by William Dew

Created on: June 26, 2009

Kafka's A Country Doctor is a surreal, dreamlike story that follows an ineffectual and increasingly hopeless doctor as he struggles to reach and treat an infirm young man. As the doctor attempts to traverse the wintry countryside and reach his patient, and ultimately return back home, he is confronted with four challenges: lack of transportation, the groom, the patient, and himself. While each event is a disparate challenge upon itself, together they conspire to exacerbate the bleakness of the doctor's situation and his powerlessness to control his circumstances.

Upon the opening lines, the exigency is apparent. Terse wording accentuates the desperation and hopelessness of the doctor's situation. I was in great difficulty. An urgent journey was facing me I was already standing in the courtyard ready for the journey; but the horse was missingthe horse. My own horse had died the previous night We discover there is an emergency, and an ill patient needs immediate care. However, the patient is ten miles away and the doctor is incapable of leaving, as his horse had died the previous night. Lacking a means of travel, the doctor stands piteous and useless, as his servant, Rosa, scours the town for a horse. Frustrated by his inability to reach his patient, he kicks open the cracked door of the pigsty to reveal what would both be the solution to his problem and a problem unto itself, the groom.

With the swinging open of the door, the smell of horses fills the air and a blue-eyed groom is revealed, crawling on his hands and knees, not unlike that of pig. The groom exits the sty, and to the astonishment of the doctor, brings with him two mighty steeds whose hyperbolic description suggests an unearthly quality, two horses, powerful animals with strong flankslegs close to the bodies, lowering their well-formed heads like camelsstraight, long legged, with thick steaming bodies. The doctor embraces this windfall without question and orders his servant Rosa to help the groom. The animalistic groom bites Rosa's face, evoking anger from the doctor. This anger is short-lived, however, as the doctor realizes he does not wish to antagonize the groom and lose his only means for transport. Though he does not desire to leave the groom with Rosa, to his frustration, the doctor is powerless to stop it. With a sharp clap of his hands, the groom sends the horses and the carriage tearing away into the night. To the sound of the groom's relentless pursuit of Rosa, the scene rapidly dissolves

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