enchevetrent, arce qu'elles ruinent d'avance la 'syntaxe',et pas seulement elle qui construit es phrases, -celle moins manifeste ui fait'tenir ensemble' (atc6te et en face les uns des autres) les mots et les choses."Quoted from Michel Foucault, Les mots t es chosesParis: Gallimard, 1966), p. 9.

    2 Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, L'Anti-Oedipe Paris: Editions de Minuit,1972). According to these authors, "Les machines desirantes ne marchent quedetraquees, en se detraquant ans cesse," p. 14. Desire is a mode of psychologicalproduction, a machine whose operation, however, is always subject to "d&traquement" r "breakdown." What we could argue is that the Oedipus complexitself ncorporates psychotic or anti-Oedipal "detraquement," that Oedipal/anti-Oedipal difference s not clear cut and may accede to differance. n Kafka weare broaching path by which one might pursue a deconstruction f the opposi-tion Oedipus/anti-Oedipus.

    3 See Jacques Lacan, "Du traitement ossible de la psychose," crits Paris: Seuil,1966), p. 556. "Comment Freud ne la reconnaitrait-il as en effet, lors que lanecessitede sa reflexion 'a mene a lier 'apparition du signifiant u Pere, en tantqu'auteur de la Loi, a la mort, voire au meurtre du Pere,-montrant ainsi que sice meurtre st e moment fecond de la dette par oui e sujet se lie a vie a la Loi, lePere symbolique en tant qu'il signifie ette Loi est bien le Pere mort."In Kafka's "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft" he signifier f the Father s the mes-sage or letter ent to the subject, a letter predicated, as we shall see, upon theconcept of death, even to the murder of the Father, as Lacan says. Lacan'ssymbolic ather s a syntax f otherness, or he is not someone who speaks, butthe peaking tself. What the subject wants is at once to foreclose or slay thisspeaking and appropriate t too. Lacan's point s that appropriation nd slayingor foreclosing dialectically work to maintain a relation between conscious andunconscious, relation the psychotic oes not have, since the psychotic laysthe

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    M L N 1337

    Father, totally epresses the peaking, nd thereby destroys he relays of desire,those Oedipal relays whose function t is to maintain contact, no matter howstrained or elusive, between subject and symbolic Father or Other. It is in thissense that Kafka's parable strives o maintain anity y keeping open the Oedipalrelays of desire which move at once towards preserving and destroying heFather.

    One can argue further hat such a movement constitutes "defense" that selaborated in the story from which the parable may be taken, "Beim Bau derChinesischen Mauer," for in the story one immediately perceives that whatmakes the wall a most powerful nstrument f "defense," that is to say, whatallowsthe wall to protect he "subject" s the very fact that t s fragmentary ndas such s an object that facilitates ery ontradictory elays f desire. Thus, if the"subject" desires to submit himself o the wall as if he were but a slave, if the"subject" willingly ubmits to the frustrating abor decreed by the Father, theLaw, the Emperor, he desires at the same time to conquer (metaphorically, okill) the wall, to finish t, to have the wall serve him as an agency of protection swell as identification Chinese as nomad), to force the Law to submit to the"subject's" priority. he "subject," hen, wants to master and serve at the sametime, nd he can only do so if the fortifications re in bits and pieces, that s, ifthey arry within heir very tructure heir wn ruin, their wn death, their wndefeat. Only in this way can they channel the relays of desire, and only n thisway can they protect the state from the threat these ruins are built to resist,threat hat comes not so much from the nomads, but from the "subjects" of the

    Chinese Empire, the threat of unchanneled desire, foreclosure, sychosis.4 The reference s, of course, to Freud's "Jenseits es Lustprinzips" n GesammelteWerke Frankfurt m Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1940), Vol. XIII. It is important onote that n Freud's text the game offortida as everything o do with Oedipaldesire. "Dasselbe Kind, das ich mit 11/2 Jahren bei seinem ersten Spielbeobachtete, pflegte ein Jahr spdter ein Spielzeug, uber das es sich gedrgerthatte, uf den Boden zu werfen und dabei zu sagen: Geh' in K(r)ieg Man hatteihm damals erzahlt, der abwesende Vater befinde sich m Krieg, und es vermis-ste den Vater gar nicht, ondern gab die deutlichsten Anzeichen von sich, dass esim Alleinbesitz der Mutter nicht gestort werden wolle" (p. 14). But if Freudinsists he child's game offortida xpresses his desire to be rid of the father nd

    to have his mother, he introduces his observation with he insight hat the ittleboy may be revenging himself n the father or having been deserted by him. nthis ense, the father ubstitutes or the mother nd the dis-pleasure associatedwith her at an earlier time s transferred o the father. At least, we ought to con-sider the likelihood that the Father's death sentence is commuted even as it ispronounced by "dasselbe Kind," or, if you like, by dasselbe piel.

    5 Franz Kafka, "Eine kaiserliche Botschaft" n Franz Kafka: Sdmtliche rzahlungen,ed. Paul Raabe (Frankfurt m Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 1970), p. 156.

    6 If one wanted to pursue further Lacanian reading, one would argue that themessage is nothing ess than the phallus, "of what the subject s-symbolically-deprived of," to quote Lacan in "Desire and the Interpretation f Desire inHamlet" n Yale French tudies, No. 55-56, 1977. According to Lacan in "Lasignification u phallus," Ecrits Paris: Seuil, 1966), the phallus is a messageemitted rom he ocus of the arge Autre r Father. The phallus s a signifier hatthe subject wants n order to know the Autre, o grasp its potency or power. Assuch it s the master ignifier f desire. Yet, it s "the very mposition f a limit,"to quote Shoshana Felman, "the principle f censorship nd of repression whichforever ars all accessto the signified s such." See Shoshana Felman, "Turningthe Screw of Interpretation" n YaleFrench tudies,No. 55-56, 1977, p. 172.

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