Anxiety and loneliness are themes that run through Franz Kafka’s life and work. Through his life and his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis, we explore how he expressed the deepest parts of modern man.
The life of Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a Jewish-German writer whose novels dealt with human existence, alienation, and futility in the modern world. He is widely recognized as an existentialist novelist who relentlessly explored human existence in unrealistic yet realistic situations. Through his helpless characters and the bizarre events that befall them, he is said to have created a fascinating symbolism that broadly alludes to the anxiety and alienation of the 20th century world.
Kafka was born into a German-speaking, middle-class Jewish family in Prague, Czechoslovakia (the Kingdom of Bohemia, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). He had a difficult relationship with his father, a self-made merchant who was grandiose and self-righteous. In the eyes of his down-to-earth, no-nonsense father, his son was a dreamer, and in the eyes of the young Kafka, his father was a relentless workaholic who was obsessed with the success of his business without regard for his family.
Even his mother was forced to help him with the business in order to rise in status, so he was raised by others, and witnessed the deaths of his two brothers, Georg and Heinrich, at the age of two and four, respectively. In 1889, when he was six years old, his younger sister Eli was born, followed by Bali a year later and Otla two years after that, but they too would fall victim to the madness of World War II. He has an unstable childhood, with a feud with his father and witnessing the deaths of his siblings in quick succession.
When his father realizes that Kafka does not have the temperament of a merchant, he enrolls him in a German liberal arts secondary school. It is here that Kafka meets some of his most important friends, including Rudolf Ilovy, the Zionist Hugo Bergmann, Ewald Felix Priebram, and Oskar Pollack, with whom he would remain in close contact for the rest of his life. In 1901, Kafka enrolled at the Charles Ferdinand University in Prague, where he was primarily interested in lectures on literature and the history of art, but at his father’s urging, he chose law as his major. However, he had no intention of becoming a judge or lawyer, so after earning his doctorate in 1906 and serving a year’s apprenticeship at the court, he joined a general insurance company. In 1908, he moved to the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Bureau of the Kingdom of Bohemia, where he served as general counsel until 1922, two years before his death, leaving work at 2 p.m. and writing late into the night.
By this time, labor conditions in Europe were very poor. Kafka’s work here, which included official travel and contact with workers, allowed him to experience firsthand the ruthlessness of the bureaucratic apparatus, the harsh treatment of workers and their miserable living conditions, and to see the inner workings of capitalist society. Kafka’s deep insight into the alienation and powerlessness of the individual in his works can be said to have come from this.
In 1919, Kafka’s condition worsened after he refused to see a doctor, and he moved from sanatorium to sanatorium and his sisters’ house. However, it is during this time that he experiences the attachment and happiness of life that he has never known before, thanks to the devoted love of Dora Diamant, who stays with him until her death. Dora stood by his side day and night and nursed him back to health, but in 1924, the frail and introverted Kafka, under the pressure of his career, marriage, and writing, succumbed to pulmonary tuberculosis and malnutrition and died at the young age of 41.
Kafka was unhappy throughout his life. He was ostracized by the Germans who controlled the upper echelons of Prague for being Jewish and by his fellow Jews for his opposition to Zionism. During his lifetime, Kafka was reluctant to publish his work until reluctantly at the behest of publishers, and even when he did, it was rarely sold in the face of public outcry. He wanted nothing more than to write, and in his last words to his friend Max Brot, he asked that all his writings be burned, but his original imaginative depictions of the world’s uncertainties and man’s restless inner life became known around the world after his death.
He began writing “America” and “The Metamorphosis” in 1912, followed by “In the Penal Colony” and “The Trial” in 1914. In 1916, he published the short story collection A Country Doctor. In 1917 he developed pulmonary tuberculosis, which forced him to travel to various places, and in 1922 he began writing The Castle. He died of pulmonary tuberculosis in 1924 at Kearing Sanatorium in the suburb of Vienna. “In addition to The Metamorphosis, his other works include The Trial, The Castle, America, In the Penal Colony, A Country Doctor, and Wedding Preparations in the Country.
The Metamorphosis, a tale of vulnerable human anxiety and loneliness
“Despair not. Do not despair, even if you find yourself in a situation where you have no choice but to despair. Even if it seems like it’s over, there’s always something new to come out of it. When everything is really over, is there even any reason to despair?”
Kafka is one of the most studied and talked about writers not only in German literature but also in world literature. The reason why so many people around the world have taken notice of Kafka’s literature is that he is amazingly good at capturing the anxiety and loneliness of human existence and the stories of people in extreme situations. Kafka’s works depict the daily lives of timid and weak individuals who are unable to confront the unilateral and violent power of authority.
In The Metamorphosis, the protagonist, Gregor Zamora, wakes up one morning from a disturbing dream and finds himself transformed into a terrible insect, a vermin, and struggles with his family. Gregor Zamza’s fate is reminiscent of Laban’s dream in Wedding Preparations in the Country. Laban wants to fulfill the needs of the world by sending only his well-dressed physical body out into the countryside, while he has made himself lie in bed in the form of a beetle. In this novel, too, the idea of waking up is that Gregor the sleeper must be the breadwinner for his family, even as he is under constant pressure to affirm that he is a competent employee. The Metamorphosis is an expression of his repressed wishes. He rebels against his employer and his father, who manipulate him, and his rebellion creates a figure of terror in his unconscious mind. Through regression, Gregor is freed from his slavery and reverses his role as a diner. However, the family sees him as a parasite to be removed, and his sister’s decision is the final straw.
The next morning, Gregor dies, and the family, who have been haunted by his death for months, decide to take a light-hearted picnic in the countryside. They quickly dispose of Gregor’s body and belongings on the tram, and even plan to move to another place. The compartment they all share is bathed in warm sunlight. As they lean back in their seats and discuss the prospects for the future, a closer look reveals that the future is not all bleak.
Gregor’s attempt to leave his room is a desperate struggle to be accepted as a member of the family, and his failure to do so is indicative of the lack of true communication between family members. If family members can’t communicate with each other, how can they communicate with society?
The family is largely responsible for Gregor Zamza’s misfortune, and we can see the inhumanity of the family itself in the form of inhuman horror. This can be seen in the way the father confronts his transformed son, and the inhuman ending of the novel clearly shows the true nature of the family.
“The Metamorphosis is one of the few works published while Kafka was still alive. The author’s humor, which is characteristic of The Metamorphosis, and his sober and realistic style, which describes strange events as if they were commonplace, have the power to draw the reader into a world of existential dimension and absurdity. Thus, The Metamorphosis symbolizes the life of a small citizen in a hopeless world where modern people do not know when and under what circumstances they will find themselves. “The Metamorphosis is considered to be Kafka’s masterpiece, depicting the process of a weak human being’s inability to face the violent power of authority in the face of anxiety, loneliness, and extreme circumstances.
