Franz Kafka allegorically elicited his inner life and ambivalence of the self and otherness. His "The Animal in the Synagogue" can be effectively understood in the same context. In many cases he paradoxically expressed what he wanted to deal in borrowing of materials from ancient Israelite literatures and saga, ancient Greek myths and western legends. For his purposes he 'kafkaly'(kafkaesk) transformed them into his own style. For example, in his "The Metamorphosis" the protagonist's name 'Samsa' was made by replacing consonant of his name 'Kafka' with the consonants of 'Samsa'. In the case of "The Hunter Gracchus" Gracchus derived from a Latin word 'graculus' which means 'a crow'. Then, Kafka in Czech means 'a crow'. He created "The Animal in the Synagogue" through the transformation of a kind of Ursage, the story of Huldah the prophetess in the Hebrew Bible(Kgs.22). Huldah is a female form of 'hld' which mean 'to dig', 'to hollow out', 'to craw'. "Huldah' in Hebrew means 'weasel', 'marten', which are the animals that loiter about the boundary of human life. 'Huldah' as a animal was regarded as an unclean, uneatable animal in terms of cultic purity. "Huldah' means 'impurity' in ancient Israelite dietary laws. However, "Huldah' as a cultic impurity means the prophetess Huldah who prophesied the future of Judah. The unique meaning of the name and the ambivalence of herself might attract Kafka's concerns. For these reasons, the animal in the synagogue resembles Kafka's self-portrait in terms being of abject of sympathy, apathy and a fear.

Franz Kafka allegorically elicited his inner life and ambivalence of the self and otherness. His "The Animal in the Synagogue" can be effectively understood in the same context. In many cases he paradoxically expressed what he wanted to deal in borrowing of materials from ancient Israelite literatures and saga, ancient Greek myths and western legends. For his purposes he 'kafkaly'(kafkaesk) transformed them into his own style. For example, in his "The Metamorphosis" the protagonist's name 'Samsa' was made by replacing consonant of his name 'Kafka' with the consonants of 'Samsa'. In the case of "The Hunter Gracchus" Gracchus derived from a Latin word 'graculus' which means 'a crow'. Then, Kafka in Czech means 'a crow'. He created "The Animal in the Synagogue" through the transformation of a kind of Ursage, the story of Huldah the prophetess in the Hebrew Bible(Kgs.22). Huldah is a female form of 'hld' which mean 'to dig', 'to hollow out', 'to craw'. "Huldah' in Hebrew means 'weasel', 'marten', which are the animals that loiter about the boundary of human life. 'Huldah' as a animal was regarded as an unclean, uneatable animal in terms of cultic purity. "Huldah' means 'impurity' in ancient Israelite dietary laws. However, "Huldah' as a cultic impurity means the prophetess Huldah who prophesied the future of Judah. The unique meaning of the name and the ambivalence of herself might attract Kafka's concerns. For these reasons, the animal in the synagogue resembles Kafka's self-portrait in terms being of abject of sympathy, apathy and a fear.

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Huldah, weasel, Josiah, synagogue, Hasidîsm, Kabbalah, Yahweh, Asherah