Kafka and His Portrayal of Characters

Kafka's Portrayal of Characters

Franz Kafka, born on July 3, 1883 in Bohemia, in the city of Prague, has been recognized as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Virtually unknown during his lifetime, the works of Kafka have since been recognized as symbolizing modern man's distress and distorted alienation in an unintelligible, hostile, or indifferent world. None of Kafka's novels were printed during his lifetime, and it was only with reluctance that he published a fraction of his shorter fiction. Kafka went even as far as to request that his unprinted manuscripts be destroyed after his death. His friend, Max Brod went against his wishes and published his works, although many were unfinished (Sokel 35).

Kafka came from a middle-class Jewish family and grew up in the shadow of his domineering shopkeeper father, who impressed Kafka the ultimate father figure. The feeling of impotence, even in his rebellion, was a syndrome that became a pervasive theme in his fiction. Kafka did well in the prestigious German high school in Prague and went on to receive a law degree in 1906. He soon found a job at the Assicurizioni Generali Insurance Company in 1907 but soon left, due to the lengthy hours and intolerable conditions. Later in 1908, he began working at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute, where he would work most of the rest of his life. He regarded this job as the essence--both blessing and curse--of his life (Gray 78). He would work most of the rest of his life, although only sporadically after 1917, and in June 1922 he was put on "temporary retirement" with a pension (Gray 81-84). This job, although not great had short hours, and so allowed him time to think and write. In 1911, he was asked by his father to take charge of his brother-in-law Karl Hermann's asbestos factory, which took up a lot of his time until 1917 and literally almost drove him to suicide (83). Kafka spent half his life after 1917 in sanatoriums and health resorts; his tuberculosis of the lungs finally spreading to the larynx. Throughout his life, Kafka wrote during times he felt frustrated, either by a love, his family, or his sickness (Sokel 133). Kafka's method of relief from these frustrations was through his writing (133).

Kafka's coarse relationship with his father dominates his thoughts in life and his works. In the two works, "The Metamorphosis" and "The Judgement," the image of a father is almost God-like. Until these works, Kafka had sought to escape from his father in his writing, only to find him dominating in all his work (157). Samsa Sr. who had part in his son's sudden change into an enormous bug, and Bendemann Sr. who was omnipotent and omniscient, sentences his son to death. In both works, the father-son relationship is described with bitterness.

Kafka wrote his father a confession, lacerating letter over 15,000 words long (Flores and Swander 26) and sent it to his mother to give to his father, of which, his father never received. His relationship with Fraulein B. that lasted from 1913 to 1917, and his engagement to Julie Whoryzek, the daughter of a synagogue janitor, exacerbated problems with his father. His father was horrified by his engagement to a janitor's daughter, and offended Kafka by saying he would have to sell the family store and emigrate to escape the shame to the family name by Kafka's engagement.

In his three stories, "The Judgement," "The Metamorphosis," and "In the Penal Colony," the son-figures are all guilty of original sin. The self-effacement of the son is shown: Georg Bendemann and Gregor Samsa have replaced the father as practical head and breadwinner of the family, and the condemned man on the prison-island has rebelled against military (paternal) authority (Anders 174). "The Judgement" emphasizes the son's offense, the father's anger, and the punishment that follows swiftly (180). In "The Metamorphosis" it is not referred to as an offense, and the metamorphosis is not punishment, it is just simply stated at the beginning (183). Once Gregor changes into a beetle the size of a human being and gradually starves to death is when we see how he is punished when he in fact supported his family. In "The Penal Colony," punishment is seen when a man is killed slowly in twelve hours by engraving a sentence into his flesh with a complicated system of vibrating needles (184).

Kafka's writing demonstrates his attempts to offset his morbid masochism (Oates 5). Most people think of the terms Kafkan and Kafkaesque refer to his dark tales, but in reality these terms stand for Kafka's "cloudy, mysterious, inexplicable method of writing" (6). According to Roy Pascal, author of Kafka's Narrators: A Study of His Stories and Sketches, "There is a good deal of humor in these early stories, as in the novels and later stories, but it is often ambiguous and can be overlooked" (40). Kafka was subtle with humor and preferred to use irony as a method of levity (41).

In Kafka's short story entitled, "The Judgement," written in 1912, we see one of the unusual uses of irony by Kafka. The central figure, Georg Bendemann, has just gotten into a long and somewhat heated argument with his aging and infirm father. Suddenly Georg's father "threw the blankets off with a strength that sent them all flying in a moment and sprang erect in bed. Only one hand touched the ceiling to steady him" (Flores and Swander 134). The "transformation of the sick father to a grotesque ogre" (157) is not only shocking but comically so. Georg's father goes on to kick and yell at Georg extensively. Through this entire barrage and beating from his father the only thought that pops into Georg's head is "he has pockets even in his shirt" (148) referring to his father's nightshirt.

In The Metamorphosis, Kafka points out the irony of just how far the people involved have fallen out of touch with reality. The reader sees how Gregor brings home the money for his family. Gregor's goes from the head of the household to an incompetent beetle. Gregor Samsa, even after his metamorphosis, cannot conceive the possibility of being trapped in his shell, and trying to get out of bed, get dressed, and go to work. Because it is literally a beetle on a bed, the result is hilarious. The reader laughs but realizes at the same instant the Gregor Samsa in now literally as well as figuratively trapped. In his new context, he becomes passive, and disconnected from the reality that he once was a part of. Gregor Samsa's beetle body makes an attempt to move: he hears his sisters playing the violin and he promises himself that she