Kafka was born on July 3, 1883 in the Czech Republic. The first education in the biography of Franz Kafka was obtained in elementary school (from 1889 to 1893). The next step in education was the gymnasium, which Franz graduated from in 1901. Then he entered the Charles University in Prague, after which he became a doctor of law.
Having started working in the insurance department, Kafka worked all his career in small bureaucratic positions. Despite his passion for literature, most of Kafka's writings were published after his death, and he disliked his official work. Kafka fell in love several times. But things never went beyond novels, the writer was not married.
Most of Kafka's works are written in German. His prose reflects the writer's fear of the outside world, anxiety and uncertainty. So in the “Letter to the Father” they found an expression of the relationship between Franz and his father, which had to be broken early.
Kafka was a sickly man, but he tried to resist all his ailments. In 1917, Kafka's biography suffered a serious illness (pulmonary hemorrhage), as a result of which the writer began to develop tuberculosis. It was for this reason that Franz Kafka died in June 1924 while undergoing treatment.
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(1883-1924) Austrian writer
This is probably the strangest figure in European literature of the 20th century. A Jew by origin, a Praguer by birth and residence, a German writer by language and an Austrian writer by cultural tradition, Franz Kafka experienced indifference to his work during his lifetime and no longer caught the time when his canonization took place. True, both of them are somewhat exaggerated. He was noticed and appreciated by such famous writers as G. Hesse, T. Mann, B. Brecht and others.
Three unfinished novels by Franz Kafka became available to readers after his death. The Trial was published in 1925, The Castle in 1926, and America in 1927. Now his legacy is ten voluminous volumes.
The biography of this man is surprisingly not rich in events, at least in external events. Franz Kafka was born into a family of a haberdashery wholesaler in Prague, a Jew by nationality. Welfare gradually grew, but the concepts and relationships within the family remained the same, petty-bourgeois. All interests were focused on their work. The mother was wordless, and the father constantly boasted of the humiliations and misfortunes that he had endured before he broke into the people, not like the children who received everything undeservedly, for nothing. The nature of relationships in the family can be judged at least by this fact. When Franz wrote the “Letter to Father” in 1919, he himself did not dare to give it to the addressee and asked his mother about it. But she, too, was afraid to do so and returned the letter to her son with a few comforting words.
The bourgeois family for every future artist, who even in his youth feels like a stranger in this environment, is the first barrier that he must overcome. Kafka could not do this. He never learned to resist an alien environment.
Franz graduated from the German gymnasium in Prague. Then, in 1901-1905, he studied law at the university and listened to lectures on art history and German studies. In 1906-1907, Kafka completed an internship at a law office and the Prague City Court. From October 1907 he served in a private insurance company, and in 1908 he improved in this specialty at the Prague Commercial Academy. Although Franz Kafka had a doctorate, he held modest and low-paid positions, and from 1917 he could not work at full strength at all, because he fell ill with tuberculosis.
Kafka decided to call off his second engagement to Felicia Bauer, quit his job and move to the countryside with his sister Ottla. In one of the letters of this period, he conveys his restless state in this way:
« Secretly, I believe that my disease is not tuberculosis at all, but my general bankruptcy. I thought that it would still be possible to hold on, but it is no longer possible to hold on. The blood does not come from the lungs, but from a wound inflicted by a regular or decisive blow from one of the wrestlers. This wrestler has now received support - tuberculosis, support as enormous as, say, a child finds in the folds of his mother's skirt. What does the other want now? Has the struggle not reached a glorious end? This is tuberculosis and this is the end».
Franz Kafka was very sensitive to what he constantly had to face in life - injustice, humiliation of a person. He was devoted to genuine creativity and bowed before Goethe, Tolstoy, considered himself a student of Kleist, an admirer of Strindberg, was an enthusiastic admirer of Russian classics, not only Tolstoy, but also Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Gogol, which he wrote about in his diaries.
But at the same time, Kafka, as it were, saw himself with a “second sight” from the outside and felt his dissimilarity to everyone as ugliness, he perceived his “strangeness” as a sin and a curse.
Franz Kafka was tormented by the problems that were characteristic of Europe at the beginning of the century, his work is directly connected with only one, albeit a very influential trend in the literature of the 20th century - modernist.
