The Country Doctor

The Country Doctor

Introduction

The story of the country doctor as presented by Kafka presents such a great absurdity in life. At the beginning of the story, the doctor is in a great perplexity and bewilderment. He is faced with an urgent situation yet he does not have the means to reach the place where the patient is. The seriously ill man in the story who was waiting for the doctor turns out to be him. He also had a challenge and this was a severe snowstorm that filled the space between him and his patient. Despite the fact he had a carriage which was best fitted for the journey he had and with all the necessary instruments and the right clothing for the journey (furs), he could not travel since his horse had died the previous day (Kafka 29). This paints the picture of absurdity in the world, a platform where nothing is perfect and which is also characterized by disillusionment and disappointments. The doctor was very set for the journey, just because of one thing (the horse), he could not start out for the journey. In frustration, the doctor kicks the door of the pig sty not knowing that therein, would come his help. In an unexpected manner, the groom appeared with help he needed and he even got two horses instead of one. The houses were better in comparison to the one he had. This even make the story more complicated. Who informed the groom that he needed a horse?

However, what seems to be a blessing here turns out to be a great problem to the country doctor. He gets the horses, but in return, he stands the chance of losing his servant girl (Rosa). This also presents a great bewilderment to the country doctor as he is to choose between staying back so that he can be with the servant girl or to travel to attend to the sick young man.

The doctor’s journey is a true picture of the quest for personal discovery. It is because of the journey that doctor realized the beauty of the servant girl. His worry about the fate of girl as he lives for the journey helps in the illustration of this fact. The doctor keeps thinking about Rosa even he arrives at the place where he was going to attend to the patient. It can be argued that if the groom did nod clap his hand to start the horse off, the doctor could have forced the groom to accompany him for the journey. He never really wanted to let the groom to stay behind with Rosa and this is indicated by his willingness to forfeit the journey for the sake of staying behind with the servant girl as demonstrated by these words “You’re coming with me, or I’ll give up the journey, no matter how urgent it is.” At the place where he went to attend to the sick young man, his focus shifts to Rosa and he ask himself questions on how to save her from the groom yet it becomes a reality that they separated by a distance and hence it may not be possible for him to save her.

The doctor says “I will go back right away” (Kafka 890). The doctor consider living Rosa back a great sacrifice and says, “I had to sacrifice Rosa as well, this beautiful girl, who lives in my house all year long and whom I scarcely notice—this sacrifice is too great, and I must somehow in my own head subtly rationalize it away for the moment, in order not to leave this family who cannot, even with their best will, give me Rosa back again” (Kafka 49).

The journey also helps the country doctor to come to terms with his condition as an employ of the district. He recognize the fact that he may be more sick than the young who in the story turns out to be him. This is kind of a story within a story where one character plays two roles. Through this style, we are able to learn about other important elements about the quest for a personal discovery (Kafka 900). He also discover about his sickness and the kind of hopelessness that he was faced with, he says that he would rather let the kill him since has lost all that he cared for (the servant girl). Like the sick young who wanted to the doctor to let him die, the doctor is an exact mirror of this story, he seems to have lost hope of saving Rosa and he was never bothered if the villagers killed him. All that had hoped for seems to have been taken and generally life had not treated fairly. His world was crumbling and even his journey back was not exciting. He could not get back home in a dash they he did when he was going to attend to the young man.

No seemed to appreciate his role as a doctor and all that they cared for was him sorting their health related problems. The frustration of the country doctor can be illustrated by these statements at the end of the story, “Naked, abandoned to the frost of this unhappy age, with an earthly carriage and unearthly horses, I drive around by myself, an old man. My fur coat hangs behind the wagon, but I cannot reach it.” He is not elated at all.

In the story, the doctor ignores Rosa who is a representation of possibility of love and submits to the groom’s brutality and aggression because he was not aware of himself and of the beauty of Rosa the servant girl. He only focused on the solution of his problem which was finding a horse for his journey which was provided by the groom. The doctor shared the bed with patient because he thought that the boy’s condition was not that bed in comparison to other situations he had witnessed (Kafka 34). The sore on the mortally wounded boy correspond to the bite on Rosa’s cheek in that they both had red marks which in the case mortally wounded boy is described as Rose colored. It is true to say that doctor is a representation of unaware humanity that can cure itself through awareness, action and choice. The doctor had stayed with Rosa the servant girl for a long time with realizing of her beauty until the time that the groom showed up. At the end of the story, the accusation of betrayal is directed to the doctor by an individual responding to the sounding alarm of the bell.

Works Cited

Kafka, Franz. The Country Doctor. Counterpoint Publications, 1945. Print.

Kafka, Franz. “The country doctor.” Annals of Internal Medicine 127.10 (1997): 895-903. Print.