Forms of Responsibility in Franz Kafka’s A Country Doctor

Abstract

This article analyzes the notion of responsibility in Franz Kafka’s book of short stories A Country Doctor, which was originally titled Responsibility. The study examines responsibility in three ways: as a possible title, as a concept within the book, and finally as a non-motive for action in the stories. Kafka’s decision to change the title from Responsibility is explored, suggesting that the abstract term might have diverted attention to a layer of meaning «behind» the text, as Reiner Stach asserts, something Kafka would have tried to avoid. While responsibility is present in several stories, it is not always the main theme. The work delves into the concept of responsibility through the disciplines of law and literature, recognizing that a purely literary approach is insufficient. It highlights that the systematic integration of «responsibility» into Western legal tradition is relatively recent, gaining momentum in the early XVIII century with the codification and creation of legal imputation regimes. The author draws on the theories of Ricoeur, Arendt, and, especially, the taxonomy of responsibility proposed by Sebastián Figueroa, which distinguishes five meanings of the term: role responsibility, subject responsibility, capacity responsibility, causal responsibility, and authorship responsibility. This framework is applied to several stories from A Country Doctor, demonstrating that responsibility often functions as a narrative device that leads to inaction or ambiguity, rather than as a clear moral principle. The analysis concludes that Kafka’s choice of title and his representation of responsibility reflect an interest in how the concept shapes the lives of the characters in unexpected and often frustrating ways, emphasizing uncertainty and social imposition over clear moral imperatives.