FRANZ KAFKA

1883-1924
 Franz Kafka

• Born in Prague in 1883

• Middle Class Jewish Family

• Wrote in German

• Lawyer employed in an
insurance company
• Brotberuf = day job

• Died in 1924
• Complications from laryngeal
tuberculosis

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

 Kafka’s Family

 Parents: Julie and Hermann

 Defined by a complex, difficult relationship with his

father
 Theme in his writing: A son’s struggle with a domineering
father.

 Three sisters (Elli, Vallie, and Ottla), with whom he was

very close.
 All three sisters died in the Holocaust

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

•Had a tyrannical, authoritative
father

•Mother was submissive

•Forced to take an office job for an

insurance company

•Lived with his parents

throughout most of his life

•Died of tuberculosis at age 40

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

 Kafka’s Style

 “Kafkaesque”
 An absurd, endless, illogical bureaucracy
 Surreal and nightmarish
 Claustrophobic
 Delusions
 Kafkaesque is used to describe situations that are disorientingly
and illogically complex in a surreal or nightmarish way.

 Kafka’s stories and novels have provoked a wealth of

interpretations.

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

“Kafka is important
to us because his
predicament is the
predicament of
modern man.”

-British poet W.H.

Auden

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

MODERNISM: 1915 – 1945
• TIME OF SOCIAL BREAKDOWN AND REEVALUATION
• FRAGMENTED WORLD
• FEELING OF DETACHMENT
• DISTRUST OF THE PAST
• SEARCH FOR MEANING IN MEANINGLESS WORLD
• DEHUMANIZATION
• FEAR, ANGST, DESPERATION

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

Ms. Zenab Jehangir
Kafka has been linked to
several modern artistic or
philosophical
movements:
SURREALISM
EXPRESSIONISM
EXISTENTIALISM
MAGICAL REALISM
Ms. Zenab Jehangir
SURREALISM – allows the unconscious
mind to express itself; mixes dream images with reality

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

 EXPRESSIONISM – distorts reality
through exaggeration, visible brushwork, and strong color;
expresses innermost feelings rather than external reality.

Munch:
Evening
on Karl
Johan

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

 Existentialism
 19th century authors who focused on human existence &
behaviors, free will, and the overall meaning of life.
 Religions, beliefs, emotions = subjective things that were
focused on.
 Kafka often wrote about things like isolation, alienation, and
oppression.
 Existentialists believed that a human could not possibly know
all of the truths of things like science and philosophy.
 The Metamorphosis shows the absurdity of life and portrays an
irrational situation, which is part of the existentialist
perspective.

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

 ALIENATION
DOUBLE MINORITY STATUS

• Non-religious Jew
• Jews comprised 5% of the Prague population

• German was Kafka’s family’s first language

• Only 6% of the population of Prague spoke German
• Kafka spoke both German and Czech

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

LIFE:
ABSURD
AND
MEANINGLESS
Ms. Zenab Jehangir
Ms. Zenab Jehangir
 Magical Realism

 Kafka himself does not identify as a “magical realist,” but he is

an important predecessor

 The insertion of a magical event into realist fiction

 The “real” and the “fantastic” are treated in the same way.
 Goal: Reveal a deeper truth about reality or existence

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

 Magical Realism

 Often used for political commentary and social satire, esp.

by women and postcolonial writers
 Finding power within powerlessness
 Challenging the dominant “Western” ideology of linear
logic and time.
 Revolution against a Capitalist order.
 “De-centering” a hegemonic view of the world
 Hegemony = dominance of one social group or order over
another

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

 Narration
• 3rd person point of view
• Present tense - immediacy
• Lack of sentimentality
• Ironic precision with no authorial
intrusion
• Simple, not complex, syntax
• Uncomplicated characterizations
• Linear development of plot
Ms. Zenab Jehangir
 STRAIGHT-FORWARD
STYLE:

is in contrast with the

nightmarish tale itself
Creates irony
Adds to bizarre HUMOR
Makes absurd world the real
world
Ms. Zenab Jehangir
Publication of His Works
• Kafka before his death requested that all of
his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed;
Brod, as his literary executor, disregarded his
instructions and published his works

Ms. Zenab Jehangir

Thank You!

Ms. Zenab Jehangir