Distorted Reality of Franz Kafka - Term Paper Example

22 May Kafka’s Distorted Reality Analysis Paper Franz Kafka was one of the greatest German novelists there ever were. His works have helped to change the world and bring about an evolution in human thinking with respect to surrealist thinking. He wrote often in long sentences, delivering his words through his stream of consciousness, and also used a vast variety of very ambiguous terms and words in his works. His words had double meanings, enough for his readers to delve into his thoughts and spend time moralizing on his written word. Most of Kafka’s works include a reality that is quite ‘distorted’ in the real sense. This paper is thus a comparison of his works with respect to other great novelists during the time and how human relations, through his works, may be rendered profound. Kafka, despite reverberating in all his greatness, was always consumed by the fact that death was absolute and approaching him almost all the time. He soon became obsessed with the fact and put forth a number of statements with respect to killing Jews all around him. In one of the articles chosen, it has been mentioned that, “Sometimes I'd like to stuff all Jews (myself included) into a drawer of a laundry basket-then open it to see if they've suffocated.” (Karra) Even in his works, for example in Metamorphosis, he talks about the emotional death that every man must face during the course of his lifetime. He also tries to show that it is not necessarily a bad thing; and that it is the doom that must fall upon all of mankind eventually. He tries to portray that a person can avoid and be free from death if he is crazy enough to commit suicide. He was sick of society, and on a different level, a little scared as well. This was because he was afraid to publish his works publicly and have them read and criticized by other people around him. Kafka spent a great amount of time trying to improve the image that he had created for himself around the people he lived with. He was also a hypochondriac, leading him to his infatuation with death subsequently. He feared losing himself in something he did not want to. He thus feared death as much as he welcomed it. Even though he resented Jews and openly wrote and talked about killing them and doing away with all of them including him, he did not foresee the Holocaust which took place soon after his death. The Holocaust had perhaps taken base on his ideas, who knows, because Kafka talked about suffocating Jews and that is exactly what happened in the gas chambers of the concentration and extermination camps set up by Hitler. In Metamorphosis however, Kafka has presented a completely different version of his character Gregor from that of himself. He writes that Gregor is a very socially acceptable man and is trying to make his own way in life and society. As Gregor is transformed into an insect, or his metamorphosis begins, he begins to see how no one is ready to take him for who he is. An insect is an unwanted bug by everyone, and soon he is kicked out of his own home by his parents and nobody within the society is willing to accept him for who he might be. No one can hear him or understand what he was trying to say either. Much the same way, according to Marx, “In small numbers, an animal so defenceless as evolving man might struggle along even in conditions of isolation.” Due to this, Gregor dies out of loneliness and isolation as he is not able to survive anymore, and this death is his pathway to freedom and liberation from the clutches and shackles of society that had bound him to surviving according to the needs and desires of other people. (Kafka, Franz) The concept of hunger artists have also been explained in this book as an artist who has been fasting during the time that he has been looking out for people who are interested in his work of art. Soon however, he dies because no one wills to show any interest, and the artist is forced to retreat back to his cage and suffer alone there. Kafka was an absurd man who never enjoyed what he really wrote himself. He was obsessed with death on such a level, that he thought that since the mind becomes the death of all human beings, it has nothing much to offer. This infatuation made him unique and famous among most people branding him as ‘crazy’. (A Hunger Artist) In another article by Begley, he has tried to commence by describing Kafka; he says, that Kafka was a man who had ‘spent his life trying to figure out who he was without ever discovering that there were things such as mirrors.’ He says that he was a saint despite having committed many sins, and despite living in the body and soul of Abraham. He writes that Kafka had a habit of exaggerating the smaller things in life; like death for example. (Zadie, Smith) The Metamorphosis by Kafka, is a book written along the lines of distortion of reality. It has been regarded as the works that belong to a new era of writing altogether, known as Kafkaesque. This is the genre where Kafka presents a number of obstacles and hindrances for his characters and posts surreal elements throughout the text in order to confuse his readers so that they are better able to equip themselves with the distortions that reality so rightfully presents. (Kafkaesque.) Kafka’s work has been regarded as a ‘perfect illusion’ by a few writers. They have compared him to the works of Freud and his surrealist tendencies towards life and living. They might seem strange at first; however, every human being knows and is fully aware of the kind of scenes that are depicted in his works, and the kind of places that he takes one to. So much so, even the emotions that Kafka makes his characters feel are completely in tandem with what people undergo in reality, however, the same has been distorted in a way and that is why people do not feel completely comfortable relating to his works. (Banville, John) ‘The Trial’ by Kafka, is yet another example of how he has used his personal realities to depict into his works. The courtrooms and dialogues were all significant to his living and thus he depicted them in a very strong way towards his readers. Since he had studied law and had a legal background, he was well equipped to put the law of the land into his words and works through this piece of writing, and was able to let people know how his version was different thinking from that of other people’s. The legal proceedings that go in ‘The Trial’ are completely absurd and metaphysical – they are not at all like the ‘sane’ proceedings that go on in the world either at that time or today. However, this is how Kafka intends to pun the entire world by throwing in these pieces of irony here and there through his work and making people understand that it is not about right or wrong but about the grey spaces in between. Kafka was a broad existentialist, just like a number of his contemporaries. Kierkegaard and Nietschze also made use of the same absurd realities in their works by trying to make people understand that we are not living in a perfect world. The world around us is a very strange place full of thoughts and ideas that are equally, if not more, strange. Through their writings, these authors tried to give people a clear picture of what the reality of every simple situation was but how reluctant people were to accept the same because of their fear of going against the set norms of society. Works Cited Kafka, Franz, and A. L. Lloyd. Metamorphosis. [New York]: Vanguard, 1946. Print. Karra. "Franz Kafka's Obsession With Death." 8 Jan. 2005. Web. 22 May 2011. Smith, Zadie. "F. Kafka, Everyman." Home | The New York Review of Books. 17 July 2008. Web. 22 May 2011. . "'a Hunger Artist' - Franz Kafka." Version 1.2 - Vacuous and Vapid. Web. 22 May 2011. . "Kafkaesque." Kafkaesque. Web. 22 May 2011. . Banville, John. "Rereading: John Banville on Kafka's Other Trial | Books | The Guardian." Latest News, Comment and Reviews from the Guardian | Guardian.co.uk. Web. 22 May 2011. . Read More

 

Read More