presence in his home, often not seen but his presence is noticeable. It is discovered that Odradek can speak, another human capability. Throughout the story, the narrator provides an extensive analysis of Odradek, attempting to emphasize how the object has taken on a life of its own, displaying life like qualities and traits, as well as his silent relationship with the object. The narrator's main concern about the creature Odradek is revealed in the final paragraph: In vain I ask myself, what will happen to him. Can he die? Everything that dies has once had a sort of aim, a sort of activity, which has worn it out; this is not the case of Odradek. Will he therefore one day tumble down the stairs before the feet of my children and my children's children, trailing a line of thread after him? It's clear he does nobody any harm; but the notion that he might even outlive me is almost painful to me. The narrator fears that this purposeless object will outlive him. The family man, throughout the story, fears that Odradek will attack his role as the family man, the patriarchal figure in society. Interpretations Useless object Odradek appears to represent an object with no clear purpose or apparent use. It appears not unlike an exhausted spool for thread, wound about by "old, broken-off bits of thread, knotted and tangled together, of the most varied sorts and colors". However, the text makes it explicit that there is no apparent use for the object. As such, scholars such as Samuel Rammelmeier have argued that the obscurity and uselessness of the object serves to create a foil for the narrator. He argues that the object's apparent uselessness, when seen in light of the existential dread pervading the last paragraph, can be understood as underlining the narrator's lack of purpose. This is an opinion shared by Heinz Politzer when he states that Kafka's absurdist writing emphasizes the meaninglessness of its subjects' lives. Such an interpretation can be compared to the nihilist tone of Kafka's better-known work, The Metamorphosis. Critique of capitalism Willi Goetschel analyzes "The Cares of a Family Man" from several perspectives. From the perspective of Marxist literary criticism the story might be a critique of capitalism in its last stage. Odradek represents commodities, it is "what is left of life once everything is reduced to materialism". Anya Meksin agrees that this