A Rough Start
Everyone today has struggled with fitting in with society and with different situations in life. An author who struggled with many issues, such as self-acceptance, Franz Kafka wrote stories that people could relate to and were intrigued by. Kafka originally did not plan to publish his manuscripts, however, he was urged to by a friend. Although he was insecure about his writing, he continued to write and was influenced by events in his own life. Franz Kafka wrote many dismal, yet meaningful creations based off of his difficult childhood while working at an insurance company after graduating from college and being in many relationships.
Kafka was born in Prague, Bohemia, in Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is now the Czech Republic
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(Barry). He grew up being the eldest sibling in a Jewish family, with three sisters and two brothers. Both of his brothers, Georg and Heinrich, died in infancy and each lived only a year (Robertson; Loveday). However, Gabriele, Valerie, and Ottilie, Kafka’s sisters, ended up outliving him and dying in Nazi death-camps during the Holocaust (Robertson). Their parents, Hermann and Julie Lowy Kafka, did not have much time for their children, who were cared for by household help (Barry; Loveday; Snook). Kafka always had a difficult relationship with his father Hermann, as he had very high expectations of him and gave Kafka constant criticism and scrutiny. For instance, his father wanted him to married, but also be a successful businessman. His father came up with those expectations having becoming a successful storekeeper after growing up poor himself (Barry; Loveday). When someone became upset, due to an argument or disagreement, Kafka’s mother would act as the “peacemaker,” (Barry). His mother came from a more elite family than his father, with a family full of scholars, doctors, and rabbis (Sulkes). After Kafka graduated from German secondary schooling, he began attending Charles Ferdinand University in Prague in 1901. Although he enjoyed reading and writing since he was a young boy, Kafka decided to study law at the university, in hopes of his father’s approval, and earned his doctorate degree in June 1906 (Loveday). Throughout his life, Kafka formed many relationships, but the one that influenced him the most was his relationship with his father. Previous criticism that his father gave haunted Kafka for the rest of his life which led him to be insecure and struggle with his own thoughts (Loveday). He did not think much of his manuscripts, however, his talent was recognized by Hugo Bergmann, Felix Weltsch, and Max Brod, who all encouraged him to continue writing (Robertson). Most of the relationships he had formed were purely romantic. On the other hand, Kafka had a fear of marriage and none of the relationships he had before had meant anything to him. Then, he met Felice Bauer in the summer of 1912 when he was 29 years old (Loveday). Bauer was a German secretary for a firm that made office equipment who lived in Berlin (Loveday; Robertson). Kafka and Bauer’s relationship was mostly long distance and carried through letters; they only met on 17 occasions throughout their whole relationship (Loveday; Robertson). He proposed to Bauer in 1913 and she accepted. He met with her parents at a hotel in Berlin in July later that year (Barry). Later, Kafka broke off his marriage with Bauer, but still remained in contact with her (Barry; Robertson). In July of 1916, they spent ten days together at a hotel in Marienbad (Robertson). A year later, Kafka proposed to Bauer a second time, but ended it again because he suffered from a tubercular hemorrhage. So, after their engagement was cancelled, he went to live with his sister in Zurau to improve his health and work on his writing . Shortly after that, he was in a relationship with a woman named Julie Whoryzek. His father disapproved of their relationship because of her poor background. Kafka seemed serious about their relationship and became engaged to her in 1919. However, he still broke off the engagement just days before their marriage (Loveday). Another one of Kafka’s major relationships was with Milena Jesenska-Polak, who introduced herself to Kafka by asking for permission to translate his stories into Czech (Barry). Polak was married, living in Vienna and separated from her unfaithful husband. Similar to Kafka’s relationship with Bauer, his relationship with Polak was mostly through letters. Kafka and Polak’s relationship began in 1920, but by 1923, the Polaks were back together and he ended all ties with Polak. Eventually, Kafka became interested in learning Hebrew to immerse himself in his family’s culture (Loveday). This led to him meet Dora Dymant in the July of 1923. Dymant was a young Jewish woman, half of Kafka’s age, who spoke Hebrew fluently (Loveday; Barry). The two of them had long term plans to be together (Loveday). He moved in with Dymant to Berlin in September of 1923, though his condition would worsen and compelling Kafka to move back to Prague with his parents in March of 1924 (Barry). After moving back home, he was placed in a sanatorium and asked Dymant’s father to marry her. Dymant’s father declined his proposal; his relationship with Dymant was the last one he had before he passed away (Loveday). Following Kafka’s graduation from Charles Ferdinand University, he began working at an insurance firm based in Trieste in 1907 as a clerk, which was a job that he kept for less than a year.
