Ian Markowitz
Matthew Gonzales
(Friday 11-12)
16 November 2016
Franz Kafka once
wrote that “everything is mere imagination: family, office, friends
and streets – nothing but imagination; and, in the foreground or
background, woman. But the most imminent truth is that you are
pressing your head against the wall of a cell which has no window or
door.” This quote highlights the disconnect that Kafka felt between
his internal thoughts and reality. It also displays the sense of
anxiety and the feeling of being trapped which are central to many of
Kafka’s stories. Franz Kafka, who lived from 1883 to 1924, was a
German author in the modernist movement. His dark and surreal stories
emphasize the meaninglessness and incomprehensibility of the
institutions of modern life.
Kafka grew up in a
well-off Jewish family. His two brothers, Georg and Heinrich, died at
a young age. Of Kafka’s three sisters, all of whom were born after
him, he was closest with the youngest one, Ottla. Franz Kafka’s
overbearing father, Hermann Kafka, became an almost mythical figure
in his son’s life. A document which Kafka titled Brief an den
Vater (Letter
to His Father)
outlines the complex relationship between the two family members.
Franz Kafka rambles on for 100 pages on the way in which his father’s
aggressive manner turned him into a weak, guilt-ridden person. He
states that the arbitrary and unfair ways in which his father judged
him left the younger Kafka living in constant fear. Kafka
writes, “I have always hidden from you, in my room, among my
books.” Kafka
wrote the letter down because he could not bear to tell his father
how he felt in person. He gave the letter to his mother to deliver
it, but she chose not to pass it on to her husband.
Franz
Kafka had a different view of Judaism than his father. Hermann Kafka
went to synagogue only four times a year, yet felt a strong
connection to Judaism
due to his memories of Jewish life in his youth. Franz was torn
between, on the one hand, his father’s urgings that Franz
become more spiritual, and on the other hand his father’s lack of
actual observance. In Kafka’s work, Jewishness is rarely explicitly
present. However, themes of Jewish guilt and alienation play a key
role in his writing.
Kafka
studied law at the University of Prague, graduating in 1906. In 1907
he began work at an insurance company, writing in his spare time.
Kafka
found the routines of his office job to be torture, and he bore a
huge amount of stress from working all day and then writing at night.
During
his lifetime, Kafka published works including The
Judgment,
The Metamorphosis,
and In the Penal
Colony.
Kafka
came down with tuberculosis in 1917, which forced him into retirement
in 1922, two years before his death.
In
The Metamorphosis,
the main character, Gregor,
wakes up one day transformed into a monstrous insect. Gregor’s
family suffers while trying to take care of this repulsive creature.
The
unquestioning way in which Gregor accepts this change gives the story
an element of the absurd. The
themes of alienation and the disconnect between Gregor and his
caretakers serve as a powerful reflection on the effects of chronic
illness.
Before
his death, Kafka asked his friend, Max Brod, to destroy all of his
unpublished work. Brod ignored Kafka’s request, publishing the
books Amerika,
The Trial
and The Castle
in the years following Kafka’s passing. Kafka’s
legacy today is due to Brod, for Kafka
remained
mostly unknown as an author during his lifetime.
The
Trial is
the story of a man named Josef K. being persecuted for a crime he did
not commit. Josef K. is never told what crime he is on trial for, and
at first he does not take the case seriously. As
time goes on, preparing for this case which he does not understand
begins to consume his entire life. The
courts in Kafka’s story control everything and follow an intricate,
incomprehensible inner logic.
Kafka’s
influence is such that the word “Kafkaesque” has entered our
vocabulary in order to describe convoluted bureaucracies like the one
in The Trial.
Kafka’s
writing highlights how modern life involves dealing with systems
which are too large to understand. His
writing
is painful and claustrophobic, but its
dark humor helps the reader deal with this pain and accept the
reality of modern life.
Works
Cited
Birrell, T. A. "Some Notes on the Development of Kafka."
Blackfriars 30.347 (1949): 63-68. Jstor. Wiley. Web. 14
Nov. 2016. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/43813562>.
"Franz
Kafka". Encyclopædia
Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia
Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 16 Nov. 2016
<https://www.britannica.com/biography/Franz-Kafka>.
Kafka, Franz. Dearest Father. Trans. Hannah Stokes and Richard
Stokes. Richmond, U.K.: Oneworld Classics, 2008. Print.
---.
Metamorphosis.
Trans. David Wyllie. N.p.: n.p., 2002. Project
Gutenburg.
16 Aug. 2005. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.
---.
The Trial.
Trans. David Wyllie. N.p.: n.p., 2003. Project
Gutenburg.
