Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883-June 3, 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."

Kafka’s Life• A German Jew in Prague (in the years

leading up to Nazi Germany)• A frustrated writer whose father forced him

into a career as a bank clerk• Published very little in his lifetime• Left orders for all of his manuscripts to be

destroyed when he died• The “executor” disobeyed his orders and

Kafka became famous after his death

Kafka’s Family• Eldest son of a domineering father who had

clawed his way up from squalor to middle class

• Hermann Kafka was determined & obsessive with little regard for the feelings of others

• Kafka’s mother was caught up in her role as dutiful wife and aide in husband’s business.

• By the time he was 4, Franz’s two younger brothers died within a year of one another (illness)

• All three of his sisters were eventually killed in Nazi Death Camps

Internal Conflicts of Kafka

• Felt that in his father’s eyes, he “was an absolute nothing.”

• Mother offered no comfort.• Saddened by the death of his younger

brothers• A depressed hypochondriac• Felt inadequate and resentful• Psychologically dependent on parents

Letter to his father -The original letter was 45 typed pages in length!

“…this feeling of being nothing that often dominates me ... comes largely

from your influence.”

“From your armchair you ruled the world. Your opinion was correct;

every other was mad, wild, meshugge, not normal.”

“And it is characteristic that even today you really only encourage me in anything when you yourself are

involved in it, when what is at stake is your own sense of self-importance.”

Your extremely effective rhetorical methods in bringing me up, which never failed to work with me, were: abuse, threats, irony, spiteful

laughter, and—oddly enough—self-pity.

Nazis banned his works Nazis banned his works because many because many

foreshadowed the negativity foreshadowed the negativity of totalitarianism, the plight of totalitarianism, the plight of the powerless in the face of the powerless in the face of the all-powerful, the futility of the all-powerful, the futility

of life.of life.

Theme Topics• The effect of financial hardship on

relationships• Family obligations• Alienation/ “The Outcast”• Freedom/Escapism• Guilt• Personal Identity