Franz Kafka's Themes

A.P English Literature Research Paper:

The father-son relationship in The Metamorphosis, The Judgment, and A Hunger Artist is a complex and emotional fascination that is based on Franz Kafka’s life and is present as the main conflict in many of his other short stories. Kafka’s negative and struggling attitude towards the father figure in his works is based on his personal life as described from the translated works Das Schloss, a biography about Kafka’s life in his native tongue of German. “Hermann Kafka was a domestic tyrant, who directed his anger against his son. Kafka also had three sisters, all of whom perished in Nazi camps. (1)” This short passage in the opening paragraph of his German biography gives any reader of his work insight to the hardship he faced as a child, and understandably how he would focus this abuse into his writing. The Judgment is regarded as Kafka’s breakthrough work, where it establishes his trend of “conflict between father and son that produces guilt in the younger character and is ultimately reconciled through suffering and expiation. (2)” The Judgment presents a valid argument of three types of human relationships that a person could be going through, in this case it was the main character George. The first is the relationship between George and his friend in Russia; the second is George 's relationship with his fiancée and the third is Kafka’s infamous way of depicting George’s relationship with his father. (3)” The way the father refers to his son in The Judgment designs how the rest of the short story will display the eternal struggle that Kafka describes in his work. "An innocent child, yes, that you were, truly, but still more truly have you been a devilish human being! (4)” Parallel to Franz Kafka’s actual life, the father son struggle portrayed in The Judgment is also used in another one of Kafka’s works, The Metamorphosis. This piece of Kafka’s writing is essential to portray his full spectrum view of a struggle with his father portrayed by Gregor Samsa. The father son relationship is overpowered by Gregor’s struggles with his sister, Greta. The character foil of Greta is an important shield because it gives the reader another source material to compare and contrast how Gregor interacts with his sister as well as when he interacts with his father. The reader is aware of how terrible the relationship is between Gregor and his father, when things get worse for Gregor, the reader is forced to look for a protagonist that will help Gregor achieve what he needs. Compared to the father’s unaware lack of interest, Greta displays admirable intent when she attempts to help Gregor survive his metamorphosis. Greta, "brought him a wide assortment of things, all spread out on old newspaper: old, half-rotten vegetables; bones left over from the evening meal, caked with congealed white sauce; some raisins and almonds; a piece of cheese, which two days before Gregor had declared inedible; a plain slice of bread, a slice of bread and butter, and one with butter and salt (p. 24[5]).” As more information is presented through Kafka’s work, the more a reader of his work is able to infer about his personal life. A reader begins to see trends developing in what Kafka molds as the storyline. The setting, point of view, and the character relationships appear to be similar. Kafka is able to structure his story around a third person narrative that looks down upon the protagonist, evoking a feeling of guilt in favor of the father figure. The term father figure is important because atop the devices that Kafka had mastered, symbolism is one that adds a mysterious and abstract touch to any position a reader may take about a character or detail in the story Kafka constructed. The term symbolism modifies the phrase “father-figure” to take on the roll of any detail or event that could be influential in the outcome of the protagonist’s journey. Researchers and interpreters of Kafka’s native German text as well as translated versions of the original text have more theories about what something could mean in one of Kafka’s works than they can decide on (6). One application of symbolism is taken upon by the crowd in another one of Kafka’s works. A Hunger Artist uses many symbols to convey a point about what should be done in the world because it needs to be done versus what some one wants to do. In A Hunger Artist, the hunger artist places himself in a cage in a heavily populated area where he drew a lot of attention. This was his art form. In the earlier time of his fast, the attention he received from the crowd around him was remarkable. The crowd, as interpreters argue it as a symbol for a father figure to the artist (7), plays an integral role in the shaping of the artist. With the constant ridicule of society looking upon him, the artist turns to the one thing that makes him unique, his resistance to food. Society, symbolic of the father figure (7), begins to idealize the artist by giving him his space. At first it appears as though society has reached boredom and moved on, leaving the artist and his trade behind. However, this would make the story structured to reveal the father figure abandoning its child, the artist, which based on Franz Kafka’s life isn’t an trend in which this story fits easily. Replacing the artist in the cage with a more popular panther means something. “Into the cage they put a young panther. (213 [8])” Due to the deceptive revelations a reader may have when reading a piece Kafka wrote, they may find themselves asking what does this event really mean. With the understanding that Kafka based most of his work off of his own life, can a reader infer the artist in fact is Kafka himself? Does this mean when the artist delivers the line, “I couldn’t find the food I liked. If I had found it, believe me, I should have made no fuss and stuffed myself like you or anyone else (213[8]),” Kafka is referring to his craft and artistry in writing? As the reader receives input from society about how they have grown bored with the artist’s craft, its fits with Kafka’s theory about father son relationships that he has depicted in all his works (9). Society, in this case, the father figure grew bored with the artist’s craft of fasting, paralleled in reality by Hermann Kafka’s disappointment in his son’s craft of writing, shapes the outcome of the protagonist‘s journey. Just as Kafka portrayed George, Gregor, and the Artist as a foil for himself, Kafka did his best to accurately depict the complexities in the intense father-son relationship he had with his father. By comparing the foils with the symbolism of a father figure in The Judgment, The Metamorphosis, and A Hunger Artist, Franz Kafka allowed a reader to be fully entertained with the surface level of a story while simultaneously theorizing about human nature through an elaborate masquerade of double meanings, and symbolic characters and events, for a more in-depth, analytical view of his life and how the relationship he had with his father affected his literature.

Bibliography http://kirjasto.sci.fi/kafka.htm http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/judgment-franz-kafka
Cook, James. (1985) Kafka and His Short Stories. Boston: Hook Publ.
Kafka, Franz. The Judgment.
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis http://www.bookrags.com/notes/kaf/PART6.html
Kafka, Franz. A Hunger Artist http://books.google.com/books?id=Wwz_mkP-6t8C&pg=PA567&dq=Franz+ Kafka:+Father+son+relationship&lr=&ei=eH8bSeLTMoXCywSjoo2HAg#PPA578,M1 {pages 551-578}

Bibliography: http://kirjasto.sci.fi/kafka.htm http://www.enotes.com/twentieth-century-criticism/judgment-franz-kafka Cook, James. (1985) Kafka and His Short Stories. Boston: Hook Publ. Kafka, Franz. The Judgment. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Metamorphosis http://www.bookrags.com/notes/kaf/PART6.html Kafka, Franz. A Hunger Artist http://books.google.com/books?id=Wwz_mkP-6t8C&pg=PA567&dq=Franz+ Kafka:+Father+son+relationship&lr=&ei=eH8bSeLTMoXCywSjoo2HAg#PPA578,M1 {pages 551-578}