ABSTRACT
The arduous process of decoding the language of dreams is somewhat analogous to the challenge of engaging with a complex modernist text such as The Cocktail Party. The Cocktail Party contains a peculiarly cryptic liturgical subtext that suggests a daring comparison between celebrating the rite of Holy Communion in a church and giving a cocktail party in a drawing room. Cryptic subtexts can be historical or ritualistic as well as literary and/or mythic. T. S Eliot initially did his best to keep concealed the subtextual presence of the Alcestis. In point of fact, Jean Racine took quite a bit from the Senecan subtext, starting with the title Phaedra, which replaces Euripides' Hippolytus. If there is any hypertextual play going on in Kafka's text in relation to any particular subtext, it must be in relation to a different kind of subtext.
