Contemplation In Franz Kafka's The Trees

Franz Kafka’s 1912 piece Contemplation, a series of short stories containing different instances of pondering as Kafka goes about his days, often revolves around questions of how the internal mind and external surroundings are connected. Out of the short stories in this work, The Trees is especially interesting to analyze as its few lines connect back to the rest of Contemplation and echo other intellectual thought of the time period. While this short piece is contradictory and seemingly illogical, when it is analyzed in context of the rest of Contemplation as well as other intellectual work of the time such as Georg Simmel’s The Metropolis and Mental Life, the reader can make a more sound analysis of the work. Kafka’s The Trees, only a few lines long, doesn’t initially seem to have a cohesive message. The pieces states…

“Because we are like tree trunks in the snow. They appear to lie smoothly and with a small shove one should be able to push them away. No it is impossible because they are firmly bound to the earth. But see, even that is only an appearance” (Kafka).

However, like tree trunks, they are deeply rooted to their environment. But, then he says the exact opposite, that people are not deeply rooted in anything, that is only an appearance. This short, contradictory piece may not seem to have concrete meaning, but it strongly relates to intellectual thought about what living in the city does to one’s mental life, and how both the external and internal self are