The contiguous room. Kafka, psychoanalysis and the labyrinth of immanency

Authors

  • Cristóbal Durán Rojas Universidad Andrés Bello

Abstract

In this article we attempt to examine the complex relationship that Kafka’s work has had with psychoanalytic reading and interpretation. Although psychoanalysis has called into question its possibility of being directly applied to literature, and has appealed to a co-involvement between both domains, it has not been able to refrain from finding itself in its literary readings. Kafka’s case is exemplary, insofar as it seems to give psychoanalysis the possibility of recognizing its reading operations relative to the centrality of law and desire in the very matrix of the literary text. We will try to show that from the possibilities –paradoxical certainly– offered by psychoanalysis it is possible to open it towards a purely immanent reading of the Kafkaesque text, where it can be visualized as a labyrinth made of contiguities, which postpone the unification of desire and which they are unfolding towards ever new connections.

Keywords:

Kafka, Psychoanalysis, Desire, Contiguity, Labyrinth