Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

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Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

• "I think we ought to read only the kind of
  books that wound and stab us...We need the books
  that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us
  deeply, like the death of someone we loved more
  than ourselves, like being banished into forests
  far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be
  the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

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Kafkas Life

• Born in 1883 into a middle-class, German-speaking
  Jewish family in Prague
• Studied law
• Worked at an insurance company in order to
  support his parents
• Had very little time to devote to his writing
• Contracted tuberculosis in 1917 and was supported
  by his sister and parents
• Had few relationships, broke two engagements and
  lived with a woman on his deathbed.
• Suffered from clinical depression, social
  anxiety, and several other illnesses triggered by
  stress
• Died in 1924 from starvation when his
  tuberculosis worsened and could not swallowed

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Kafkas Alienation

• Felt he was an outsider
• Jewish in Catholic Prague didnt feel he had
  anything in common with his heritage (or himself
  for that matter)
• Obsessed with being Sickly both physically
  and mentally
• Lonely - forced privacy, aversion to sexual
  relations
• Perceived human beings as being trapped by
  authority in
• a hopeless world stems from issues with
  his own father from which he felt he was always
  trying to escape "My writing was all about you
  all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I
  could not bemoan upon your breast. It was an
  intentionally long-drawn-out leave-taking from
  you."
• Became frustrated at having to support his family
• Had to work in a meaningless bureaucratic job
  where he was just another pencil pusher

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Modern Alienation Fragmentation

• The city
• Dehumanization
• Modern means of productiondivision of labor
• Sense of worthlessness
• Acceleration of life and travel
• Mechanization, bureaucracy
• Class stratification

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Kafkaesque
A situation in which someone is at the mercy of a
collective logic that he or she does not
understand and perceives to be comically absurd.

• Metamorphosis A traveling salesman is turned
  into a bug in the first sentence

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Kafka Three Movements

• Expressionism
• Surrealism
• Existentialism

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Expressionism

• Seeks to reproduce not objective reality but the
  subjective reality which people, objects, and
  events arouse in us
• Depicts a psychological or spiritual reality
  through distortion and/or exaggeration
• Presents the distorted, exaggerated situation as
  if it were completely real
• Emphasizes visionary experience
• Pierces the surface of things to reveal essences
• Explores how to transcend the material world
• Replaces concrete particulars with allegorical
  forms

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Surrealism

• An artistic movement that focused on
  impossibilities and contradictions that suggested
  the subconscious reality of the dream world
  rather than the tangible reality of the physical
  world.

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Existentialism

• The most significant philosophical movement of
  the 20th century, EXISTENTIALISM is the belief
  that reality, in any meaningful sense, must be
  created through individual actions and choices.
• Existentialism is the opposite of
  ESSENTIALISM, or the belief that reality,
  meaning, and significance precede individual
  actions and choices.

• Essentialism To be is to do.
• Existentialism To do is to be.

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Non-Existence

• For existentialists, failure to act in any
  meaningful way becomes a failure to exist.
• Failure to act for oneself becomes a failure to
  define oneself.
• Selflessness, usually seen as a virtue in
  essentialist thought, becomes literally the
  absence of a self.

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Meaning of The MetamorphosisPart 1
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Gregor Samsa represents a specific type of
behaviorthe fear of being alive with all of its
risks/rewards, living a submissive vermin-like
lifewhich, in the end, is transformed into the
acceptance of life with all of its vicissitudes.
Kafka and Samsa share a lot in terms of
personal struggle. Supporting an unappreciative,
disconnected family, struggles with a difficult
father, not living their own lives fully. The
name Samsa is important in two ways it is a
cryptogram of Kafka. And when broken apart,
Samsa means I am alone.
The Inner Metamorphosis
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Biological Metamorphosis

• Takes place in distinct stages
• larval stage
• then enter an inactive state called pupa or
  chrysalis
• finally emerge as adults
• Gregors transformation parallels this
  metamorphosis.
• Gregor learns about who he really is through an
  overwhelming psychological experience that turns
  him inward.His first step in this journey is
  disobedience - Refuses to go to work -
  Refuses to follow the rules of etiquette

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Gregors greater concern with missing work than
over his transformation- The picture of the
woman and the handmade frame- The disconnected
terms used to describe his new form- The firm
and the manager - The uselessness of the bug
body until it walked on the floor as a bug
should- The father shooing and hissing at Gregor
Important Images
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Meaning of The MetamorphosisPart 2
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Continued Metamorphosis

• Gregors tastes have changed. Kosher,
  acceptable, foods no longer interest him.
• He heals far faster than he used to as a human.
• He now prefers tight spaces but also runs along
  the ceiling which energizes and amuses him.
• He is not only untouchable but also invisible.
  He hides himself from his family under a sheet
  because he upsets them. No longer a useful
  member of the family, he is a burden. Gregor
  pities his family and their financial situation
  more than himself, and they also pity themselves
  more than him too.

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The Actions of the Family

• Grete is the only relative who tends to Gregor
  for over a month. But she still does not talk to
  him or treat him like her brother.
• Cleaning up
• Feeding him (garbage)
• His mothers distress over his son shows a
  pent-up love that hasnt been expressed in a long
  time. Gregor is surprised to hear his mother
  directly showing concern for him. Her maternal
  instinct, though, is more wrapped around hope
  that hell transform back, not for the current
  insect Gregor.
• Gregors father takes a forceful, dominant
  position above his son after he takes charge of
  the family again. He does not understand
  Gregors change and does not wish to sympathize.
  He is aggressive in dealing with Gregor what
  sort of father pelts his son with fruit?
• Gregors father saving a nice chunk of the money
  that Gregor earned, forcing Gregor to work a year
  or two longer than he had to, is another symbol
  of his fathers lack of concern over his son

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Meaning of The MetamorphosisPart 3
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Continued Metamorphosis

• Getting sicker and sicker because of his fathers
  actions. Family opens a door so he can hear them
  talk in the evenings, but no one removes the
  apple.
• that old dung-beetle (wingless grub to
  hardworking to vile to divine)
• The term insults Gregor, but this is the only
  person who accepts him in this form
• Appreciating music heightened senses and/or
  dreamlike perspective with a very human spiritual
  awakening
• Death by self-imposed starvation, sacrifice

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The Actions of the Family and Boarders

• The boarders definitely are comedic characters,
  but also have a horrifying one-ness about them.
  They are much like the business world that
  Gregor has had to deal with as a salesman
  demanding, work in packs with the same mentality,
  and with no concern over hurt feelings.
• Grete reaches her breaking point. Theres
  importance in what she says about Gregor during
  her rant. She says he isnt Gregor but just a
  monster, and yet, she thinks that he should
  have used human insight and sympathy to leave his
  family and never return.
• Father and Mother turn into Mr. and Mrs. Samsa.
  More estranged.
• Note, the trio were able to write excuses lies
  to get out of work when Gregor died. Recall that
  Gregor was unable to do this as a salesman.
• The end appears happy and splendid, but look
  again. The mother and father are urging Grete
  into finding a husband. Her and her brothers
  dream for her was for her to go to a Conservatory
  school.
• Her parents may be starting to dehumanize
  her just like her brother.