In 1908, he started a job at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute; he had to complete tasks such as handling claims for injuries and examining equipment at factories for safety precautions (Robertson; Loveday). Luckily, his job had flexible hours, so he had time to write after he got home at around mid-afternoon. Along with his work at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute, his father made him take over his brother-in-law’s asbestos plant for several years (Loveday). Eventually, Kafka’s condition escalated to the point where he began alternating between brief returns to work and stays in sanatoria. He filed for early retirement from the insurance company in 1922 (Robertson). While Kafka was still working for the insurance company and writing, he wrote stories between the years of 1912 and 1914 that dealt with complex psychological issues, such as guilt and judgement. During that time period, he had thoughts of suicide (Barry). His short stories and novels express feelings of inadequacy, struggle with power and other common feelings that people experience. Kafka’s novel, The Metamorphosis, dealt with the struggle between inner experiences and unknown forces. Kafka has little intentions of having his work being published, but he was urged to by Max Brod, a friend he met in college. Because of this, he published Meditation, in January 1913, and The Judgment, The Stoker, and a chapter of Amerika later that year (Loveday). Kafka also wrote a letter to his father that was 100 pages long, in which he attempted to justify his personality and passion for writing and to reconcile (Loveday; Barry). However, at the same time, it was an attack on his father’s previous treatment of him. Subsequently, Kafka gave the letter to his mother to give to his father, but she never gave it to
him (Barry). Influenced by his different relationships with people, Kafka wrote The Judgment, which was a semi-autobiographical story and added characters into The Judgment and The Trial that resembled Felice Bauer (Loveday; Sulkes). Throughout his whole life, Kafka was plagued with poor health; he often suffered from headaches and insomnia (Loveday). In August of 1917, Kafka suffered a lung hemorrhage (Barry). After proposing to Bauer a second time, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis; he interpreted his illness as a symbol of Bauer and the inner conflict he had (Loveday; Barry). Eventually, Kafka was forced to enter a sanatorium near Vienna in April of 1924 because his condition significantly worsened. At this time, he had advanced tuberculosis of the larynx and was unable to eat or drink as a result. Knowing that the end of his life was near, Kafka ordered Max Brod to destroy all of his manuscripts after his death. Brod did not follow Kafka’s orders, instead, Brod edited Kafka’s works and published them, one of which was Kafka’s letter to his father (Barry). Only seven of Kafka’s works were published in his lifetime, since he was highly critical of his own writing (Robertson; Loveday). Kafka succumbed to tuberculosis the morning of June 3rd, 1924 in Kierling, Klosterneuburg, one month before his 41st birthday (Loveday; Barry). The following week, Kafka was buried in Strasnice Cemetery in Prague next to his parents (Loveday; Snook). While he was alive, he was awarded the Theodor Fontane Prize and received a greater amount of attention after The Metamorphosis was published in 1915 (Swanson). After his death, Kafka became famous and is now recognized as one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century (Loveday).
In “A Hunger”, “The Penal Colony”, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Kafka succeeded in showing his individuals as obsessed with their profession; however their obsession caused their doom because society asks so much from an individual, only so much can be done. However, regardless of that, these individuals choose their work over themselves, and not even bad health or death can stop them. Because society places immures pressure on Kafka’s work obsessed character, they neglect their well-being and cause their own downfall.
As writers, neither Franz Kafka nor Flannery O’Connor received sincere approval from their parents concerning their art. While this fact in no way hampered their desire or ability to create beautifully haunting work, there is evidence that it left bitter feelings. In his letter to his father, Kafka states: “you struck a better blow when you aimed at my writing, and hit, unknowingly, all that went with it. . . but my writing dealt with you, I lamented there only what I could not lament on your breast.”
as a form of hired help since he had taken the job to pay for his
We as readers will never know the true reason behind Kafka’s Metamorphosis, but it is a masterpiece. It relates surprisingly well to today’s society, even though it was written between 1912 and 1915. The topic of metamorphosis is really universal, we as humans are constantly changing, growing and evolving. Works Cited Aldiss, Brian W. “Franz Kafka: Overview.” St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers.
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th Compact Ed. New York: Longman, 2013. 268-98. Print.
Stephens, J. “Franz Kafka’s personal life reflected in the Metamorphosis” The Kafka Project. 1999-2002. 13 November 2002. .
Sokel, Walter H. “From Marx to Myth: The Structure and Function Of Self-Alienation In Kafka’s Metamorphosis.” Critical Insights: The Metamorphosis (2011): 215-230. Literary Reference Center. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
The Metamorphosis is said to be one of Franz Kafka's best works of literature. It shows the difficulties of living in a modern society and the struggle for acceptance of others when in a time of need. In this novel Kafka directly reflects upon many of the negative aspects of his personal life, both mentally and physically. The relationship between Gregor and his father is in many ways similar to Franz and his father Herrman. The Metamorphosis also shows resemblance to some of Kafka's diary entries that depict him imagining his own extinction by dozens of elaborated methods. This paper will look into the text to show how this is a story about the author's personal life portrayed through his dream-like fantasies.
