‘ I sentence you to death by drowning! ’ – the absurdist destruction of the everyman in the short fiction of Franz Kafka
Kit Parsons
Despite his reputation for being averse to publishing, the German language writer Franz Kafka (1883- 1924) published seven books of short (less than novel length) fiction within his lifetime and was in fact a ‘minor literary figure’ 1 amongst well- read German speakers. Kafka’s work generally de -emphasizes characterful dialogue, or genuine ‘chemistry’ between characters ; the narration is all encompassing and often paraphrases the thoughts and speech of characters with an apathetic detail and distance. Kafka loved the humorous and absurd, and emphasized these qualities as he read his work to his friends, but he loved it as it arose from the insanity of his universe, not as it relates to the charisma or observances of his usually morose characters. As such Franz Kafka’s authorial voice establishes and explores a complex relationship between his individual protagonists and their universe, telling stories of limited scale to focus strictly on his autobiographically inclined everyman. This autobiographical element is evident in that his characters are almost always young, professional, urban men whose defining attribute is their suffering, uncomfortable in their status, their relationships (sexual or otherwise), their masculinity, and their precarious economic position. This essay will explore three of the major stories Kafka deemed worthy of publishing during his lifetime: The Judgement , In the Penal Colony , and Metamorphosis . These stories typify Kafka’s interest in the individual in an absurdist universe and all feature the ultimate death of the most central character. These stories cast a light upon Kafka’s portrayal of the individual in an absurdi st world, and charting the inevitable progression of these stories towards annihilation demonstrates the motifs of personal destruction that characterize his writing. The world of Kafkaesque storytelling is one of interpersonal distance. There are rarely moments of humanizing connection and the absence of close relationships for his male characters is evident. Gregor Samsa’s life is that of the travelling salesperson, an ‘affectionless’ life lacking in ‘continuity’ , where he meets interchangeable ‘new people all the time’ . This weighs heavily on his mind even in the immediate wake of his sudden transformation. The resentful relationship between him and his father likely contributes to an overreactive violence on the latter’s part to quash him within his roo m. Samsa works tirelessly to pay for violin lessons for his sister and even this is not enough to prevent her ultimate betrayal and utter rebuke of his presence in the house. The isolated men of the Penal Colony seem solemnly unfriendly toward one another, and Georg is a likewise socially isolated character. His only true interactions are with his father, his friend is abroad, and his fiancée is a distant presence mentioned in passing. Georg’s stunted and tenuous relationship to his friend is evident in tha t he cannot bear to write him a ‘substantive letter’ lest he become ‘envious’ of his business successes, and when his father later (absurdly) claims to have been secretly in contact and undermining his relationship with the friend, there is part of Georg that seems to believe him, such is his distance from their friendship. Kafka confessed to his friend and literary executor Max Brod that the description of Georg’s suicide was
1 Hoffman (2007).
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