The Great Wall of China

Franz Kafka

• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Year: 2015
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783734733208
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Historical Fiction
• Index: Literature

"The Great Wall of China" ("Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer") is a short story written by Franz Kafka in 1917. It was not published until 1931, seven years after his death. Max Brod selected stories and published them in the collection "Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer".Contained within the story is a parable that was separately published as "A Message from the Emperor" ("Eine kaiserliche Botschaft") in 1919 in the collection "Ein Landarzt" ("A Country Doctor"). Some sub-themes of the story include why the wall was built piecemeal (in small sections in many different places), the relationship of the Chinese with the past and the present and the emperor's imperceptible presence. The story is told in first person by an older man from a southern province.The first English translation by Willa and Edwin Muir was published by Martin Secker in London in 1933. It appeared in "The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections" (New York: Schocken Books, 1946).

The Great Wall of China

The Great Wall of China was finished at its northernmost location. The construction work moved up from the south-east and south-west and joined at this point. The system of building in sections was also followed on a small scale within the two great armies of workers, the eastern and western. It was carried out in the following manner: groups of about twenty workers were formed, each of which had to take on a section of the wall, about five hundred metres. A neighbouring group then built a wall of similar length to meet it. But afterwards, when the sections were fully joined, construction was not continued on any further at the end of this thousand-metre section. Instead the groups of workers were shipped off again to build the wall in completely different regions. Naturally, with this method many large gaps arose, which were filled in only gradually and slowly, many of them not until after it had already been reported that the building of the wall was complete. In fact, there are said to be gaps which have never been built in at all, although that’s merely an assertion which probably belongs among the many legends which have arisen about the structure and which, for individual people at least, are impossible to prove with their own eyes and according to their own standards, because the structure is so immense.

Now, at first one might think it would have been more advantageous in every way to build in continuous sections or at least continuously within two main sections. For the wall was conceived as a protection against the people of the north, as was commonly announced and universally known. But how can protection be provided by a wall which is not built continuously? In fact, not only can such a wall not protect, but the structure itself is in constant danger. Those parts of the wall left standing abandoned in particular regions could easily be destroyed again and again by the nomads, especially by those back then who, worried about the building of the wall, changed their place of residence with incredible speed, like grasshoppers, and thus perhaps had an even better overall view of how the construction was proceeding than we did, the people who built it.

However, there was no other way to carry out the construction except the way it happened. In order to understand this, one must consider the following: the wall was to be a protection for centuries; thus, the essential prerequisites for the work were the most careful construction, the use of the architectural wisdom of all known ages and peoples, and an enduring sense of personal responsibility in the builders. Of course, for the more humble tasks one could use ignorant day labourers from the people—the men, women, and children who offered their services for good money. But the supervision of even four day labourers required a knowledgeable man, an educated expert in construction, someone who was capable of feeling sympathy deep in his heart for what was at stake here. And the higher the challenge, the greater the demands. And such...

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