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. 1st ed. Translated by Stanley Appelbaum. New York: Dover Publications, 1996.
Franz Kafka, b. Prague, Bohemia (then belonging to Austria), July 3, 1883, d. June 3, 1924, has come to be one of the most influential writers of this century. Virtually unknown during his lifetime, the works of Kafka have since been recognized as symbolizing modern man's anxiety-ridden and grotesque alienation in an unintelligible, hostile, or indifferent world. Kafka came from a middle-class Jewish family and grew up in the shadow of his domineering shopkeeper father, who impressed Kafka as an awesome patriarch. The feeling of impotence, even in his rebellion, was a syndrome that became a pervasive theme in his fiction. Kafka did well in the prestigious German high school in Prague and went on to receive a law degree in 1906. This allowed him to secure a livelihood that gave him time for writing, which he regarded as the essence--both blessing and curse--of his life. He soon found a position in the semipublic Workers' Accident Insurance institution, where he remained a loyal and successful employee until--beginning in 1917-- tuberculosis forced him to take repeated sick leaves and finally, in 1922, to retire. Kafka spent half his time after 1917 in sanatoriums and health resorts, his tuberculosis of the lungs finally spreading to the larynx.
Hunger is a term that is often defined as the physical feeling for the need to eat. However, the Hunger Artist in Kafka's A Hunger Artist places a different, more complex meaning to this word, making the Hunger Artist's name rather ironic. The hunger of the Hunger Artist is not for food. As described at the end of the essay, the Hunger Artist states that he was in fact never hungry, he just never found anything that he liked. So then, what does this man's hunger truly mean? What drives the Hunger Artist to fast for so long, if he is truly not hungry? The Hunger Artist salivates not for the food which he is teased with, nor does he even sneak food when he alone. The Hunger Artist has a hunger for fame, reputation, and honor. This hunger seems to create in the mind of the Artist, a powerfully controlling dream schema. These dreams drive the Artist to unavoidable failure and alienation, which ultimately uncovers the sad truth about the artist. The truth is that the Artist was never an artist; he was a fraudulent outcast who fought to the last moment for fame, which ultimately became a thing of the past.
According to Houghton Mifflin & Harcourt, “The Judgment is considered the most autobiographical of Kafka's stories.” Although there are a great many perspectives from which to analyse any piece of literature, perhaps the three most relevant lenses to The Judgment are Freudian, biographical, and historical. Through these lenses, one can observe the vast and multitudinous parallels between The Judgement, Kafka’s life, and many of his other works. The similarities between Das verdict and Franz Kafka’s own life give us insight into his creative process. Kafka’s subconscious unrest with his family, his work, and the world at large was expressed in his writing.
No person that leads a normal life is likely to write a metaphorical yet literal story about a man transforming into a bug. That being said, no person that leads a normal life is likely to alter a genre as much as Franz Kafka did. With the unusual combination of declining physical health and a resurgence of spiritual ideas, Franz Kafka, actively yearning for life, allowed his mind to travel to the places that his body could not take him. In his recurring themes of guilt, pain, obscurity, and lucidity, are direct connections to his childhood and daily life. His family dynamic, infatuation with culture and theater, and his personal illnesses all shaped his imagination into the poignant yet energetic thing that made him so well-known. With all of his influences combined, Franz Kafka developed a writing style so distinct that he founded a semi-genre all his own: kafkaism.
Neumann, Gerhard. "The Judgement, Letter to His Father, and the Bourgeois Family." Trans. Stanley Corngold. Reading Kafka. Ed. Mark Anderson. New York: Schocken, 1989. 215-28.
Franz Kafka was a very intelligent writer of his times. Kafka was born in Austro-Czechoslovakia. He was mainly a writer of short stories, and complex diaries, yet he did publish a small number of novels. The works of Kafka have been interpreted as allegorical, autobiographical, psychoanalytical, Marxist, religious, existentialist, expressional, and naturalist. His novels have a wide variety of interpretations. Of his novels, The Trial is one of the more complex in aspects of literature (Bryfonski and Hall 288). The Trial was written with the intention of an autobiography for Kafka. The Trial delves into the mind of the victim, K., and also into many things not comprehended by Kafka himself. He wrote this book in order to better convey his questions that he pondered in his head, in search of an answer that was no where to be found, but perhaps in the workings of his fiction novels.