Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Discovering Franz Kafka Writings And Kafkaesque Art

By Karina Frost


Franz Kafka was a major novelist and short story writer. While he left a large body of work, he had requested it be destroyed upon his death. Fortunately, that did not happen. Instead, much of it has been published posthumously. The most famous and well known of these writings are most likely The Metamorphosis and The Trial. Many artists now create elaborate pieces of horrific or nightmarish art now known as kafkaesque art.

Most of the writer's work expresses the absurdity of society today. In particular, the growth of capitalism and a lack of personal attention when it comes to bureaucracy and red tape. Often, the individuals in his books stand alone in opposition to others' ideologies and lifestyles. Kafkaesque is a label now given to art by artists to describe absurd and surreal characteristics like those found in his many writings.

The majority of Kafka's work draws a comparison between concerns and current events at the time. He seem to portray a belief in most of his work that the world was not only void of meaning but also malevolent toward the individual. His overall belief about society being that most people were mean and menacing due to this new era of greed and capitalism.

Franz Kafka was born to a Germanic Jewish family in Prague. At that time, still the capital of Bohemia. He identified as both Hungarian and Austrian with German being his native tongue. While fluent in German, he also spoke a second language of Czech though it is reported that his Czech dialect and vocabulary could have used a bit of polishing by other writers fluent in the language.

While at Charles University, the writer focused on multiple areas of study. These interests being chemistry, law, science and English. Later, he became involved with a literary group at the school which ignited his interest in writing. He also believed that with the varied knowledge he would gain, there would have more career opportunities than if we were to have only focused on one area of study.

The writer delved into a lot of different interests in his personal and professional life. His educational experience includes a focus in chemistry, law, science and English. One reason for his varied interests being that the more he knew, the better career opportunities he would most likely have in the future.

Sadly, in 1917, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a disease which requires a great deal of convalescent care. After several years in treatment, he moved to Berlin and developed a relationship with a Czech journalist. He then lived with a 25 year old teacher from a Jewish family. While not certain about the lack of Faith, her mother loved Kafka, so the young girl and Kafka married.

Like many artists, he suffered from anxiety and depression. While having a somewhat negative belief in medicine, he did try a number of different natural treatments. One in particular, which is thought to have possibly been the reason for the tuberculosis was the large amount of unpasteurized milk he drank during his lifetime. While this may have been the case, it is also believed a vegetarian diet most likely being the reason he lived as long as he did, even after the tuberculosis diagnosis.




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