My Name Is Not Odradek

In reading Benjamin’s essay on Kafka, it could be inferred that the confrontation with the Law of the Father is the axis of both Kafka’s life and of his storytelling. This is evident in the division of his literary world into two opposing worlds: the first is that of the home and the office inhabited by a violent father, who is joined by clerks and scriveners. The second is the world of the swamp, overtaken by nameless, primordial forces and populated by exiled sons, as well as by animals. These include Odradek, the protagonist of “The Cares of a Family Man.” Following Marx, Adorno, and Agamben, Odradek is portrayed as a complex entity, residing on four levels of economy: It is a signifier in the economy of signification; a living being in the libidinal economy; an object in the economy of commodities; and a stripped object in the economy of utilization. On each of these levels, Odradek is seen as a disruption of the economy. Odradek could thus be viewed as a site of the hospitality of the economy’s Other, the rav. As the rav’s delegate, Odradek is a bone in the throat, resisting assimilation into any given economy.