Franz Kafka (1883-1924)




German and Czech Translations

Bürstner (boorwstner) = (similar to) brush

Frau (frow) = woman, Mrs.

Fräulein (froi-leyn) = young woman, Ms.

Herr (hair) = man, Mr.

Grubach (grew bawk)

Joseph K (yosef kah)

Kafka (cough-kah) = crow in Czech

Lanz (lawnz) = lance

Montag (moan-tawg) = Monday

Schuld = guilt or debt





Biography


Birth/Death
 3 July 1883 in Prague, Bohemia (now Czech
Republic, then Austro-Hungarian Empire)
 / 3 June 1924 near Vienna, Austria from tuberculosis
Appearance 6 feet, 140-100 pounds, black hair, gray-blue eyes
Family
German-speaking Jewish family, eldest
 of four surviving siblings (all sisters),
who died in Nazi concentration camps
Profession
Trained as a lawyer, employee of Workman's
Accident Insurance Institute, and later full-time writer
Love
Engaged three times but never married
Famous Works Metamorphosis  [1912/15]
The Judgment  [1912/16]
The Penal Colony [1914/19]
The Trial  [1916/25]
The Castle  [1922/26]
Amerika [1912/27]
Characteristics
 The term "Kafkaesque" refers to the
 absurd entanglements of modern life,
including work, bureaucracy, and mechanization.




The Trial (Der Prozess)


Kafka in 1922
Kafka in 1922


"He was a hermit, a man of insight who was frightened by life . . He saw the world as being full of invisible demons which assail and destroy defenseless man . . . All his works describe the terror of mysterious misconceptions and guiltless guilt on human beings"

(Milena Jesenska qtd. in Bloom 1).

~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~   ~*~

Dr. Nielsen's Notes:



Political Issues in Kafka: Pre-existing values for fascism?


-    complicity with persecution: To what extent do ‘ordinary’ citizens participate in condemning others? 

-    deference to authority: How does authority gain its power?

-    faceless bureaucracy: How does bureaucracy empower persecution?

-    overwhelming sense of duty

-    result: dizziness, vertigo



Motifs / Reading Strategies:

- To what extent does Josef K. act in ways that seem unethical? When is he complicit in acts that hurt others?


-    Rooms and thresholds / the staging of each scene

-    Role of women

-    Definitions of authority and the law

- Violence; Duty; Vertigo; Shame; and Rebellion

-    narration / narrator

-    Any reference to animals


Kafka and Rooms:


-    Rooms of landlady also = rooms of interrogation

-    Rooms of court also = tenements

-    Rooms at bank also = punishment chamber


Key Passages:


“Everyone is always rebellious” (Kafka 62).


" . . . he realized too painfully the shame of being delivered into the hands of these people by his sudden weakness . . . " (Kafka 68).

"I seem to recruit women helpers, he thought almost in surprise; first Fräulein Bürstner, then the wife of the usher, and now this little nurse who appears to have some incomprehensible desire for me" (109).

K. used to be,  “purely as a matter of business, a member of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments” (199).


“Women have great influence. If I could move some women I know to join forces in working for me, I couldn’t help winning through. Especially before this Court, which consists almost entirely of petticoat-hunters” (211).


From Kafka's “The Problems of Our Laws:”


“Our laws are not generally known; they are kept secret by the small group of nobles who rule us. We are convinced that these ancient laws are scrupulously administered; nevertheless it is an extremely painful thing to be ruled by laws that one does not know” (Kafka qtd. in Bloom 14).

1. What do we know about the Law that arrests Joseph K.?

2. How do characters act authoritatively in The Trial? What kind of behavior gets others to obey?

3. Why does Joseph K. feel so powerless against the Court?

4. What role do women play in the mystery of Joseph K.’s trial?

Close Analysis of Gender, Bestiality, & Honesty: Go back and closely reread 1 of the following 3 passages. Your (at least) 10-sentence analysis should point to keywords that illustrate:

•    When and how do K. and others act like animals or (threaten to) employ violence?

I. At his Work / “The Flogger” (82-87)

II. With his family (90-4)
 
III. With Lawyer Huld and Leni (106-9)


 

 

Discussion
1. How is K.’s work related to his trial? (131, 135, 140-41, 150-51, and 164)

2. How is Leni different than or similar to K.’s other women (Elsa, Fräulein Bürstner, the usher’s wife)? Why does he pursue her when the relationship endangers his trial? (related to question below) (49, 56-67, 106-11, 180, 184)

3. Why does K. endanger his trial by firing Huld? (64, 68, 106, 125-26, 175-76, 187, 193)

Discussion


1. Parables ostensibly teach some moral lesson. What does the parable of “Before the Law” teach K.? (215-23) Consider what the story might reveal about the nature of the Court.


 2. What does the ending of The Trial mean? How does it compare to previous novels we have read?




"On Parables" by Kafka

"Many complaint hat the words of the wise are always merely parables and of no use in daily life, which is the only life we have. When the sage says: 'Go over,' he does not mean that we should cross to some actual place, which we could do anyhow if the labor were worth it; he means some fabulous yonder, something unknown to us, something that he cannot designate more precisely either, and therefore cannot help us here in the very least. All these parables really set out to say merely that the incomprehensible is incomprehensible, and we know that already. But the cares we have to struggle with every day: that is a different matter.

Concerning this a man once said: Why such reluctance? If you only followed the parables you yourselves would become parables and with that rid of all your daily cares.

Another said: I bet that is also a parable.
The first said: You have won.
The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.
The first said: NO, in reality: in parable you have lost." (158, emphasis mine).

Works Cited


Bloom, Harold. Introduction. Franz Kafka's The Trial. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 1-22.

Kafka, Franz. "On Parables." Trans. W. and E. Muir. The Basic Kafka. NY: Washington Square, 1971. 158.

- - -. The Trial. Trans. B. Mitchell. New York: Schocken, 1998.