13 Aug. 2012. Web. 16 Nov. 2016.
Neuse, Werner. "Franz Kafka." Books Abroad 9.3
(1935): 63266-268. Jstor. Board of Regents of the University
of Oklahoma. Web. 14 Nov. 2016.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/40076738>.
Absalom, Absalom! has proved to be very Kafkaesque in that the story-telling is convoluted and somewhat illogical and the story itself is nightmarishly complex and dark. Kafka definitely had an impact on Faulkner and the way he chose to illustrate his story.
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ReplyDeleteI thought your post was very interesting, especially the part about Kafka's reflections on him and his father's relationship. I read "The Metamorphosis" and personally found the story to be off-putting. But that may be exactly what Kafka wanted. I was disgusted of how little the family cared about George once he turned into the cockroach. It makes you think about the bond between family members and exactly how strong is it. His family members knew that the cockroach was George, yet treated him entirely different. Although turning into a bug is rather surreal, dramatic changes during a person's life is entirely possible and it puts into question how we view acceptance vs alienation within society.
ReplyDeleteKafka's works are very interesting. After reading The Metamorphosis it was evident that the story could be interpreted in various ways. This is similar to the novel we are reading now, Absalom, Absalom!, as this novel is about different interpretations. Both novels have this Kafkaesque feeling as they are dark and illogical and require a lot of "reading between the lines" on the side of the reader, in order to understand what is really happening.
ReplyDeleteVery appropriate for what we are reading right now. When you described how "Kafka’s writing highlights how modern life involves dealing with systems which are too large to understand," I could only think of how Faulkner eludes the reader with his words when dissecting the formation of racism and memory. Modernism, in some ways, is the tackling of these too-big objects through means that are original, innovative, and unconventional. Like Kafka, modernist writers are attempting to uncover the hidden, the "absurd," and all that which we take for granted.
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, Kafka's divisive relationship with his father parallels those in Absalom! Absalom! Henry and Bon both struggle to relate to their father, and their anger and miscommunication eventually drive them towards murder.
This is such an interesting topic. The way that Kafka thinks about voice in an era that needed voice to be heard loud and clear is incredibly depressing. However, I think it paints a reality that needed to be addressed and even possibly still exists today. The description of what is, or may be, reality is also very interesting to me. I have been thinking about memory in tandem with Faulkner's Absalom Absalom and it seems like these two were both incredibly interested in what is real. I feel Faulkner is trying to address the idea of memory and what memory is or could be in the narrative.Memories are not products of the past, rather they are products of the present. Memories change daily, even if the changes are microscopic, because they are filtered through our perceptions which are ever changing based on our present environment. How we feel and react to our surroundings affects how we perceive both the world around us and the world inhabiting us. What I mean by the world inhabiting us is that we are a culmination of experiences and memories and have been produced by said experiences and memories. Therefore, memories do not exist in the past but the present.
ReplyDeleteKafka is extremely relevant, regarding both Absalom, Absalom! and modernism more generally. The premise of The Metamorphosis—the protagonist awakens as an insect yet does not seem to question the circumstances of his transformation—conveys the absurdity of existence, a concept many modernists grappled with. In a world thrown into flux by industrialization and rapid change, the question of human existence and how it fit into this new version of society was a central one for many modernists.
ReplyDeleteI thought this post was very interesting! I haven't read any of Kafka's works yet, but from the descriptions you provided, I see very clear links between Kafka, modernism, and Absalom, Absalom! in terms of the complexities, the absurdities, and the "systems which are too large to understand".
ReplyDeleteFaulkner’s style of writing in Absalom, Absalom! closely resembles Kafka’s style seeing how in his approach to narrating one story, he invokes the point of views, and opinions of multiple characters, erratically switches from narrator to narrator, and avoids following a chronological unfolding of events to create a complex and highly diverse account to present a holistic picture to his audience.
ReplyDeleteOverall I love this blog post and discussion about such an interesting figure! I really liked your point about his struggle with religion in how his father pushed him tone more religious, yet himself practiced through memory and, it seems, more of a cultural connection than tangible connection. I could see how this could confuse Kafka about the processes and beliefs in the mind versus the workings of reality. Additionally it is interesting that Kafka seemed to live two lives- that at the insurance office, and that in his own home with his writing. From you post it become very clear from where and how Kafka could generate such intricate and confusing works!
ReplyDeleteI liked how thorough your blog post was. Khavka is a really interesting character! I wish you had made more direct connections to Absalom in your post, but I get where Khavka connects to the writing style of Faulkner. Faulkner writes in long winded sentences and lets the incoherence of the human stream of consciousness reflect in his writing style to make it more authentic. While I've never read anything of Khavka, from what I can tell from your blog post, Khavka's writing attempts to reflect how the human conscious processes and distorts reality, in a style similar to Faulkner.
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