What Is Kafkaesque?
Frederick R. Karl, the author of the complete critical biography of Franz Kafka, said that people use the term Kafkaesque incorrectly in the sphere of literature, life, and philosophy. Kafka is the only 20th-century literary figure whose name has entered the language in a way other writer have not. According to Karl, the term is like when an individual is about to catch a bus and finds that all the buses have stopped running, thus saying it is the term regardless it is not.
In one of the 1991 articles by Ivana Edwards, Karl describes how Kafkaesque is when the individual enters a surreal world where all individuals control patterns, all plans, and all means to configure the individual’s behavior. Whether the individual falls to pieces or finds himself up against forces incompatible with the individual’s way of seeing the world, the individual will not give up, not lie down, and not die.
The individual fights against the such thing with all the equipment with whatever the individual has. However, the individual will stand no chance, so Karl refers to Kafkaesque. The word has become an introduction to the representative nature of modern times, devoting an entire epilogue to a subject that people find difficult to understand. In short, Kafkaesque defines every human being.
It is one word that tells every human being who they are, what they can expect, and how the world works. To find out what it means, they read Kafka, especially The Metamorphosis, a novella that Kafka wrote in 1915. It tells the story of a man who wakes up as a large insect when humans become insects.
The Symbols of Kafkaesque
Kafkaesque shows meaning people can only access them after reading them many times. If the ending ends with flaws and interpretations but makes no sense, the reader will not immediately do that in emphatic language. The reason is that the stories offer a variety of possible meanings without confirming either of the readers. In turn, it was the result of Kafka’s view. He shared his view with many 20th-century writers that he is part of an interacting force.
The power will constantly not have a stable core. It could be that he achieves an objective approach. However, it can only happen by describing the world in symbolic language. He can also describe the world from several different points of view. Thus, the total view remains inaccessible to readers by him. In the Kafkaesque cosmic, the reader cannot say that the universe is not contradictory at the same time.
While equally plausible, it has a certain ironic quality about Kafka too. In such a context, the irony is that each point of view becomes relative. In many responses, one of the tragedies can become ironic when people witness heroes in Kafkaesque circles. The scope tries to piece together each reader’s space and time debris. Therefore, the Kafkaesque world is, in a nutshell, why it is impossible to derive a certain religious or philosophical code from Kafka.
An individual can admit paradox and confusion in much existential thought. Only on such an event can it reveal the basic absurdity of many things. Kafkaesque symbols become real meanings, classifying the worldview as various spiritual or other meanings. In short, it obscures Kafkaesque with only the kind of meaningless experience, liberating Kafka through his art and existence.
The Universal Paradox
Many have reopened the debate about Kafkaesque in terms of the universal paradox. In the debate, many oppose the viewpoints of Clement Greenberg and F. R. Leavis. Discussions between the two began in 1955 when Greenberg translated Kafka’s short stories. In 1955, he explained that the Kafkaesque vision could not be separated from himself as a Jew. Kafka’s tradition is that of a Jew, liberated and enlightened, not believing in the promise of the Messiah.
If the meanings of Kafka’s text are not exhausted from Jewish mysticism, then the form is Jewish. According to Greenberg, Kafka’s shorter attempts are generally more successful than the short stories or novels, especially in The Metamorphosis. Beyond a certain point, the gradual and hidden movement of perception and time that Kafka can achieve tends to bore the reader. The promise of inadequate resolution increasingly burdens the consciousness.
Circumstances, i.e., what is conclusive, for Kafka can neither have a beginning nor an end. Therefore, it excludes moral issues. However, it is not the moral choice that Kafkaesque fiction makes. Over time, it refuted the assumptions of many of the most serious critics. On the other hand, Leavis said that the value of a work of literary art, in the end, depends on the depth that explores the moral difficulties. Admittedly, Greenberg found Kafkaesque boring.
However, he also challenged Leavis’ kind of ethical critique, elicited a backlash from Leavis, and reaffirmed his idea that good literature is always related to ethical issues. In such a case, Leavis objected to Greenberg’s emphasis on Kafka’s limitations as a writer. By responding to Kafka’s humorist, Greenberg sees it as a departure from the segregation of prison and tradition. According to him, Kafka’s greatness is more visible in his behavior than in big projects.
Kafkaesque and the Modern Era
In the modern era, Kafkaesque is in the mainstream of reading students in every school. It exists not only in reading students but also in a reading society where most students are former. According to Karl, Kafka is not only rich in The Metamorphosis. However, he is also rich in The Castle and Letters to Milena. In The Trial, another by Kafka, the long fiction is rich in the author’s ploy based on misinformation. It achieves the mythical symbolism of a raging world.
The book tells the story of Joseph K.’s execution of a crime that the authorities never mention despite pursuing the truth. Kafkaesque has rearranged space and time so that it can work for or against the protagonist. Such horror of the world is never knowing what happens or when in the book. In Kafka’s world, the urge to reveal what readers can always find they can no longer recover from it.
Despite experts warning Karl to choose not to beg, he wrote what he described as a very funny letter. The letters are also really unusual about everything. From his point of view, many readers have not changed their respective views about Kafka. In short, Kafka had become Kafka, and nothing would change him. However, it was still a real find and not one of Karl’s usual dry research trips. Without a psychological approach, there is no Kafka.
According to Karl, people need not be entangled in Kafkaesque. Individuals can seduce each other individually and can also enter and be trapped. In other words, the point of view and everything can not only be seen through Kafkaesque glasses.
Religion and Kafka
When discussing Kafka as a Jew, the question of him as a religiously honest writer has been going on. Often, however, it is meaningless because of the failure of readers and critics to explain what people mean by religion. For the time being, Kafkaesque critique also does not address an aspect of belief or religion. It serves in part as a sociological and psychoanalytic approach.
It has become more fashionable but popular because critics have proven that many critics make certain mistakes when commenting on Kafka. In another consensus, the new opinion says that, although society owes a lot to Kafka and his works, society has no reason to doubt critics’ judgments about Kafka’s funny, calm, even charming personality. Is that in Kafka’s fiction, the reader too often imagines anxiety and fear?
A rare touch of humorism is nothing more than convulsions, arguing that Kafkaesque is religious. What is clear, however, is that Kafka’s story inevitably concerns people’s desperate attempts to do what is right. Kafka and his protagonist are identical to an astonishing degree, trying to do what is right. However, each character is constantly confused about the meaning of doing right. Seen in such a way, Kafka becomes a religious writer but is rich in excellence.
He is the protagonist of each book he wrote. Therefore, his frame of reference gives meaning to his different notions of impropriety. If the reader takes an intense desire for salvation as the primary criterion of religion, then Kafka is intoxicated with God. In a drunken state, his intelligence will never stop working, and his intelligence is very strong.
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