《司炉》是卡夫卡长篇小说《美国》的第一章,在卡夫卡生前曾经作为一个独立的短篇发表过。这是少数得到作者本人认可而在其遗嘱里得以幸免的作品之一。和其他作品,尤其是《判决》不同,《司炉》更多地表现出了一种潜意识下对旧世界的诀别以及对自由的向往。卡夫卡曾多次强调过,这部小说比他其余的作品更让他充满希望的喜悦,也更“光明”。如果说《判决》所描写的父子关系是一种单向的、绝对的权威,那么《司炉》中的卡尔正是为 “Stove” is the first chapter of Kafka’s novel “The United States,” which was published as an independent short article before Kafka’s lifetime. This is one of the few works that the author himself recognized and spared in his will. Unlike other works, especially “judgments,” Stoves showed more subconsciously the farewell to the old world and the longing for freedom. Kafka has repeatedly stressed that this novel offers him more joyful and hopeful than the rest of his works. If the “father-son relationship” as described in the “Judgment” is a one-way, absolute authority, then Karl in The Stove is