All that Kafka wrote was his literary ideas, fragments, unfinished stories, dreams, which often differed little from his novels, and sketches of novels, like dreams, reflections on life, on literature and art, on books read and performances seen, thoughts about writers, artists, actors - all this is a complete picture of his "fantastic inner life". Franz Kafka felt boundless loneliness, so painful and at the same time desired. He was constantly tormented by fears - before life, before lack of freedom, but also before freedom too. Franz Kafka was afraid to change anything in his life and at the same time was burdened by her usual way of life. The writer with such poignancy revealed the incessant struggle with himself and with the surrounding reality that much in his novels and short stories, which, at first glance, seems to be the fruit of a bizarre, sometimes sick fantasy, is explained, reveals its realistic background, is revealed as purely autobiographical .
“He does not have the slightest shelter, shelter. Therefore, it is left to the mercy of everything from which we are protected. He is like naked among the dressed,” wrote Kafka’s friend, the Czech journalist Milena Yesenskaya.
Kafka idolized the work of Balzac. Once he wrote about him: “Balzac’s cane was inscribed:“ I break all barriers. On mine: "All obstacles break me." What we have in common is the word "everything".
Currently, more has been written about Kafka's work than about the work of any other writer of the 20th century. This is most often explained by the fact that Kafka is considered a prophetic writer. In some incomprehensible way, he managed to guess and even at the beginning of the century he wrote about what would happen in the following decades. Then the plots of his works seemed purely abstract and fictional, but some time later, much of what he wrote was fulfilled, and even in a more tragic form. Thus, the furnaces of Auschwitz surpassed the most sophisticated tortures described by him in the short story “In the Penal Colony” (1914).
Exactly the same, it would seem, abstract and inconceivable in its absurdity, the trial that Franz Kafka depicted in his novel “The Trial”, when an innocent person was sentenced to death, was then repeated many times and is still repeated in all countries of the world.
In his other novel - "America" - Franz Kafka quite accurately predicted the further development of technical civilization with all its pluses and minuses, in which a person remains alone in a mechanized world. And Kafka's last novel, The Castle, also gives a fairly accurate picture of the omnipotence of the bureaucratic apparatus, which in fact replaces any democracy, despite the grotesqueness of the image.
In 1922 Kafka was forced to retire. In 1923, he carried out his long-planned "flight" to Berlin, where he intended to live as a free writer. But his health again deteriorated sharply, and he was forced to return to Prague. He died on the outskirts of Vienna in 1924. The writer was buried in the center of Prague at the Jewish cemetery.
Expressing his last will to his friend and executor Max Brod, Kafka repeatedly repeated that, except for five published books and a new novel prepared for publication, "everything without exception" should be burned. Now it is pointless to discuss whether M. Brod acted well or badly, who nevertheless violated the will of his friend and published all his manuscript heritage. The deed is done: everything that was written by Franz Kafka has been published, and readers have the opportunity to judge for themselves the work of this extraordinary writer, reading and rereading his works.
Franz Kafka was one of the most important German writers of the twentieth century. He spent his entire life in his hometown of Prague, the capital of Bohemia. Kafka is famous for his grotesque stories and novels, many of which were only published posthumously, edited by his close friend Max Brod. Kafka's works, belonging to various literary periods, are invariably unique and popular with a wide range of readers.
Childhood
Franz Kafka was born on June 3, 1883 in a family of German-speaking Ashkenazi Jews living in the ghetto in the area of present-day Prague. He was the first child in the family of Herman and his wife Julia, née Loewy.
His father, strong and loud-voiced, was the fourth child of Jacob Kafka, a butcher who came to Prague from Oseka, a Jewish village in southern Bohemia. After working briefly as a sales representative, he established himself as an independent retailer of men's and women's haberdashery and accessories. About 15 people were involved in the case, and the office used a “tick” sign as a logo, embodying the meaning of a surname in Czech. Kafka's mother was the daughter of Jacob Loewy, a prosperous brewer from Poděbrady, and was an educated woman.
