FROM SYMBOL TO METONYMY THROUGH KAFKA: MUNDO ANIMAL BY ANTONIO DI BENEDETTO

Abstract

This paper proposes a reading of Mundo Animal by Antonio Di Benedetto regarding animal stories of Franz Kafka. This reading mostly follows the interpretative line that Deleuze-Guattari have opened in the work of the Czech writer. The animal in Di Benedetto has predominantly been read as a metaphor for the human. Its symbolism, as a sense that goes beyond the fable, allegory and fantasy, has blocked the possibility of a non-metaphoric reading: to consider the animal becoming man and the man becoming an animal. This paper proposes a reading that restores the movement of imagination to the tales of Mundo animal: the one that breaks down the metaphorical game into a metonymic dynamic that makes the animal a literal feature of the human.