Franz Kafka

DR. (MRS.) ILA RAO
Reader in English, Andhra University

Franz Kafka is one of the problem figures among modern novelists. There are many critics who are ready to swear that he was a “religious genius” and a great artist; there are others who believe that he was neurotic and that his works are psychopathological case histories, and there are some who are of opinion that he is a typical product of a ‘lost generation’ and hence not very normal. The justification for these violently opposed opinions can be found in the life and works of Kafka himself.

It is quite appropriate to say in the case of Kafka that his life story is the key to his works. He was born in Prague on the 3rd of July 1883. His father was a wealthy Jewish merchant who had worked his way up from humble circumstances. After having studied at the Gymnasium or Secondary School, Kafka joined Prague University, first as a student of Chemistry and German language and literature and then of Law. It was here that he made friends with his classmate Max Brod who published Kafka’s works ­posthumously. In the year 1906 he took his doctorate degree in Law and for one year after that he worked as a Barrister without pay at the Law Courts. His father, the shrewd man of the world, had however other plans for his son’s career. It is here that, the essential father-son conflict, which looms so large in the novels of Kafka begins. At the insistence of his father he worked for a year in the family business, and then switched over as an official in a workman’s insurance company. He deliberately chose a dull profession so that he could have enough leisure to pursue his literary work, yet, in spite of it, he suffered terrifically from the conflict between his need to devote himself fully to his literary activities and the demands of his daily work. Max Brod in his biography of Kafka gives great significance to the father-son conflict and to the reaction of the idealistic view to the materialistic demands or life and society. In 1914 Kafka became engaged to Felice Bauer who was a determined and practical woman a prototype of Kafka’s father. It did not take Kafka long to break off the engagement, as he developed a morbid fear of marriage being convinced that as a married man he would have to sacrifice his literary pursuits. As a matter of fact he wanted to give up his regular job as it hampered his literary work, but was prevented by the outbreak of the Great War, so he continued with the insurance company. He was granted exemption from military service on grounds of ill-health. In 1917 he became engaged again, and when arrangements for his wedding were being made he suddenly discovered that he was suffering from pulmonary tuberculosis, and he had to abandon his plans. He was retired from service with a pension, and he went to Berlin to devote himself to literature. But life was so difficult in Post-War Germany that his disease was aggravated and he was taken to Kierling Sanatorium near Vienna where he died in 1924 at the age of forty-one. The last few years of his life was brightened by his friendship with a young Polish girl called Dora Dymant whom he had intended to marry, but her father forbade it because Kafka was not orthodox. Also significant are his love letters to Milena, a married lady who translated his early works into Czech. On both sides there was love, but instead of a realization there was a helpless frustration, a feeling that is very well illustrated in his works.

Kafka was most probably too critical of his works, so that he shrank from publishing them. During his lifetime Max Brod persuaded him to publish a volume of short passages, the first chapter of his novel America, and a few other short pieces. But, his views about publicity remained unchanged to the very end. In a letter written before his death to his friend Max Brod, he says...

“Dearest Max, my last request: Everything I leave behind me (that is, in the book cases, chest of drawers, writing table, both at home and in the office, or wherever anything may have, got to, whatever you happen to find) in the way of note-books, manuscripts, letters, my own and other people’s burned unread and to the last page..” ¹

In the Epilogue to The Trial, Max Brod explains how he decided to disregard the injunctions of his friend and publish his works. He also gives his own interpretation for Kafka’s reluctance for publicity...

“His unwillingness to publish arose in the first place from certain unhappy experiences that drove him to a kind of self-sabotage and therefore to an attitude of Nihilism regarding his own work; in the second place, however, it arose independently from the face that he applied the highest religious standards to all works of his...and of course, it always fell short of these standards wrong as it was from his own perplexities.” ²

The tendency of Kafka’s work and art is a development towards proportion and clarity though the initial confusion and mental unrest still prevails in his later works. Though they still have the atmosphere of obsessions and hallucinations, they symbolize an achievement of security and peace. One feels that the tension of his earlier works has softened to a ‘tender humour.’