Franz was the eldest of six children. He had two younger brothers who died in infancy and three younger sisters: Gabrielle, Valerie and Ottla. During the week, during working hours, both parents were absent from the house. His mother helped manage her husband's business and worked 12-hour days. The children were largely raised by a succession of governesses and servants. The cordial mother was a great outlet for the children, but Franz's tendency to be lonely and withdrawn remained for many years. It was from his mother that he inherited his sensitivity and dreaminess. In his literary works, Kafka transformed the complete lack of communication and understanding in the relationship between authoritative people and the little man.
He grew up in a Jewish German-speaking community, rarely interacting with the Czech-speaking citizens of Prague. Despite this, during his life he gained a deep knowledge of the Czech language and an understanding of literature. The guy had a serious character and was a little talkative. He spoke in a calm and quiet voice and wore mostly dark suits and sometimes a black round hat. He tried not to show his emotions in public. Moreover, the unbelieving Kafka was an outsider even in the Jewish community. Jewish identity was marked by attending a bar mitzvah at age 13 and attending synagogue with her father four times a year.
Craving for writing originated in childhood. For the birthdays of his parents, he composed small plays that his younger sisters put on at home, while he himself acted as a director of home plays. He was an avid reader.
Kafka and his father
Father Herman wanted to raise his children in accordance with his ideals. He left them little room for personal development, and all social contacts of adolescents were strictly controlled. Especially the father controlled Franz and his younger sister Ottla. Despite the friendly and peace-making nature of the mother, conflicts periodically arose between Herman and the children.
In his letters, diaries and prose, the writer repeatedly addressed the topic of relationships with his father. Herman, physically strong, energetic, strong-willed self-satisfied choleric, served as a kind of catalyst for his children. The shy Franz became increasingly anxious, which in turn made him the target of his father's ridicule. He never managed to break this vicious circle until the end of his days.
In 1919, Kafka wrote "Letter to my father", which describes his conflicting relationship with Hermann on more than a hundred pages. He wholeheartedly strives for reconciliation, but believes that this is impossible. All that remains is the hope of peaceful coexistence. His works "Metamorphosis" and "Judgment" characterize the powerful figures of the fathers.
Years of formation
From 1889 Kafka attended the boys' primary school on Masna Street. He received his secondary education at the German State Gymnasium on Old Town Square, where he studied from 1893 to 1901. It was an eight-year academic secondary school taught in German, located in the Keene Palace in the Old Town. Among his first friends were the future art historian Oscar Pollak and the poet, translator and journalist Rudolf Illovi. The family lived at that time on Celetna Street. As a teenager, he told his school friend that he would become a writer. From that time began his first literary attempts.
Having passed the school final exams, Franz was admitted to the University of Prague, founded by Charles Ferdinand in 1348. The training took place between 1901 and 1906. He started studying chemistry, after a couple of weeks he switched to German literature and philosophy, but moved to a faculty specializing in the study of law in the second semester. This was a compromise between his father's wishes for his son to get a profession in order to build a successful career and a longer period of study, which gave Kafka additional time for research and study of art history. During his studies, he was an active participant in student life, which organized many public literary readings and other events. At the end of his first year of study, he met Max Brod, who became his close friend throughout his life, and the journalist Felix Welch, who also studied law. The students were brought together by a boundless love of reading and a common worldview. This period included a deep study of the works of Plato, Goethe, Flaubert, Dostoevsky, Gogol, Grillparzer and Kleist. Czech literature was of particular interest.
In June 1906, he received a complete higher education, becoming a doctor of jurisprudence at the age of 23. In October, he began his career with a mandatory unpaid law practice for graduates and worked for a year as a civil servant. For a total of 14 years he worked as a lawyer at the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute in the Czech Kingdom.
The beginning of literary activity
Franz was frustrated by the work schedule from 8 am to 6 pm, as it was extremely difficult to combine the work associated with routine processing and investigation of the compensation claims of injured workers with the necessary concentration when working on works. In parallel, Kafka worked on his stories. Together with their friends Max Brod and Felix Welch, they called themselves the "close circle of Prague". Being at the same time a hardworking and diligent worker, Kafka sometimes left the office early to indulge in writing. At 24 Kafka published his first writings in a magazine, after which the stories were published as a book called Meditations.
