franz kafka

Reading Kafka is like steering through a dark and low cave, making myself feel stuck and receding. But while he is taking me to this place, he did not neglect to put very valuable ores there.

Franz Kafka was born in Prague in 1883. He is a son of a Jewish family. He wrote all his works in German instead of his mother tongue Czech. Besides being a very passive and introverted mother, he has an extremely despotic and ambitious father.

Kafka, -who is the son of a father who gets whatever he wants- is not like his father at all. While his father has a rather strong and bulky physique, Kafka is rather thin and frail. His father realizes that his son is physically flawed, he also realizes Kafka's character is not tough and assertive like himself but he is more naive and soft. Realizing that Kafka is not an ideal child model that matches his mind, his father begins to apply psychological violence to Kafka. He was exposed to his father's mockery, bullying, and contempt for a long time. He experienced feelings on an extreme level such as inferiority complex, self-hatred, and guilt in his youth. While grappling with these feelings, Kafka discovers his passion for writing and dreams of becoming a writer in the future. However, Kafka's enthusiasm for writing does not satisfy his father. His father wants him to quit writing and sends him to law school. Although Kafka does not enjoy studying at law school, he meets the person who will be his best friend in the future whose name is Max Brod. Brod describes Kafka as "Someone who is shy and rarely speaks, but when he speaks, he often says something profound."

After graduating from law school, Kafka starts working in an insurance company, but he has a very difficult time due to his overloaded busy work schedule and low salary. On the other hand, he continues to write, but he does not find his writings worth publishing. Later on, he decides to publish his works upon the intense request of his friend Max Brod. And these works do not succeed. The lack of success in his works further intensifies the sense of insecurity that Kafka already felt. He had always been dissatisfied with his works and he thinks his writings were worthless. We can see that the traumas his father gave him when he was a child were also effective in Kafka's distrust of his talent and writing. Because he has carried this troubled relationship with his father all his life like a burden. Kafka can no longer carry this trouble after a certain point. At the age of 36, he decides to write a letter to his father. In this letter, he will pour out his heart to his father, tell him in detail about the traumas he experienced because of him. In a way, he offers him the opportunity to confess. He finished the letter, and it has 47 pages. Kafka could not dare to give this letter to his father first hand and decided to forward it through his mother. However, his mother does not forward this letter to him because, just like Kafka, his mother is scared of her husband. She thinks that this despotic man is going to react aggressively to this letter. Unfortunately, this letter never reaches his father and, this broken relationship between Kafka and his father leads to nothing. Kafka passes away five years after this affair, due to tuberculosis.

Franz Kafka - Babaya Mektup, 1952

Worse than Kafka's inability to settle his reckoning with his father and die at an early age, is that a literate genius like him goes to the grave, thinking that he is a failed and incompetent writer. While he was alive the books he published did not show much success. Later, he did not even think of publishing what he wrote, as they would show the same failure. When Kafka was on his deathbed, he told his friend Max Brod to burn all the writings he still hasn't published. Of course, Max Brod is aware of Kafka's literate potential. After Kafka's death, he organized his works beautifully and published them by naming Kafka. And thanks to this friend Brod, who believed in Kafka's potential even more than Kafka himself, Franz Kafka took his place as one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century. In his works, themes such as existential pain, the absurdity of life, and the struggle of man with the absurd will greatly affect the writers and philosophers -like Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre- who came after him. And again, like the most special people Kafka's value was realized after his death.

Franz Kafka & Max Brod

In his book The Trial, Kafka deals with the story of someone who is victimized by the justice system. The main character, Josef, is suddenly arrested one day, but he is not told why. Then he is summoned to the court, but it is not even announced where and in which room the court will be. Finding himself in an extremely nonsense situation, on the one hand, Josef tries to find out what his crime is, on the other hand, he struggles with this nonsense that the justice system has given him. Even at the end of the story, Josef still can't figure out what crime he's on for trial and remains guilty. No matter how absurd and illogical the event described in this book may seem, some incidents have happened in real life such as the case of Mehmet Civelek. Also, Josef's unreasonable sense of guilt throughout the book is perhaps a reflection of Kafka's guilt psychology when he was little because of his father's bullies. In the book, while the authority that Josef struggles with is the justice system, the authority of Kafka was his father. They were both treated as guilty by the authority. But they can't figure out why they are.

Franz Kafa - Dava (1925)

The Metamorphosis is even more absurd than The Trial. The main character, Gregor Samsa, wakes up one morning and turned into an insect. Samsa, who did not even get out the bed while in this state, starts to think about how he will go to work and how he will explain his situation to his boss. When Samsa's family realizes that their son has turned into an insect, they first try to help him, but later they start to disgust this insect. But I think even if Samsa didn't turn into an insect, not much would have changed in his life. Because Samsa already feels like an insect in his life. He has already ceased to be a human being in the face of her wearisome work in a job he doesn't like, his inconsiderate boss, and the environment that puts a lot of responsibility on him. He has been alienated. The first thing that comes to mind when Samsa turns into an insect is how he will go to work in this state. Instead of thinking about why he turned into an insect or how to get rid of being an insect, he thinks about getting to work and this explains his situation. If the worry of going to work gets in the way of getting rid of being an insect, this person is already disconnected from life. This is the story of a person who becomes estranged from his surroundings, his job, his boss, in short, from most things in his life. And alienated towards life as a result of the absurdities and nonsenses he finds in himself.

Franz Kafa - Dönüşüm (1915)

In these two books and other works of Kafka, the main characters always encounter situations that are quite absurd and beyond their control. But these characters continue to struggle despite the nonsense they live through. Josef fought with this corrupt justice system to the end. And despite turning into an insect, Samsa still tried to hold on to life. At the end of these two stories, the characters did not get what they wanted. But even if they had bad endings, the characters' not giving up and their determination with the absurd is a detail that makes these stories beautiful.

Although Kafka is a special artist, unfortunately, he has a tragic fate. The news of his death appeared in a local newspaper as only a single line. Also, even after Kafka died, he was still not fully understood. Literary critics find his works too pessimistic and depressing. Kafka's fully understanding takes place after the Second World War. The pessimism and hopelessness that this war created in societies have changed people's perspectives on Kafka. After the war, people began to question notions such as the absurdity of existence and the uncontrollable aspects of life, they gradually began to understand Kafka. Another interesting fact about Kafka is that despite living such a difficult life and producing dark works, he never lost his sense of humor. Max Brod states that this shy man is quite playful and cheerful at some times. Even this humor is seen in his works. Although the absurdity in his works is usually exemplified in the form of tragedy, this absurdity sometimes reaches such a level that it starts to make people laugh.

I think the breaking point in Kafka's life is that, if Max Brod had listened to him and burned his works, maybe we wouldn't be writing and talking about Kafka right now. Life is so absurd that while giving Kafka such a father, it also gives him such a friend as Max Brod. I wonder how many special people like Kafka, left us and died without realizing their potential for their works...