ABSTRACT
The paradox of "The Vulture" consists in the fact that telling the story of the monster's absorption testifies to his expulsion. "The Vulture" is the story of a subterfuge, in which the predator who, at first, hacks at his victim, is suddenly engulfed inside him. Kafka's metaphor illustrates the trap in which the child finds himself when his mother—a mother not able to both repossess her son and expel him—suddenly has the urge to be enveloped by the child. The child who meets with non-response is refused the acknowledgement of having been affected and, at the same time, is deprived of his virtual illusion of being the subject who repairs the dissonance. Early seduction of the child, be it tied to soul murder or to sexual abuse, causes the child to take death into himself prematurely. Normally, a child absorbs and expels radical discontinuity, the trace of death—universal horizon common to all men, which can be celebrated in a ritual.