The most productive years for the writer were the years after graduation. His works were written in the evenings after work or at night. This is how the novel "Wedding Preparations in the Country" was born.
Kafka spent his holidays in northern Italy on Lake Garda with Max and Otto Brod. On September 29, the Prague daily Bohemia published a short story called "Airplanes in Brescia". In 1910, he began to keep diary entries and intensively study Judaism, Zionism, Jewish literature and his own Jewish roots, mastered Hebrew.
Two years later, he began work on the novel "Missing" and wrote the first chapters of it. The work became famous with the light hand of Max Brod, under the name "America". In the same year, he was writing a novel and a collection of 18 short stories. In one night, in 1912, his first long story "The Sentence" was written. The story contains all the elements related to the inner world of the author, in which a bedridden authoritarian domineering father condemns his principled son. His next work, completed in May 1913, was the story "The Stoker", later included in his novel The Missing Man and awarded the Theodore Fontane Literary Prize in 1915, his first public recognition during his lifetime.
If not for the efforts of his friend Brod, the world would not have known the best novels of Kafka. While editing them after the author's death, Max ignored his friend's request to destroy all his unpublished writings upon death.
So, thanks to Brod, such works as:
- "America";
- "Process";
- "Lock".
mature years
Kafka never married. According to the memoirs of his friend, he was overwhelmed by sexual desire, but the fear of intimate failures prevented personal relationships. He actively visited brothels and was interested in pornography. Close relationships in his life were with several women.
On August 13, 1912, Kafka met Felice Bauer, a distant relative of Brod, who was passing through Prague. Their relationship lasted for five years, interspersed with active correspondence, twice during this period they approached the turn of marriage. The marriage was not destined to happen, and they separated in 1917.
In the same year, Kafka showed the first symptoms of tuberculosis. His family supported him during his relapses. He moved in with his sister Ottla in northwestern Bohemia and devoted time to studying Kierkegaard's work. He was afraid of possible physical limitations caused by illness, he impressed others with a neat and strict appearance, quiet and calm reactions, intelligence and specific humor. He begins to write down aphorisms. They were later published in the book Reflections on Sin, Suffering, Hope, and the True Path.
In October 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell and Czechoslovakia was proclaimed. Czech became the official language in the capital. The year also brought personal upheavals to the author. Kafka fell ill with Spanish flu. The subsequent physical weakness negatively affects the writer's psyche. Kafka did not trust doctors. He was a supporter of naturopathy. Non-specific symptoms such as insomnia, headaches, heart problems or weight loss, which he suffered, he attributed to psychosomatics.
At this time, a new relationship was born with Juliek Vohrycek, who came from a modest merchant family. This connection greatly upset his father, which prompted Franz to write the appeal "Letter to my father." Young people failed to rent housing. Kafka saw this as a sign and left. In the spring of 1922, he wrote The Hungry Painter, and in the summer, Studies on a Dog. The following passionate relationship with the translator and journalist Milena Yesenskaya failed. Despite the unhappy marriage of her beloved, she was not ready to leave her husband. In 1923 he broke up with her. Between 1920 and 1922, his health deteriorated and Franz was forced to leave his job.
In 1923, Kafka, while recovering his health on the Baltic Sea, met kindergarten teacher Dora Diamant, a twenty-five-year-old daughter of Polish Jews. Dora, who spoke Yiddish and Hebrew, fascinated the writer. I was struck by the natural and modest demeanor of her behavior with fairly mature views. Kafka left Prague at the end of July 1923 and moved to Berlin-Steglitz, where he wrote his last, comparatively happy story, The Little Woman. Dora cared for her lover in such a way that at the end of his life, he finally managed to free himself from the influence of the family. It was in a pair with her that he developed an interest in the Talmud. Kafka wrote his last work, Josephine, or the Mouse People, which was included in the collection Hunger. However, his health is rapidly deteriorating. He returned to Prague three months before his death on 3 June 1924. In April, he goes to a sanatorium, where the diagnosis is confirmed. He goes to the University Hospital of Vienna for treatment, then to the sanatorium of Dr. Hugo Hoffmann in Klosterneuburg. Dora Diamant takes care of and supports Kafka in every possible way, who is rapidly losing weight, swallowing food with difficulty and cannot speak. On June 3, around noon, Kafka died. The writer was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Prague.
