23 pages • 46 minutes read
Franz KafkaA Report to an Academy
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1917A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
The Cage
After being shot and taken captive aboard the ship, Red Peter was locked in a small cage. It was “no four-sided cage with bars, but only three walls fixed to a crate, so that the crate constituted the fourth wall” (2). There was not enough space for Red Peter to stand up or comfortably sit down, so he “crouched with bent knees, which shook all the time” (3). When trying to turn, the bars would cut his flesh. This cage is symbolic of how Red Peter deludes himself about his captors’ benevolence.
Red Peter notes, “People consider such confinement of wild animals beneficial in the very first period of time, and today I cannot deny, on the basis of my own experience, that in a human sense that is, in fact, the case” (3). This establishes a pattern in which he credits his captors for the effectiveness of their work.
While confined, Red Peter managed to achieve an inner calm, which he believes is the only reason that he managed to persist. Rather than credit himself for this achievement, he instead declares that he “owe[s] that calmness to the people on the ship” (4). At this point, he has started to believe that his captors cared for him in an altruistic manner.
Later, one of the captors tried to teach him how to drink alcohol. Red Peter struggled with this and the captor reprimanded him by holding his lit pipe against his fur. Despite the torture, Red Peter defends his captor’s actions, claiming that they “were fighting on the same side against ape nature” (6). While physically caged, it seemed that Red Peter also mentally confined himself in how he commended his captors’ actions. As a way to maintain hope in spite of his dire circumstances, Red Peter compartmentalized his captors’ abuse and deluded himself about their compassion. He was desperate for a “way out,” even if “the way out should also be only an illusion” (4). Through this desperation, he deluded himself into seeing his captors in a more positive light.
Imitation
To become human and find his “way out,” Red Peter focused on imitating his captors. He notes that, at first, “it was so easy to imitate these people” (5). He quickly learned how to spit and smoke a pipe. However, he struggled with learning to drink alcohol. Upon learning to drink, and then becoming drunk, he finally used human language, which greatly contributed to his ability to find a “way out.” Though he doesn’t have the same genetic blueprint as his captors, he made progress through his ability to observe and replicate. In the story, imitation symbolizes the ways in which apes might learn human behavior through observation rather than intuited through biology.
While Red Peter’s natural impulse is to seek a “way out,” it is through his observational abilities that he was able act on this impulse with any success. By watching the men closely and learning to act like them, Red Peter illustrated how one can advantageously mimic human behavior. To shed one’s “otherness,” it’s necessary to act similarly to the dominant group. When one becomes a member of the group, it becomes less likely that people will ostracize them or treat them inhumanely. By nature, humans and apes are both sociable creatures, but it is through observation and imitation that the individual is able to satiate the impulse to belong.
The Academy
As the story’s title indicates, the text is a report that Red Peter presents to the Academy. The story never explains who exactly belongs to the Academy, though this institution is science oriented. Despite the Academy being nameless and faceless, it is still an “honor” (1) for Red Peter to submit a report to it. The Academy represents the Kafkaesque bureaucracy that holds power over an individual’s freedom and sense of self-worth.
Clearly, it is important to Red Peter that the Academy views him as a peer. He notes that from “the small chimpanzee as well as the great Achilles” (1), all “humans” evolved from apes. Red Peter respectfully addresses the Academy members as “gentlemen,” while also encouraging them to see him as a peer who has similarly evolved beyond ape status.
Although Red Peter’s report is more of a colorful personal story than a scientific analysis, he closes his presentation by using emotionless language that is meant to appease the bureaucracy. In his final lines, he says, “I simply report. Even to you, esteemed gentlemen of the Academy, I have only made a report” (7). This quote illustrates the bureaucratic conditioning that Red Peter has undergone, which compels him to alter his behavior to gain approval from the Academy.
There are no details provided as to why people hold the Academy in high esteem; rather, its elevated status is apparently self-evident. In Kafka’s view, people often view bureaucratic agencies this way simply because they are pervasive and deeply interwoven with societal needs—and not because they truly improve the human condition. Here, the Academy represents such an agency.
Scar
Before taking him aboard the ship, Red Peter’s captors shot him multiple times. One of the shots hit Red Peter below the hip, leaving a scar. Red Peter likes to show people his scar and pulls down his pants to do so. Journalists have claimed that this behavior is exhibitionist, and thus a sign that Red Peter’s “ape nature is not yet entirely repressed” (2). Both physically and symbolically, the scar indicates Red Peter’s otherness.
Red Peter has worked hard to relinquish his apehood and obtain humanness. However, despite having “attained the average education of a European man” (7), humans still regard him as “other.” This infuriates him; when a journalist accuses him of apish behavior because he pulls down his pants to show his scar, he says that “that fellow should have each finger of his writing hand shot off one by one” (2).
Despite his attempts to focus on his existence as a human, rather than recall his past life as an ape, the scar is a reminder of his former self. It is a physical representation of his otherness, created by the ruthless captors that he learned to imitate in his attempt to belong. By showing the scar to other people, he tries to create an emotional connection that might better solidify his status as a human peer. But in this effort, society has deemed him uncivilized and “other.”
Related Titles
By Franz Kafka