            The Description of a Struggle is the first long work of Kafka; The Trial, The Castle and America, published after his death, are three allegorical novels, and they are undoubtedly his greatest works. All his writings were in German and we are indebted to Edwin and Willa Muir for the translations into English. In his introduction to some of Kafka’s short stories, Edwin Muir also remarks how the atmosphere of tension of his early works becomes less oppressive in his last works “There still remains a sense of vast and incom­prehensible powers presiding over human destiny, but they no longer press upon the hero so stiflingly.” ³

Max Brod referring to the three novels calls them a “Triology of loneliness”. All the three are unfinished perhaps because Kafka considered the theme of each to be a quest for the infinite, and there virtually cannot be an end. Besides these, there are numerous short stories and aphorisms that Kafka has written. The most well-known are “The Great Wall of China”, “The Metamorphosis”, “The Mole” “The Burrow and The Investigations of a Dog.” In all these stories, though the problems are the same as in the novels there is a considerable change in attitude and what is most remarka­ble, there are faint traces of humour.

            The Trial is the description and narration of a crisis in the well ordered existence of Joseph K, who is a Chief Clerk. One day he is arrested in his room by two policemen sent by a mysterious court, and he is charged with a crime the nature of which is unknown either to him or to the policemen. Kafka begins the novel with an account of the arrest, as it is the pivot on which will revolve the author’s views of the world, the legal courts and its proceedings, human beings and their actions, and the final triumph of Death. The beginning in the usual style of Kafka is abrupt and effective...

“Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning.” ⁴

When K asks why he is being arrested the officers gave a negative reply as they do not know nor care what the crime is. So, K, in his humility and wish to co-operate with the authorities, drops his work and puts on the air of a guilty man and works to push his case to a decision. His uncle tries to help him and secures the services of an important advocate to argue his case, but this man astounds K with the news that no case is even settled in court by arguments but is settled out of court by influence and bribery. But, in this case none of these methods work. Desperate with this mood of inactivity, K starts invading the Judicial Offices where he makes a nuisance of himself as nobody has ever heard of his case. Haunted and pursued by the sense of this unknown crime and trial, K feels that there is some sinister authority that is ever watchful of his feelings and actions and is becoming annoyed by his anxiety for justice. K therefore becomes paralysed by a sense of fear. Finally the day before K’s thirty-first birthday two other policemen show up and take him to the edge of the town and give him a knife and ask him to slit his throat with it and when he refuses, they themselves push it in and end his life. Thus, the quest remains unfinished, the crime remains untold and the final act closes with death. Yet, how futile is death, and it is not the means of realization but is just the inevitable end. It is not the story that is important in The Trial, but the symbolic significance. It is the story of the individual and his re-action against spiritual powers which he does not understand. K had been leading a normal existence without a sense of guilt. His crime is not that he has been immoral, but that he has lived without taking thought of what is beyond life. His arrest is the symbol of his awakening to life. Apart from the symbolistic aspect, the novel is also supposed to be an exposure of the evils of bureaucracy. It is something like a satire upon the delays of justice and red tape, which is the death of the average man. K committed the fault of acting on principles which are real in the spiritual world but are a fantasy in the material: he therefore provokes the powers of evil that control the material world and promoted its revenge in his own death.

            The Castle which is Kafka’s next novel is something like a nightmare in which movement is retarded at every step by an obstacle. The view of life and its problems presented in The Trial can hardly be accepted as the final word and The Castle seems to be a further exploration of the possibilities of life. Here too, the hero is incognito and is called ‘K’. The novel begins with the arrival of K to the village at the foot of a castle where he is supposed to have been appointed as land Surveyor. It is late, in the evening when he arrives and he seeks lodgings at an inn. When he is asked to leave the village as no one can remain there without special permission from the court of the castle. He explains that he is the land Surveyor. K starts making endless efforts to get in touch with the authorities in the castle. He learns that the person of importance is the Chief caned Klamm; he tries to get in touch with this official and gets involved in a love affair with Klamm’s mistress Frieda, but this also comes to nothing. To keep himself going he has to accept a job as janitor in the village school and that also ends in a fiasco as his two assistants Arthur and Jeremiah create a good deal of confusion. In the meanwhile the two assistants make themselves such a nuisance that K gets rid of them and it results finally in his losing Frieda to Jeremiah. It is his constant striving for an audience with the officials of the castle and his apparent neglect of Frieda that results in this end. By constantly directing his gaze on the unachievable he is deprived of all that is within his reach. The striving for the infinite leaves all material possibilities unfulfilled. This view of Kafka is very similar to the idea of the existentialist Philosopher Soren Kierk­gard whom he admired so much. Objectively, eternal truth can never be grasped; it always lies in uncertainty when approached in this manner. So, a man who seeks for truth has to do so subject­ively and thereby he estranges himself from the normal human relationship, for example K’s alienation from Frieda. As in The Trial Joseph K is summoned because he did not seek the Truth; in The Castle K starts out in quest of the truth and finally turns out to be incapable of his venture. The heroes of both the novels are intellectuals, and life ends on a note of unfulfilment.

