External links
-
Works related to The Helmsman at Wikisource
 | This article about a short story (or stories) published in the 1920s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
"The Helmsman" (German: "Der Steuermann") is a short story by Franz Kafka, written sometime between 1917 and 1923. The story deals with a man who is deposed from his role as a helmsman and complains that his shipmates refuse to help him regain his rightful position.
The story begins with a struggle between the helmsman, who narrates, and a stranger who refuses to accept his position, takes over the helm and drives the narrator away. The helmsman goes to his shipmates to complain and get their help, but, although they agree that he is the true helmsman, they seem to be hypnotized by the stranger, and do nothing to drive him away. When the stranger tells them not to disturb him, they withdraw, leaving the narrator to wonder, "What kind of people are these? Do they ever think, or do they only shuffle pointlessly over the earth?"
The story was not published in Kafka's lifetime. It first appeared in Beschreibung eines Kampfes (Prague: Verlag Heinrich Mercy Sohn, 1936). An English translation by Tania and James Stern was first published in Description of a Struggle (New York: Schocken Books, 1958).
A comic-book adaptation of the story, illustrated by Peter Kuper, is included in Give It Up! .
Works related to The Helmsman at Wikisource| | This article about a short story (or stories) published in the 1920s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
Metamorphosis is a novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915. One of Kafka's best-known works, Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect and subsequently struggles to adjust to this new condition. The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, with differing interpretations being offered. In popular culture and adaptations of the novella, the insect is commonly depicted as a cockroach.
"A Hunger Artist" is a short story by Franz Kafka first published in Die neue Rundschau in 1922. The story was also included in the collection A Hunger Artist, the last book Kafka prepared for publication, which was printed by Verlag Die Schmiede shortly after his death. The protagonist, a hunger artist who experiences the decline in appreciation of his craft, is typically Kafkaesque: an individual marginalized and victimized by society at large. "A Hunger Artist" explores themes such as death, art, isolation, asceticism, spiritual poverty, futility, personal failure and the corruption of human relationships. The title of the story has also been translated as "A Fasting Artist" and "A Starvation Artist".
"In the Penal Colony" is a short story by Franz Kafka written in German in October 1914, revised in November 1918, and first published in October 1919. As in some of Kafka's other writings, the narrator in this story seems detached from, or perhaps numbed by, events that one would normally expect to be registered with horror. Internal clues and the setting on an island suggest Octave Mirbeau's The Torture Garden as an influence. The story is set in an unnamed penal colony and describes the last use of an elaborate torture and execution device that carves the sentence of the condemned prisoner on his skin as he slowly dies over the course of twelve hours. As the plot unfolds, the reader learns more and more about the machine, including its origin and original justification.
"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by the American writer Herman Melville, first serialized anonymously in two parts in the November and December 1853 issues of Putnam's Magazine and reprinted with minor textual alterations in his The Piazza Tales in 1856. In the story, a Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copies or do any other task required of him, refusing with the words "I would prefer not to."
Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, published by McClelland and Stewart in 2001.
Tales of St. Austin's is a collection of short stories and essays, all with a school theme, by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published on 10 November 1903 by Adam & Charles Black, London, all except one item having previously appeared in the schoolboy magazines, The Captain and Public School Magazine.
A Wild Sheep Chase is the third novel by Japanese author Haruki Murakami. First published in Japan in 1982, it was translated into English in 1989. It is an independent sequel to Pinball, 1973, and the third book in the so-called "Trilogy of the Rat". It won the 1982 Noma Literary Newcomer's Prize.
Falling Up is a 1996 poetry collection primarily for children written and illustrated by Shel Silverstein and published by HarperCollins. It is the third poetry collection published by Silverstein, following Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974) and A Light in the Attic (1981), and the final one to be published during his lifetime, as he died just three years after its release. Falling Up was the recipient of the Booklist Editors' Award in 1996.. In 2015, a special edition of the book was published, with 12 new poems.
Typhoon is a short novel by Joseph Conrad, begun in 1899 and serialized in Pall Mall Magazine in January–March 1902. Its first book publication was in New York by Putnam in 1902; it was also published in Britain in Typhoon and Other Stories by Heinemann in 1903.
"Hypnos" is a short story by American horror fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, penned in March 1922 and first published in the May 1923 issue of National Amateur.
Hadji Murat, also written Hadji Murad is a novella written by Leo Tolstoy from 1896 to 1904 and published posthumously in 1912. Its titular protagonist Hadji Murat is an Avar rebel commander who, for reasons of personal revenge, forges an uneasy alliance with the Russians he has been fighting.
"The Stoker" is a short story by Franz Kafka. Kafka wrote it as the first chapter of a novel he called Amerika, but he abandoned the novel in 1913 and published the one completed chapter alone as a pamphlet later that year. Since his death, it has usually been published along with the uncompleted fragments of Amerika.
"Description of a Struggle" is a short story by Franz Kafka. It contains the dialogues "Conversation with the Supplicant" and "Conversation with the Drunk".
Betrachtung is a collection of eighteen short stories by Franz Kafka written between 1904 and 1912. It was Kafka's first published book, printed at the end of 1912 in the Rowohlt Verlag on an initiative by Kurt Wolff.
"The Cares of a Family Man" is a short story by Franz Kafka, originally written in German, between 1914 and 1917 about a creature called Odradek.
"A Little Woman" is a short story by Franz Kafka written between December 1923 and the end of January 1924. It was first published in the Easter supplement of Prager Tagblatt on 20 April 1924. During his final illness Kafka corrected the proofs of the story for the inclusion into collection A Hunger Artist published by Verlag Die Schmiede after his death.
Description of a Struggle is a collection of short stories and story fragments by Franz Kafka. First published in 1936 after Kafka's death by Max Brod, it was translated by Tania and James Stern and published in 1958 by Schocken Books.
"Poseidon" is a small piece of prose of Franz Kafka, written in 1920.
"My Neighbor" is a short story by Franz Kafka. It was written in 1917 and published in 1931 in Berlin by Max Brod and Hans-Joachim Schoeps. The first English translation by Willa and Edwin Muir was published by Martin Secker in London in 1933. It appeared in The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections.
Black Tickets (1979) is a collection of short stories by American writer Jayne Anne Phillips. The collection was published by Delacorte Books/Seymour Lawrence. In 1980, it won the inaugural Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction.