Compare the presentation of community in the work of any two writers on the module.
Kafka’s A report to an Academy can initially seem problematic, as the capture of Red Peter and his attempt to fit in with his new society seems to mirror the experiences of the people of colour who were forced into slavery, and subsequently forced to gentrify once slavery was abolished. This narrative can seem to be racially charged as it evokes the long European tradition of describing people of colour as “apes” as a racial slur to suggest that they are somehow less evolved. However, Kafka should perhaps be given the benefit of the doubt due to his own experiences with racial prejudice, and instead be read as an account of one who finds himself between communities. A report to an Academy, then, is about removing ones “otherness” (Powell, 2008), in this case, to assimilate into a human …show more content…
The protagonist concludes his report by mentioning the only member of his old primate community, the “half- trained chimpanzee” (Kafka:5), whom he says that he “cannot bear to see[…]for she has the insane look of the bewildered half-broken animal in her eye”, which suggests that the abandonment of the old community is not a desirable choice to make. Kafka resented his religious upbringing, which left him with a lack of community with other Jews (Gray, 147) and spent the large part of his life wishing that he knew more about the Jewish religion and history. Ultimately, Kafka seems to suggest that it is not possible to ever be fully accepted into a pre-existing community without completely abandoning what made you a part of the old community, and as Kafka highlights, this is impossible, as Peter can no sooner stop being an ape than Kafka could stop being a Jew, nor can you return to the old community. The result, then, of trying to assimilate into other communities is to become isolated from any