"The Top" is a short story by Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...

, written sometime between 1917 and 1923.

Plot summary

A philosopher believes that he could understand everything in the world if he were to understand a single element in it. To this purpose he tries to catch a child's top

Top

A top is a toy that can be spun on an axis, balancing on a point. This motion is produced in the most simple forms of top by twirling the stem using the fingers. More sophisticated tops are spun by by holding the axis firmly while pulling a string or twisting a stick or pushing an auger as shown...

as it spins, hoping that it would continue spinning in his hand, but it always stops the moment he grabs it.

Interpretation

The top could be seen as a symbol of the spinning earth - the populated world which the philosopher tries to understand. The irony implied herein is that by focusing on the top itself the philosopher ignores the other forces that set it in motion - the children and the string.

Some critics have noted a correspondence between the structure and theme of the story - the spiraling movement of the top is echoed by the spiraling structure of the story, as the sentences are at first of uniform length, then get gradually longer until the last line which is meandering and prolonged, like the top's last staggering spin and final collapse.