The Call of the Daimon: Love and Truth in the Writings of Franz Kafka moves easily between Kafka's life, characters and events in the novels, contemporary poetry, and Aldo Carotenuto's interpretations of critical Jungian perspectives. The primary human event that interests Carotenuto is the call of the daimon: the desire for truth and love that destroys all misconceptions and self-delusions, that demands a constant creative response to life's difficulties, and that ultimately allows the seeker no rest.
Both at and analysis are responses to a probing need for truth and love. The daimon's call is the summons to find them, regardless of cost. Kafka made the journey alone for the most part and he recorded his search in his writings. Here, Carotenuto reads two of Kafka's novels, The Trial and The Castle, from the perspective of Jungian Psychology, and finds, if not love and truth, a creative response to the dilemmas of life.
Aldo Carotenuto is a professor of personality theory at the University of Rome and the director of the Review of Analytical Psychoanalysis and the Historical Journal of Dynamic Psychology. His many books include The Difficult Art, Kant's Dove, and A Secret Symmetry: Sabina Speilrein Between Jung and Freud. He lives and practices in Rome
Table of Contents
I. The Parable of the Arrest
II. The Alienation of the Marionette
III. Guilt and Questioning
IV. The Night of the Soul
V. The Return to the Mother
VI. The Wait in the Dark
VII. Entering the Labyrinth
VIII. Eros and Violence
IX. The Compromise with Existence
XI Salvation in Art
XI. The Pain Denied
XII. From the Metaphor of the Trial to the Metaphor of the Castle
XIII. The Call: The Fascination of the Daimon
XIV. The Pain of Transformation
XV. The Exclusion of the Outsider
XVI. The Utmost Challenge
XVII. The Illness of Identity
XVIII. The Faces of the Mystery
XIX. The Other as the Mirror of the Self
XX. The Affliction of Questioning
XXI. The Realm of the Word
XXII. A Look at Death
XXIII. Eros Unaware
XXIV. The Encounter with the Other
XXV. The Deus Absconditus
XXVI. The Amorous Possession
XXVII. Jacob's Stigma
XXVIII. The Mute Passion
XXIX. Sexuality and Encounter
XXX. The Struggle for Life
XXXI. The Guilty Messiah
