Following the Orion reference, "the boatman" is stated outright this time alluding to Charon, the ferryman of Hades who carries souls along Styx. This directly references the sea that the hunter is trapped on: the division between the world of the living and the world of the dead. This also serves as a potential reference to where Kafka acquired the idea for the appearance of the hunter windows would be shut, they would all lie in bed, with sheets thrown over their heads Max Brod, one of Kafka's closest friends and his literary executor who defied Kafka's wishes and published his work rather than burn it studied religions and might've been familiar with the pagan tradition of covering the face of the deceased to prevent the spirit from leaving the body to be a ghost for all eternity. Kafka might've lifted this idea to show how afraid the citizens of Riva would be if the hunter, a wandering spirit, would ask for help. Go back to the page The thought of wanting to help me is a sickness and has to be cured with bed rest. Rest cures were a very common way of treating sicknesses at the time this was written. Kafka at the time of writing this story was just diagnosed with tuberculosis and was going through the preliminary stages of seeking treatment. He would then be subject to rest cures for the years to follow up until the completion of this story in 1922. The fact that this is written at the end could match the timeline and Kafka's failing health even with the rest cures (with his death only two years later). Go back to the page I have lived for centuries. The hunter is now trying to solidify his place among biblical figures - a claim almost equating to himself as someone without sin for living an extremely long life. Biblical scholars have for years equated declining longevity in the bible to the introduction and practice of sin. Go back to the page And now are you intending to remain with us in Riva? "Remain in me, and I will remain in you" (John 15:4). Go back to the page it journeys with the wind which blows in the deepest regions of death. A typical end to Kafka's work. The ending is full of lament, anguish and anxiety. There is no end to the hunter who is to forever remain in purgatory - but aren't the people of Riva living in their own form of purgatory as the cycle of their mundane lives repeat? The accident of the hunter's fall deals less with death but the inability to die. Kafka's life closing soon in a very depressing fashion could lead him to believe that life itself is the true accident of existence. Go back to the page

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