The Futility of Pride and Ambition Theme Analysis

“The Village Schoolmaster” is the story of two men wasting their energy on quests they fail to complete. The schoolmaster wants to win fame and fortune by proving to the world that an enormous mole exists, while the narrator wants to prove that the schoolmaster is credible. Both tasks are impossible, both men make fools of themselves, and throughout their labors, they both seem to have an inkling that what they’re doing is futile. By telling a story of obsessive quests that have no hope of success, Kafka explores the psychology of chasing futile ambitions. Kafka’s exploration centers on the men’s growing attention to each other: because no one else cares about their efforts, the men increasingly treat each other as outlets for their vanity and ambition. Through this, the story shows the sheer depth and durability of human pride. Kafka focuses his psychological portrait on the men’s thwarted efforts in order to suggest that ambition, in the absence of a meaningful goal or an audience that is invested in one’s achievements, is ultimately futile.

Both the schoolmaster and the narrator begin by trying to prove a point to the outside world, but Kafka suggests that their audience is small, or possibly nonexistent. This sets the stage for the men’s turn toward each other. The nature of the men’s plea for attention is public: they publish pamphlets for people to read, they seek audiences with the wider scientific community, and they have wild hopes about the social impact of their efforts. But Kafka thwarts these public efforts at every turn. The few people who seem to read the pamphlet are explicitly unmoved by its ideas: a yawning scholar dismisses the schoolmaster and the agricultural journal dismisses the narrator’s pamphlet in an obscure back-page notice. Only one reader keeps the narrator’s pamphlet—as an oddity—when the narrator recalls all copies. This gives readers the sense that the mole affair could only possibly matter to the two protagonists. Without an audience for their obsessions, their quests seem quite clearly to be motivated by proving themselves right. Additionally, to emphasize that their quests have no significant impact, Kafka depicts the outside world in the story as essentially nonexistent. The village in which the story takes place is never named, is not accessible by train,  and is never described socially or geographically.  No character in the story is named either, and Kafka details almost nothing of the protagonists’ private lives or backstories. The schoolmaster is known to have a family but mention of them—when he leaves them shivering in the snow while he debates the mole with a dismissive scholar—is brief enough to suggest that obsession with proving the existence of the rodent is more important to him than his wife and children are. Any potential influence the schoolmaster and the narrator might have in the wider world is therefore portrayed as nonexistent, and it’s clear that the men’s efforts are futile and ultimately detrimental to themselves and their love ones.

While both men are ostensibly obsessed with proving something to the world, they both seem to understand that they’ll never be able to do so. Nearly everyone in the schoolmaster’s village has forgotten about the large mole’s appearance. That even the people who saw the mole have forgotten it indicates that the quest to make the mole relevant is useless. The schoolmaster is the first to understand the futility of trying to sway public attention back toward the mole. He sees that his “fragmentary labors” are “basically without value.” The reader is told that he is accustomed to strangers’ lack of interest. He calls the mole affair a “thankless business.” When the narrator enters the picture, he immediately taps into the same sense of powerlessness that has gripped the schoolmaster. The narrator calls the schoolmaster “uninfluential,” yet describes his own abilities as “far from sufficient to effect a change” on public opinion. He describes his “useless labors on this wearisome question,” using words like “obscurity” and “desuetude” to describe the reception of their efforts. He recognizes that “enough time had elapsed to exhaust the trivial interest that had originally existed.” That the schoolmaster and narrator are aware of how fruitless their endeavors are serves to highlight just how powerful—and perhaps delusional—of an effect pride and ambition can have on individuals.

Despite knowing that their labors are futile, the narrator and the schoolmaster’s vanity pushes them to carry on in response to each other. After the narrator enters the picture, the schoolmaster becomes jealous, an emotion that develops into a central motive for him. The schoolmaster grows protective of the mole and is said to show a “keener penetration” into the narrator’s interventions than into his own arguments regarding the mole. This obsessiveness shows that the schoolmaster regards intrusion on the subject as a personal affront—which, in turn, underscores that he’s driven as much by pride as by scientific curiosity. Going forward, the schoolmaster concerns himself less with public opinion and more with the narrator. He responds to the narrator’s pamphlets with personal attacks and spirited complaints. Similarly, the narrator’s original intention was to improve the schoolmaster’s reputation in the public sphere, but the only audience he mentions reaching is the schoolmaster himself. Throughout the story, the narrator describes conversations and accusations between himself and the schoolmaster, suggesting that their real forum is one-on-one debate—not at all a dialogue with the broader scientific community, as they once alleged. In confining the schoolmaster and narrator to a bizarre competition with each other, Kafka adds a nuanced psychological evolution to the men’s original assertion of hoping to change public opinion. In the absence of a real readership for their pamphlets, the men end up treating each other as their audience instead. Rather than portraying this as some sort of admirable display of perseverance and dedication, though, the story ultimately portrays both men’s efforts as borne from pride and ultimately futile.