Franz Kafka:

1883-1924

His Life and Work

Kafka’s ParentsJulie LöwyHermann Kafka

1852-1931 1856-1934

Kafka’s Sisters

Valli, Elli, Ottla

Kafka, aged 10; Valli (left) and Elli (middle)

Kafka’s Sisters

Gabriella (Elli) Valerie (Valli) Ottilia (Ottla)

1889-1941 1890-1942 1892-1943

Kafka and Ottla, 1914

Altstädter Deutschen Staatsgymnasium

Imitating the German-speaking elite of Prague, Kafka’s father sent his son to German schools

At Ferdinand-Karls University• Intended to study philosophy,

against his father’s wishes• Entered in 1901 to study law,

against his own wishes• Abandoned law for chemistry• Returned to law• Abandoned it again for German studies and art

history• Returned to law• 1905, when his health failed, he left to recover• In 1906 he returned and finished his doctorate

in law

Kafka as Doctor of Law, around 1906

Professional Life

• Before finishing law school, he drafted legal notices for a local attorney

• Assisted his parents in the family business• 1906: one year unpaid apprenticeship in

Prague’s court system • 1907: one year at the Assicurazioni Generali

(Italian Insurance Agency)• 1908-1922: Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-

Anstalt für das Königsreich Böhmen in Prag (Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia)

Assicurazioni Generali

Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anstalt für das Königsreich Böhmen in Prag(Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia)

Friends• While at the university, he made friends with:

Max Brod Oskar Baum Felix Weltsch

1884-1968 1883-1941 1884-1964

• Together they frequented the cafés, theatres, and bordellos of Prague, discussing politics, art, and their own writings

Novels

• 1925: Der Prozess (The Trial), ed. Brod

• 1926: Das Schloss (The Castle), ed. Brod

• 1927: Amerika, ed. Brod

Kafka’s Writings: Short Fiction

• 1913: “Der Heizer: Ein Fragment” (The Stoker: A Fragment”)

• 1913: Betrachtung (Meditations)• 1915: Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis)• 1916: “Das Urteil: Eine Geschichte” (“The

Judgment: A Story”)• 1919: In der Strafkolonie (In the Penal

Colony)• 1919: Eine Landarzt (A Country Doctor)• 1924: Ein Hungerkunstler (A Hunger Artist)

Diaries

Diary Drawings

Recurring themes in Kafka’s work• Father-son conflict• Isolation or alienation of the individual• Law as inaccessible/uncaring• Science vs. the state of nature• The dehumanizing aspect of the bureaucratic state• Loss of individual security and social cohesion (through

war, changing social order, industrialization)• A sense of anxiety and doubt about earlier assumptions

about the individual’s social and personal value• A questioning of earlier narratives, especially religious

ones, about the human problems of evil, suffering, and injustice

• The nightmare of modern experience in an industrialized world

Formal qualities of Kafka’s work

• The short stories are told as parables• Each work is carefully constructed• The world is carefully specified and described• Naturalism: reality is external, not internal• Expressionism: reality is distorted to reveal

man’s absurd condition• Comical elements• The “fantastic,” natural supernaturalism,

magical realism

Kafka’s Judaism

• His father was only perfunctorily attached to the Jewish community and its religious practices

• Haskalah – Jewish Enlightment movement• Kafka was German both in language and

culture• Kafka was sympathetic to Czech political and

cultural aspirations• Later he studied Hebrew and supported

Zionism• Anti-Semitism in Prague

Prague

• Was a prominent provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

• Situated on the Vltava River

• Is important as background to Kafka’s stories, if not literally, symbolically

Kafka’s birthplace

Café Continental

Jewish Ghetto

Prague 1897

Modern Prague

Kafka in 1901

Kafka in 1910

Kafka in 1915

Kafka and Felice Bauer

They were twice engaged before their final rupture in 1917

Kafka in 1922

1923-1924 Dora Dymant

Kafka dies near Vienna, in 1924, of tuberculosis

Kafka’s Grave, Jewish Cemetery, Prague