Franz Kafka
Biography
Franz Kafka was born in Prague, now in the Czech Republic but then part of Austria. His father was Hermann Kafka, an owner of a large dry goods establishment, and mother Julie (Löwy) Kafka, who belonged to one of the leading families in the German-speaking, German-cultured Jewish circles of Prague. Hermann Kafka was a domestic tyrant, who directed his anger against his son. Kafka also had three sisters, all of whom perished in Nazi camps. Many of Kafka's stories deal with the struggle between father and son, or a scorned individual's pleading innocence in front of remote figures of authority (1). Due to his line of descent, Kafka became an immediate outcast in the Czechoslovakian society. To add insult to injury, his religious affiliation, Jewish, did not mesh with the anti-Semantic Catholic country in which he lived, and even Kafka's parents did not have much contact with their son, due largely to the amount of responsibility that comes with owning one's own business (Contemporary).
Kafka's family situation was very stressed, even at times bordering on dysfunctional. Given the hatred he had for his father's domestic tyranny (1), it is reasonable to assume that much tension arose as a result of this. Add this to his societal rejection as a member of Prauge's Jewish minority and his family life really begins to shape up. Kafka was educated at the German National and Civic Elementary School and the German National Humanistic Gymnasium. In 1901, he entered Ferdinand-Karls University, where he studied law and received a doctorate in 1906. During these years Kafka became a member of a circle of intellectuals, which included Franz Werfel, Oskar Baum and Max Brod, whom Kafka met in 1902. About 1904, Kafka began writing, making reports on industrial accidents and health hazard in the office by day, and writing stories by night. His profession marked the formal, legalistic language of his stories which avoided all sentimentality and moral interpretations - all conclusions are left to the reader. (1)
Due to the the large amount of debts that began to pile up on his family's shoulders, Kafka retained a position in the aforementioned insurance company, still writing on the side (Contemporary). Until his retirement, Kafka worked at the insurance business (1907-23), first at an administrative position in a Prague branch of an Italian insurance company and then at the Workmen's Accident Insurance Institute of Prague. His work was highly valued at the company and during World War I his supervisors arranged for his draft deferment.(1 This is proof that he was not a socially inept person as some of his works suggest. However, in 1922, he left the company, no longer able to work due to the advancement of his illness. According to this source (1), Kafka had many girlfriends, affairs, and broken engagements. He also had one son (Contemporary).
Kafka pulled from his own life feelings of alienation whenever he wrote. He often mixed "prosaic realism and nightmarish, infinitely interpretable symbolism" in his works, and his protagonists were "driven to find answers in an unresponsive world, and they are required to act accordingly to incomprehensible rules administered by an inaccessible authority" (1964). In 1912, Kafka published The Metamorphosis, the longest of his works actually completed in his lifetime (1965). This work can be compared to Kafka's own childhood, alienated from his family (Contemporary). Living with an angry father, Kafka's protagonist Gregory Samsa also deals with issues regarding familial violence after his transformation into a giant beetle. Samsa, like Kafka, also feels a certain amount of loathing for himself--Kafka for his perceived failures, and Samsa for his inability to provide for his family, being a giant bug.
Other of Kafka's famous works include The Trial, The Judgment, Amerika, and "In the Penal Colony". Kafka died of tuberculosis in 1924. In his wake, he left behind two novellas, numerous short stories, and three unfinished manuscripts. The manuscripts, considered to be failures by Kafka, were published by the executor of his estate Max Brod, who disregarded the author's final wish to have them destroyed (1964). The following is Kafka's legacy:
- "Critically, Kafka's works have prompted a vast and varied array of interpretations. He has been hailed as a realist, an absurdist, a sociologist, and even, by Thomas Mann, as a comedic theologian. Some writers have emphasized the psychological in analyzing his works, others have concentrated on the Judaic aspects; some have traced his fiction as thinly disguised autobiography, and others have noted the same works as full-fledged fantasies. Consistent in these divergent interpretations is the respect accorded Kafka's works as unique and compelling, and the regard for Kafka as a literary master" (Contemporary).
Significant Works
- The Metamorphosis
- The Trial
- Amerika
- The Judgment
- The Castle
- Letter to My Father
Historical Period
Czech Independence
Czechoslovakia had been under the rule of the Austria-Hungarian Empire the citizens were weary of the “restriction of democratic rights in the Czech lands” (www.livingprague.com). A resistance to the oppression by the German influenced monarch built up during World War I. A lead “university professor, philosopher, and politician Tomas Masaryk” (www.livingprague.com) led the fight for Czechoslovakian independence abroad. On the home front resistance grew gradually until it was clear that “things were not in Austria-Hungary’s favor” (www.livingprague.com). Czechoslovakia became an independent republic on October 28, 1918.
Links
Works Cited
"Franz Kafka". April 17 2006. <http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/kafka.htm>
"Franz Kafka". Contemporary Authors Online (2003). Contemporary Authors. 17 Apr. 2006. Franz Kafka
Kafka, Franz. "The Metamorphosis." The Northern Anthology of Western Literature. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2006. 1964-1999.