The third novel in the series America, though in idea it is unfinished, at least ends on a note of finality or peace for the hero. Apart from the technique of narration, the novel is an important development in the idea stated in The Trial, that is, of the isolated individual in society battling against various factors and trying to gain a glimpse of the ultimate reality. This novel is also an expansion on the son–father conflict. Just as the land Surveyor in The Castle breaks away from his home and country, Karl Rossmann the hero of Americais sent away to America by his father because a servant girl seduced him and had a child. At the age of seventeen he is sent away from his family circle to a foreign country so that he may build up a life there. At New York harbour just as he is about to leave the ship he realizes that he has left his umbrella down below in the ship and he goes to get it. He loses his way in a maze of corridors and he meets a Stoker who complains to him about the treatment he has got from the Chief Engineer. Karl sympathizes with him and together they go to the Cashier’s office where the Stoker makes his complaint to the Captain who happened to be present. All the officials present in the room turn a deaf ear to the cause of the Stoker, so Karl pleads for him. When he gives his name, a gentleman of prosperous appearance, a senator, standing near the Captain recognizes him for his nephew. The Senator takes Karl to his home and the Stoker’s cause is left without a chance of redress. In the luxurious home of his uncle Karl is kept more or less under house arrest. The uncle casts him off however, when one day he disobeys orders and visits a friend of his uncle. He starts work as a lift boy in a hotel but he is dismissed. After various adventures in the glamour world of New York, he finally finds refuge and happiness in “The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma, where all workless people find peace. In spite of all these experiences and confusion in the labyrinths of a wicked city life, Karl remains innocent and good. Karl wants to progress beyond his start, and his plans for the future always play an important part in his life. He has all the opportunities before him but he never develops; his character is such that it does not permit growth. The whole problem is an attempt to adapt the individual with the world, and no matter how he tries Karl is rejected again and again when be finally finds peace in “The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma”, where the ego is preserved against forlornness and isolation in a vast world. Thus neither in The Trial, The Castle or in Americais he able to arrive at an answer to the problem, namely the existence of the individual in the world in relationship to truth and the ultimate reality–the problem of bringing the spiritual and material together without injuring their essentially contradictory natures. In all these novels the influence of Kierkegard is very obvious.

If the individual in his quest for truth in life has a supreme sense of loneliness and isolation in society, how much more would it be if the human shape was transformed into a creature of the lower orders of creation? If in the former case the isolation is in the imagination, here it will be actual. The sense of isolation, persecution, fear and the son-father conflict are very well crystallized into a short story, “The Metamorphosis”. The very idea is so repulsive that the story reads like a terrible nightmare or hallucination.

The central figure in “The Metamorphosis” is Gregor Samsa, a commercial traveller who, after the failure of his father’s career, has been working to support his family of his father, mother and sister. One morning when he wakes up from sleep he finds himself transformed into a gigantic insect. He has his conscious­ness and he is fully aware of his existence, but his outward shape makes it impossible for him to continue to work and live in society in the normal manner. When his parents go into his bedroom and see his transformed state they are thrown into a panic and are horrified. His mother and sister start weeping, but his father in great disgust drives him into the room with a stick. He is kept locked in his room and his sister brings him food regularly. One day he manages to escape into the living room while his sister is cleaning his room and his father who comes home at that moment chases him round the room with the intention of killing him. The mother intervenes and implores the father not to kill him. From then on they leave the door of Gregor’s room half open so as to enable him to see the family as they sit together. With the loss of Gregor’s income his father has to go out and work and his mother has to take in lodgers. One evening the lodgers make his sister play the violin and Gregor attracted by the music and forgetting himself slowly creeps into the room. The gigantic insect covered with dirt and dust terrifies the lodgers and Gregor is chased into his room. Throughout the night he ponders over the situation in deep dejection and towards morning he dies. His death gives his family a great sense of relief and they all celebrate by going on a picnic.