In this brief biography of Franz Kafka. which you will find below, we have tried to collect the main milestones in the life and work of this writer.
General information and the essence of Kafka's work
Franz Kafka (1883-1924), Austrian modernist writer. Author of works: "Transformation" (1915), "Sentence" (1913), "Country Doctor" (1919), "Artist of Hunger" (1924), "Trial" (ed. 1925), "Castle" (ed. 1926) . The artistic world of Kafka and his biography are inextricably linked. The main goal of his works was the problem of loneliness, alienation of a person, which no one needs in this world. The author was convinced of this by the example of his own life. "I have no interest in literature," wrote Kafka, "literature is myself."
Having recreated himself on the pages of works of art, Kafka found the "sore point of mankind", foresaw future catastrophes caused by totalitarian regimes. The biography of Franz Kafka is remarkable in that his work contains signs of different styles and trends: romanticism, realism, naturalism, surrealism, avant-garde. Life conflicts are defining in the work of Kafka.
Childhood, family and friends
The biography of Franz Kafka is interesting and filled with creative success. The future writer was born in Austrian Prague in the family of a haberdasher. Parents did not understand their son, and relations with the sisters did not work out. “I am more of a stranger in my family than the most alien,” writes Kafka in The Diaries. His relationship with his father was especially difficult, as the writer would later write about in Letter to Father (1919). Authoritarianism, strong will, the moral pressure of his father suppressed Kafka from early childhood. Kafka studied at school, gymnasium, and then at the University of Prague. Years of study did not change his pessimistic outlook on life. There was always a “glass wall” between him and his peers, as his classmate Emil Utitz wrote about. Max Brod, a university friend from 1902, became his only friend for life. It was Kafka who, before his death, would appoint him the executor of his will and instruct him to burn all his works. Max Brod will not fulfill his friend's order and will make his name known to the whole world.
The marriage problem also became insurmountable for Kafka. Women have always favored Franz, and he dreamed of starting a family. There were brides, there was even an engagement, but Kafka did not dare to marry.
Another problem for the writer was his job, which he hated. After university, having received a doctorate in law, Kafka served 13 years in insurance companies, carefully fulfilling his duties. He loves literature, but does not consider himself a writer. He writes for himself and calls this activity "the struggle for self-preservation."
Evaluation of creativity in the biography of Franz Kafka
The heroes of Kafka's works are just as defenseless, lonely, smart and at the same time helpless, which is why they are doomed to death. So, in the short story "The Sentence" tells about the problems of a young businessman with his own father. The artistic world of Kafka is complex, tragic, symbolic. The heroes of his works cannot find a way out of life situations in a nightmarish, absurd, cruel world. Kafka's style can be called ascetic - without unnecessary artistic means and emotional excitement. The French philologist G. Barth characterized this style as “zero degree of writing”.
The language of the compositions, according to N. Brod, is simple, cold, dark, "but deep inside the flame does not stop burning." A kind of symbol of Kafka's own life and work can serve as his story "Reincarnation", in which the leading thought is the powerlessness of the "little man" before life, about its doom to loneliness and death.
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Franz Kafka, whose works are known all over the world, was a German-speaking author of Jewish origin. Oddly enough, the writer, who is now known to the whole world, was not popular during his lifetime and published only a few short stories. Kafka ordered to burn all his literary heritage, but his friend Max Brod disobeyed, and only thanks to this world did he manage to find out who this mysterious writer was and get acquainted with his works.
