Kafka's story introduces a protagonist who only hesitatingly steps into a grave prepared for him by the artist-writer. What K. has to understand is that writing can be a means of passing yonder and of being delivered of flawed existence, a subject Kafka dealt with since his early works. But K. only dreamt of his death and in fact lives on. The story contrasts the necessity to die with the will to live, thus exploring both method and limits of literature.