Gene+18-19+Glossary


 * Page 18-19:

Red Peter: ** Franz Kafka’s fictional character who is an ape and explains his life, or more specifically, his transformation from ape to something closer to man, to an assembly in “A Report to an Academy” by Franz Kafka (1917).


 * Kafka the Jew: ** Franz Kafka, born July 3 1883, died June 3, 1924 of tuberculosis. He was Czech but also spoke German, and was a Jew his whole life. His work has only become popular since the end of WWII, and that is due to the anti-Semitism of the Nazi regime. His best works are “Metamorphosis” (1915) and //The Trial// (1925). I assume he wrote in German and not Czech, but I could be wrong. Most of works were translated into English after WWII. Elizabeth Costello talks about “A Report to an Academy” and you can read the entire work here: [].


 * Gentiles: ** Hebrew, meaning everyone but the Jews, and used in a contemptuous manner.


 * Allegory: ** The representation of the abstract or some abstract idea, through fictional people or characters. In this case, Red Peter addressing an assembly is compared to Kafka the Jew speaking to gentiles. It is through the word gentiles that Costello establishes her point of view. Since “gentiles” implies the non-Jews are inferior to their Jewish counterparts, Costello is implying that Red Peter is superior to man, or at least the men he is addressing. This is could even lead us to assume that she is saying that animals, or beasts, are superior to man.


 * At face value: ** Literally, directly.


 * Abattoir: ** A slaughterhouse.


 * Trawlers: ** Boats, which use trawl nets (nets which sweep along the ocean floor). Elizabeth Costello is saying that these “Farms” exist everywhere.


 * Rhetorical power: ** The power to persuade someone, to communicate yourself. In this instance, Elizabeth Costello is saying that she could bring to life the horrors of the animals through her words, but she won’t. (THANK GOD)


 * Third Reich: ** Germany during the reign of Adolf Hitler (1933-1945).


 * Treblinka: ** A concentration camp in WWII, near Warsaw, Poland.