Writer's childhood
Kafka Franz - famous Jewish origin. He was born on July 3, 1883 in one of the Prague ghettos, which at that time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The writer's father - Herman Kafka - was a Czech-speaking Jew, worked as a salesman in a haberdashery shop, and his mother - Julia Kafka - spoke more German, just like Franz, who, nevertheless, knew Czech and French well. In the family, besides him, there were several other children. The two younger brothers of the future writer died in childhood, but he still had three more sisters. Little Franz went to school until 1893, and then moved to the gymnasium, which he graduated in 1901, having received a matriculation certificate.
mature years
After graduating from the University of Prague, Kafka received a doctorate in law. After that, he worked in the insurance department as a simple official. In 1922, Kafka retired prematurely due to illness. However, during his service in public office, Kafka remained devoted to his main occupation - literature, to which he devoted a lot of time. Due to prolonged tuberculosis, which began after a pulmonary hemorrhage, the writer died on June 3, 1924. Before his death, Kafka asked his friend to burn all unpublished manuscripts, but he did not listen to him, and therefore many works of the talented author were published posthumously.
The inner world of Kafka
It is always difficult to talk about the feelings of a person, especially if he leads a secluded lifestyle. Nevertheless, there is documented evidence about the life of the famous German writer of Jewish origin, concerning not only his biography, but also his views on life. What was Franz Kafka really like? "Letter to Father", one of the writer's works, is, for example, an excellent reflection of the author's relationship with his father and a number of childhood memories.
Health
In many ways, the writer's life was influenced by his state of health, with which he constantly had problems. It is debatable whether his problems were of a psychosomatic nature, but the fact that the author was plagued by illnesses is undoubted. and regular gymnastics - that's how Kafka tried to cope with his condition. Franz drank a lot of unpasteurized cow's milk, which could cause chronic tuberculosis.
Personal life
It is believed that Kafka's failure on the love front is to some extent due to his relationship with a despotic father, because of which he never managed to become a family man. Nevertheless, women were present in the life of the writer. From 1912 to 1917 he was in a romantic relationship with Felicia Bauer, who lived in Berlin. During this period, they were engaged twice, but both times it did not lead to anything. Kafka and Felicia communicated mainly through correspondence, as a result of which a wrong idea arose in the writer's imagination about the girl, which did not correspond much to reality. From the surviving correspondence it is clear that they were different people who could not find a common language. After that, Kafka was in a relationship with Yulia Vokhrytsek, but was also soon terminated. In the early 1920s, the writer began an affair with a journalist and translator of his novels, Milena Yesenskaya, who was also married. In 1923, Kafka, along with his muse Dora Dimant, went to Berlin for several months to retire from his family and devote himself entirely to literature.
Death
After visiting Berlin, Kafka returned to Prague again. Gradually, his tuberculosis progressed more and more, giving the writer new problems. This eventually led to the death of Franz in one of the sanatoriums near Vienna, which was probably caused by exhaustion. Constant sore throats prevented him from eating, and at that time intravenous therapy was in its early stages of development and could not compensate for artificial nutrition. The body of the great German author was transported to Prague, where he was buried in the New Jewish Cemetery.
Franz Kafka. Creation
The fate of the works of this writer is very unusual. During Kafka's lifetime, his talent remained unrecognized, and only a few of his short stories appeared in print, which were not marked by much success. The author became popular after his death and only because his close friend - Max Brod - disobeyed his will and published novels that Kafka wanted to burn so that no one would ever read them.
Otherwise, the world would not know who Kafka is. The novels Brod published soon began to attract worldwide attention. All published works of the author, except for some letters to Milena Yesenskaya, were written in German. To date, they have already been translated into many languages and are known all over the world.
The story "Transformation"
Franz Kafka in this work fully reflected his views on human relationships in his characteristic depressing, oppressive manner. The protagonist of the story is a man who wakes up one morning and realizes that he has turned into a hideous giant insect. Typical for the author are the circumstances of the transformation. Kafka does not give reasons, does not talk about the events that happened before, the main character simply faces the fact that now he is an insect. Surrounding Gregor Samza perceive his new look critically. His father closes him in a room, and his sister, who at first treats him rather warmly compared to others, periodically comes to feed him. Despite his external changes, Gregor remains the same person, his consciousness and his feelings do not change in any way.
Since he was the breadwinner of the family and virtually all of the relatives were dependent on Gregor, who was unable to work after his transformation, the family decided to take on boarders. The new tenants of the house behave shamelessly, and the relatives of the protagonist are increasingly critical of him, because now he cannot support them. The sister begins to visit less and less often, and gradually the family forgets about the insect, which was once their relative. The story ends with the death of the protagonist, which in reality caused almost no emotions among his family members. To further emphasize the indifference of the people around him, at the end of the work, the author describes how Gregor Samsa's relatives stroll carelessly.
