Perrydox.com is devoted to the pursuit of truth, whether plain or paradoxical, whether simple or sublime, or simply absurd yet absolute.
Kafka, Cain, and Cages
Kafka wrote, “A cage went in search of a bird”. What did he mean? That’s debatable, but despite what he meant if he meant anything, I see a meaning behind this paradoxical aphorism: Humans crave the absurd.
A cage is a prison. Sennacherib called Hezekiah “a caged bird” after his siege that ended in failure and the death of 185,000 soldiers overnight. Despite his failure, being imprisoned within his own city walls is Sennacherib’s jab. Birds therefore do not seek out cages until they’ve been trained to be kept. Then, instead of freedom, they choose to be captured.
Being that a cage is an inanimate object that cannot truly search for a bird, to what can we compare this to? Can the inanimate be alive? To live in the absurd, it can:
“If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.”” (CSB’17 Genesis 4:7)
I suggest one answer is our own self. Our sinful self sets traps to trap ourselves. We are both the cage and the bird. We cage ourselves with excuses, doubts, harmful desires, and fears. None of these are alive, just as cage is not. But we imprison ourselves. We go in search of reasons to be enslaved instead of free. As Cain chose not to raise his face, he chose to raise his fist.
“Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent?” (Lit., “why has your face fallen) (CSB’17 Genesis 4:6)
“Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked (lit., “rose against”) his brother Abel and killed him.” (CSB’17 Genesis 4:8)
Take this where you want, which direction you see fit. As for me, sin is the cage that searches for me. And I am willing too often to be kept like a caged bird. I choose the absurd, to cage myself. I don’t claim to understand Kafka, too often I don’t even understand myself.
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