The Yiddish theatre, the Oklahoma theatre and Kafka's salvation

The author discusses Kafka's enthralment with the Yiddish theatre, which performed in Prague in the autumn and winter of 1911. Examination of Kafka's 'Diaries' suggests that an important factor in this response was his infatuation with two actresses. They evoked fantasies of avoiding oedipal conflict by surrendering adult male sexuality and its threat of castration by regressing to a prephallic relationship with a maternal woman who would provide a nurturing relationship. Later, when writing the final chapter of his novel 'Amerika' in 1914, he creatively expressed a derivation of this fantasy when the protagonist, Karl Rossman, achieved a sort of salvation by joining the Oklahoma theatre. In the final year of his life Kafka was able to leave home to live with a woman, and in this achievement he fulfilled aspects of this fantasy.