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Impure in Heart talks to
Shamefaced Lanky at length. At first, his words turn into finely dressed "little gentlemen" who make their way across the room and crawl into Lanky's ears. He goes on to tell Lanky "a merry mix" of stories while "stabbing his pointed cane into Lanky's belly" until he is content, then smiles and leaves. When Lanky is left alone he begins weeping and asks himself a series of questions about the visitor and himself, before finally returning to his knitting.
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The story describes a meeting between Impure in Heart, a dandy who lives in a big city "who got drunk night after night and was frantic night after night," and
Shamefaced Lanky, a tall and awkward man who has "crept off to hide his face in an old village" and knits "woolen socks for the peasants."
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It is unclear whether "Shamefaced Lanky and Impure in Heart" was written for the letter, which Kafka sent to
Pollack postmarked 20 December 1902, or if he had worked on it previously. All that Kafka writes about the story is that it is "new and hard to tell." It is similarly unknown whether Kafka
190:, who saw the story as an outgrowth of Kafka and Pollak's "passionate relationship," which "stressed the rhetoric of the body in a homoerotic setting." Mark M. Anderson claims that this "tense, erotically charged encounter" anticipates a similar struggle between two modes of life in Kafka's "
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considered publishing the story, or even thought of it as a stand-alone piece. The story has never been included in any collection of Kafka's fiction and appears only in
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However, Frederick Robert Karl claims that Impure in Heart was intended to depict the letter's addressee Oskar Pollak, an assessment also endorsed by
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Shamefaced Lanky is Kafka himself, while Impure in Heart is a portrait of his former classmate at the
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126:: "Der Unredliche in seinem Herzen") is the title usually given to
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178:(1883-1956), then a student of philosophy and a follower of
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440:The Aeroplanes at Brescia
405:Description of a Struggle
192:Description of a Struggle
52:Richard and Clara Winston
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248:Karl, Frederick Robert.
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733:The Problem of Our Laws
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498:The Great Wall of China
288:Oxford University Press
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897:Parables and Paradoxes
512:A Report to an Academy
1083:Statue of Franz Kafka
931:The Diaries 1910–1923
705:The City Coat of Arms
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965:Letter to His Father
876:The Complete Stories
109:Published in English
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1057:Franz Kafka Society
1000:The Office Writings
945:The Zürau Aphorisms
491:The Hunter Gracchus
458:In the Penal Colony
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38:Original title
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810:The Married Couple
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840:collections
838:Short story
824:On Parables
817:Give It Up!
754:The Vulture
635:The Refusal
603:My Neighbor
596:Eleven Sons
339:Franz Kafka
128:Franz Kafka
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663:The Burrow
561:The Bridge
426:The Stoker
366:The Castle
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359:The Trial
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883:The Sons
747:The Test
726:At Night
712:Poseidon
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215:New York
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768:The Top
519:A Dream
373:Amerika
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