Analysis
The manner of writing, habitual for the writer, was fully reflected in the story "Transformation". Franz Kafka plays the role of an exclusively narrator, he does not seek to reflect his attitude to the events described. In fact, the story is a dry description of events. Characteristic of the writer's style is also the main character, who faces an unfair, sometimes absurd fate. a person who is faced with events that he is not able to deal with. Despite the fantasy of the plot, the story contains quite realistic details that actually turn the work into a grotesque.
Novel "Process"
Like many other remarkable works of the author, this work was published after the death of the writer. This is a typical Kafka novel, which reflects not only elements of the absurd, but also fantasy with realism. Harmoniously intertwined, all this gives rise to a philosophical story, which became a reflection of the author's creative search.
It is not known exactly what principle the writer was guided by when creating the "Process", however, the manuscript was not formed into a full-fledged work, it consisted of many disparate chapters. Later they were arranged according to the chronology of events, and in this form the world saw the work that Kafka created.
"The Trial" tells about the life of a man named Josef K., who works as a simple employee in a bank. One morning he was arrested by unknown people without giving a reason. He is being watched for a long time, but no one takes measures to detain him.
The most surprising thing here is that Josef K. has no idea what he is suspected of and what he is accused of, since nothing was presented to him. Throughout the work, he is forced to try to understand the reason for the arrest. However, he does not succeed even when the accused is sentenced to death and immediately killed with a blow to the heart, "like a dog." The protagonist, alone in his struggle, fails to get the truth.
"Lock"
This is another novel by the writer with many plot elements of the absurd, which Franz Kafka used very often. "The Castle" is a work that tells about the life of a certain K., who came to the Village to work as a surveyor. When he arrives, he learns that everything here is controlled by the Castle, and in order to start work, or at least get there, he must obtain permission.
K. tries in every possible way to get permission, but he can't do anything. As a result, it turns out that the Village does not need a surveyor, and K. is offered a position as a watchman. The protagonist agrees as he has no choice. The novel breaks off at the visit of K. the charioteer. According to the writer's plan, K. was supposed to stay here forever, and before his death, he would have received a message that his residence in the Village was illegal, but now the Castle allows him to live and work here. But he told his friend that he was stopping work on the novel and did not intend to return to it.
Other works
In addition to the above works, the author has many less popular ones. For example, there are several collections of short stories that Franz Kafka started with. "Letters to Milena" is one of the examples of the writer's epistolary lyrics. This is a collection that contains letters addressed to one of his lovers - Milena Yesinskaya, who was originally just a translator of his works into Czech. As a result, a correspondence romance began between the writer and Milena, which greatly influenced Kafka, but made him even more unhappy than he was before him, after it turned out that their characters were incompatible.
This is not the only collection authored by Kafka. Franz published only his stories during his lifetime, which did not bring him such popularity as the novels recognized posthumously, but they are no less remarkable and valuable from a literary point of view. Therefore, they should also be mentioned. What else remarkable did Franz Kafka create? "Labyrinth" is a collection of short stories, which includes a work of the same name and a number of others, the most famous of which is considered to be "Studies of a Dog".
Style
Absurdity and realism, reality and fantasy... It would seem that these are all incompatible concepts, but the author manages to organically connect elements of different styles and genres. A master of words, a genius who was not recognized during his lifetime, and after his death became popular all over the world - all this is Kafka. Franz became a kind of symbol of the era, the voice of humanity, preaching loneliness.
Conclusion
His characters are similar: they face problems that cannot be solved and find themselves face to face with fate.
Tragic and comic take on the forms of the grotesque in Kafka's fantastic stories. He does not seek to show a hero or an outstanding person, the writer tells about a person's fear of something higher, of the outside world, which depends only on circumstances. The main characters of Kafka are people who find themselves in difficult life circumstances that are beyond their control and can hardly be resolved. All this gives rise to their uncertainty, loneliness and fear - all that constantly surrounds people, driving them into a state of anxiety.