In the last year of his life we find Kafka concentrating on short stories, and all concerned with animal life. His views of life and society finally find a complete expression in his “Investigations of a Dog,” and “The Burrow.” One can see in the “Investigations of a dog” a similarity with Kierkegard’s ideas of subjectivity. The dog has no inner paradoxical connection, but he is interested in the immediate. Though in this story there is a note of redemption it does not reach fulfilment. Kafka’s own strivings for the fundamental experience are translated into the experiences of the dog. In the story called “The Burrow”, the narrator is a lonely nervous animal, and it lives in a burrow which consists of complex passages and defence spots. The Burrow begins where The Castle ends. One day the animal hears a noise that seems to come from an enemy invading his home, and all its defence measures seem to be useless against this unknown enemy. The story ends with a description of this situation. The burrow symbolizes an achieved security in the world, and this security is checkmated by the final threat namely death. The carefully built-up structures seem of no value when faced with the final act. This story is something like a terminus in Kafka’s creative development, as it is the last work he wrote before his death. Writing about Kafka’s last works Edwin Muir says,

“The note of urgency which gave such a strange muffled power to his earlier and middle work has considerably weakened. One feels that the extreme tensions of the conflict is over, and that he can contemplate it now almost as a memory, or with the eyes of one who will soon be delivered from it.” ⁵

It can be understood that the leading motifs in the works of Kafka are fear, isolation, frustration, the sense of persecution, the feeling of being guilty without cause, observations and hallucinations. It does not however confirm the fact that Kafka was a psychological case and that his works were the products of his diseased personality; nor can we say that his mentality was so distorted and contradictory that he was incapable of the commensense of everyday life. There is no doubt that there were certain defects in the personality of Kafka and that the sense of unfulfilment in his life was largely responsible for some of his dominant ideas. In a certain sense, we have to admit that Kafka’s works had for him primarily a therapeutic function, a medium through which he relieved the tension in his life. The dilemma with which his characters are faced are in actuality the problem that confronted him.

Kafka was an artist in the true sense of the term, as like many other authors he was least concerned with his public, and wrote not for popularity but for the sake of writing; this is one of the reasons why he wanted all his writings to be destroyed.

The simplest answer to the problem of Kafka would be to say that his works are the ravings of a psychologically unstable character. He himself has classified his works as an “attempt at flight from father”. In his letter to his father he writes, “You were the subject of my books. In them I poured out the sorrows that I could not pour out on your breast. My writing has been a purposely drawn out parting from you. There is no doubt that Kafka did undergo an emotional suppression and the result was an introspective attitude, isolation from society and a ceaseless analysis of his own actions and motives. The view that Edwin Muir has about the works of Kafka seems to be the most illu­minating idea that we can consider.

The problem with which all Kafka’s work is concerned is a moral and spiritual one. It is a two-fold problem, that of finding one’s true vocation, one’s true peace, whatever it may be in the community; and that of acting in accordance with the will of heavenly powers”. ⁶

There are always two courses in life: one is to adapt oneself to the community and its values and to integrate oneself into its conventional pattern; the other is to reject life because of its blind conventions and live according to standards that conform to spiritual life. Kafka had neither the courage to completely reject the first course or the strength to plunge into the second–his dilemma is the dilemma of modern existence. Kafka’s novels are studies of individuals who long for a proper place in the community, but can never find their allotted positions. Kafka is in reality concerned with an external problem–life and society in a changing world in which traditions and customs have lost their significance. People today are going through a period of unusual instability and anxiety to solve the problem but that he has been able to realize it; and give artistic expression to it.

It would be appropriate to conclude with what F. W. S. Myers says with regard to St. Paul­–

“Desperate tides of the whole great world’s anguish
Forced through the channels of a single heart.”

¹ The Trial, Kafka. P. 251.
² The Trial, Kafka. P. 250.
³ Description of a struggle, Kafka. P. 13.
⁴ The Trial, Kafka. P. 1.
⁵ Description of a struggle, Kafka. P. 13.
⁶ Great Wall of China, Kafka. P. 14.