Franz
Kafka:
1883-1924
His Life and
Work
Kafka’s Parents
Hermann Kafka
1852-1931
Julie Löwy
1856-1934
Kafka’s
Sisters
Valli, Elli, Ottla
Kafka, aged 10; Valli (left) and Elli (middle)
Kafka’s Sisters
Gabriella (Elli)
1889-1941
Valerie (Valli)
1890-1942
Ottilia (Ottla)
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-VersicherungsAnstalt 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
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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
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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