The Call of the Daimon: Love and Truth in the Writings of Franz Kafka

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