Franz Kafka : Biography
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Franz
Kafka : Biography
Author Franz Kafka explored the human struggle for
understanding and security in his novels such as Amerika, The Trial and The
Castle.
Born on
July 3, 1883, in Prague, capital of what is now the Czech Republic, writer
Franz Kafka grew up in a middle-class Jewish family. After studying law at the
University of Prague, he worked in insurance and wrote in the evenings. In
1923, he moved to Berlin to focus on writing, but died of tuberculosis shortly
after. His friend Max Brod published most of his work posthumously, such
as Amerika and The Castle.
Early Years
Writer
Franz Kafka was the son of a well-to-do Jewish family who was born on July 3,
1883, in Prague, the capital of Bohemia, a kingdom that was a part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Tragedy
shaped the Kafka home. Franz's two younger brothers, Georg and Heinrich, died
in infancy by the time Kafka was 6, leaving the boy the only son in a family
that included three daughters.
Kafka had
a difficult relationship with both of his parents. His mother, Julie, was a
devoted homemaker who lacked the intellectual depth to understand her son's
dreams to become a writer. Kafka's father, Hermann, had a forceful personality
that often overwhelmed the Kafka home. He was a success in business, making his
living retailing men's and women's clothes.
Kafka's
father had a profound impact on both Kafka's life and writing. He was a tyrant
of sorts, with a wicked temper and little appreciation for his son's creative
side. Much of Kafka's personal struggles, in romance and other relationships,
came, he believed, in part from his complicated relationship with his father.
In his literature, Kafka's characters were often coming up against an
overbearing power of some kind, one that could easily break the will of men and
destroy their sense of self-worth.
Kafka
seems to have derived much of his value directly from to his family, in
particular his father. For much of his adult life, he lived within close
proximity to his parents.
Education
German
was his first language. In fact, despite his Czech background and Jewish roots,
Kafka's identity favored German culture.
Kafka was
a smart child who did well in school even at the Altstädter Staatsgymnasium, an
exacting high school for the academic elite. Still, even while Kafka earned the
respect of his teachers, he chafed under their control and the school's control
of his life.
After
high school Kafka enrolled at the Charles Ferdinand University of Prague, where
intended to study chemistry but after just two weeks switched to law. The
change pleased his father, and also gave Kafka the time to take classes in art
and literature.
In 1906
Kafka completed his law degree and embarked on a year of unpaid work as a law
clerk.
Work Life
After
completing his apprenticeship, Kafka found work with an Italian insurance
agency in late 1907. It was a terrible fit from the start, with Kafka forced to
work a tiring schedule that left little time for his writing.
He lasted
at the agency a little less than a year. After turning in his resignation he
quickly found a new job with the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute for the
Kingdom of Bohemia.
As much
as any work could, the job and his employers suited Kafka, who worked hard and
became his boss's right-hand man. Kafka remained with the company until 1917,
when a bout with tuberculosis forced him to take a sick leave and to eventually
retire in 1922.
Love and Health
At work
Kafka was a popular employee, easy to socialize with and seen as somebody with
a good sense of humor. But his personal life still raged with complications.
His inhibitions and insecurities plagued his relationships. Twice he was
engaged to marry his girlfriend, Felice Bauer, before the two finally went
their separate ways in 1917.
Later,
Kafka later fell in love with Dora Dymant (Diamant), who shared his Jewish
roots and a preference for socialism. Amidst Kafka's increasingly dire health,
the two fell in love and lived together in Berlin. Their relationship largely
centered on Kafka's illnesses. For many years, even before he contracted
tuberculosis, Kafka had not been well. Constantly strained and stressed, he
suffered from migraines, boils, depression, anxiety and insomnia.
Kafka and
Dora eventually returned to Prague. In an attempt to overcome his tuberculosis,
Kafka traveled to Vienna for treatment at a sanatorium. He died in Kierling,
Austria, on June 3, 1924. He was buried beside his parents in Prague's New
Jewish Cemetery in Olsanske.
Body of Work
While
Kafka strove to earn a living, he also poured himself into his writing work. An
old friend named Max Brod would prove crucial in supporting Kafka's literary
work both during his life and long after it.
Kafka's
celebrity as a writer only came after his death. During his lifetime, he
published just a sliver of his overall work.
His most
popular and best-selling short story, "The Metamorphosis," was
completed in 1912 and published in 1915. The story was written from Kafka's
third-floor room, which offered a direct view of the Vltava River and its toll
bridge.
"I
would stand at the window for long periods," he wrote in his diary in
1912, "and was frequently tempted to amaze the toll collector on the
bridge below by my plunge."
Kafka
followed up "The Metamorphosis" with Mediation, a collection of short
stories, in 1913, and then "Before the Law," a short story, a year
later.
Even with
his worsening health, Kafka continued to write. In 1916 he completed "The
Judgment," which spoke directly about the relationship he shared with his
father. Later works included "In the Penal Colony" and "A
Country Doctor," both finished in 1919.
In 1924,
an ill but still working Kafka finished A Hunger Artist, which features four
stories that demonstrate the concise and lucid style that marked his writing at
the end of his life.
But
Kafka, still living with the demons that plagued with him self-doubt, was
reluctant to unleash his work on the world. He requested that Brod, who doubled
as his literary executor, destroy any unpublished manuscripts.
Fortunately,
Brod did not adhere to his friend's wishes and in 1925 published The Trial, a
dark, paranoid tale that proved to be the author's most successful novel. The
story centers on the life of Joseph K., who is forced to defend himself in a
hopeless court system against a crime that is never revealed to him or to the
reader.
The following
year, Brod released The Castle, which again railed against a faceless and
dominating bureaucracy. In the novel, the protagonist, whom the reader knows
only as K., tries to meet with the mysterious authorities who rule his village.
In 1927,
the novel Amerika was published. The story hinges on a boy, Karl Rossmann, who
is sent by his family to America, where his innocence and simplicity are
exploited everywhere he travels. Amerika struck at the same father issues that
were prevalent in so much of Kafka's other work. But the story also spoke to
Kafka's love of travel books and memoirs (he adored The Autobiography of
Benjamin Franklin) and his longing to see the world.
In 1931,
Brod published the short story "The Great Wall of China," which Kafka
had originally crafted 14 years before.
Legacy
Incredibly,
at the time of his death Kafka's name was known only to small group of readers.
It was only after he died and Max Brod went against the demands of his friend
that Kafka and his work gained fame. His books garnered favor during World War
II, especially, and greatly influenced German literature.
As the
1960s took shape and Eastern Europe was under the fist of bureaucratic
Communist governments, Kafka's writing resonated particularly strongly with
readers. So alive and vibrant were the tales that Kafka spun about man and
faceless organizations that a new term was introduced into the English lexicon:
"Kafkaesque."
The
measure of Kafka's appeal and value as a writer was quantified in 1988, when
his handwritten manuscript of The Trial was sold at auction for $1.98 million,
at that point the highest price ever paid for a modern manuscript.
The buyer, a West German book dealer, gushed after
his purchase was finalized. "This is perhaps the most important work in
20th-century German literature," he said, "and Germany had to have
it."
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