Franz Kafka

Biography

Franz Kafka was born with Prague, then capital of the Bohemia which belonged to the empire Austro-Hungarian. His/her grandfather Jacob Kafka came from a provincial town Czech, Osek, and installed in Prague a small shop. He is the son of Hermann Kafka (1852-1931), and of Julie Kafka, born Löwy (1856-1934), resulting from a rich person family of Poděbrady. He had two brothers, Georg and Heinrich, died in low age, in 1885 and 1887, and three younger sisters: Gabrielle (Elli) (1889-1941), Valerie (Valli) (1890-1942) and Ottilie (Ottla) (1892-1943), which, at the time of the Second world war, were off-set in the ghetto of Łódź and died there or in a Concentration camp. Franz had a solitary childhood. Its native tongue was the German as for close to 10 % of the population of Prague at the time.

Kafka were Juif S. Kafka itself, like its biographers, describe his father like dominating and pretentious, with whom it had difficult relations. Although it did not have an intense relationship with his mother, it was strongly identified with its family on the maternal side which, contrary to that of his/her father (his grandfather had founded a small “large surface”), was known like intellectual and spiritual.

Between 1889 and 1893 it followed the elementary school to the Fleischmarket (“Gone with the meats”, maintaining on the street Másna) to Prague. Its Jewish education was limited to the celebration of its Bar Mitsva at the thirteen years age, and its participation four times per annum in the services of the Synagog.

After primary school education, it was allowed with the college of State to Prague, the Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium German-speaking. It finishes its education in 1901. Very early, it is interested in the Littérature (its first writings disappeared, undoubtedly destroyed by Kafka itself) and in the socialist ideas . Kunstwart . (Why is this important? Sherbrooke, 2007-09-26.)-->Ses friendly is then Rudolf Illowy, Hugo Bergmann, Ewald Felix Pribram or Oskar Pollak. It spends its holidays to the countryside, in his uncle Siegfried, a doctor of Triesch.

After its vat (1901), Kafka travels to Norderney and in Helgoland. In autumn, it begins its studies with the Université Charles of Prague. After two weeks of course in chemistry, Kafka decides to study the right. It however also follows of the courses of germanistic and of history of Article It travels a little. It joint with the Injures und Redehalle der Deutschen Studenten , a Association coed which among other things organizes literary events and presentations.

In 1902, it becomes acquainted with the poet max Brod, who will be his most influential friend and will publish most of his work after his death. In 1906, it is received doctor in right in the professor Alfred Weber and makes a one year training course, like civil service, with the court of Prague. In 1909, it publishes its first tests of prose in the magazine Munich ois Hyperion .

November 1st 1907, it enters to the service of Assicurazioni Generali , a Italian Insurance company commercial. After having worked only nine months there, he resigned of it the July 15th 1908, according to his dires, because the long work hours prevented it per too much from exerting its great passion: the writing. Two weeks later, it entered to the service of the Arbeiter-Unfall-Versicherungs-Anstalt für das Königreich Böhmen (Institution of insurance for the accidents of the workers of the kingdom of Bohemia), where it worked until its premature pension in 1922. Although it pejoratively qualified its work of “livelihood”, its services were evaluated very positively by its employer, as its promotions in its career testify some. It had as a task the limitation of the risks of safety incurred by the workmen who were to work on machines often still dangerous at the time; it is to this end that it went in many factories and that it wrote handbooks of information. It was, moreover, person in charge of the classification of the factories in groups of risks. The fact that it was to also dispute compensation requests gave him sometimes bad conscience, but the company often left him the possibility of being broad for the victims, which had sometimes undergone permanent wounds.

Beside its work for the insurance company, Kafka continued to write, and it followed a particular daily program with this intention: the morning, he worked at the office; at midday, it was going to sleep a few hours; then, it was going to walk, eat with friends or the family, to start to write the evening, an activity which it continued until late in the night. It is during one of these nights that, “like drunk”, it put on paper the account Das Urteil ( the Verdict ).

Relations

His/her close friends were max Brod, the philosopher Felix Weltsch, the Zionist Hugo Bergman and the pianist Oskar Baum.

Kafka maintained the problematic relations with the women. In 1912, in the house of max Brod, it meets Berliner the Felice Bauer, representing of a firm of marketing of Dictaphone S. In the five years which followed, an intense correspondence developed between Kafka and Felice. They met time with other, which resulted by twice in engagement. Side of Kafka, it acted especially of a platonic love, which it maintained mainly by its letters. Gradually, it carried out at which point a traditional marital life would be impossible with Felice, much more ground with ground, especially with its tendency to be locked up in its office; that led at the end of their relation in 1917.

In 1919, Kafka became engaged to Julie Wohryzeck, a secretary of Prague, but his/her father strongly opposed this relation. It still finished the same year - according to what one knows some on the initiative of Julie - but the conflict made that Kafka took a more antagonistic position with respect to his/her father, who would have seen well his son like successor in his business enterprise.

With the beginning of the year 1920, a relation of short duration, but very intense, developed between Kafka and the journalist and écrivaine anarchistic Czech Milena Jesenská. Of all the women of its life - there were still various “businesses” - Milena perhaps best perceived the hypersensitive author, and, at least at the time of their rare meetings, it could help it to overcome its fears. But finally it felt however badly at ease with this blazing artist. In 1923, it left for some time to Berlin, hoping to better be able to concentrate with the writing without the interference of the family. It is at that time that it met Dora Diamond, a maternal teacher 19 years originating in a Polish Jewish orthodoxe family. Gilded became the partner of Kafka to Berlin and influenced the interest growing of Kafka for the Talmud. It is near it that it tasted a finally little marital happiness, that it did not consider possible any more. Together, they planned to immigrate in Palestine.

Health

In 1917, it regularly begins with expectorer blood and one poses the diagnosis of Tuberculose. That led to a complaint of almost obsessional nature in its letters with Felice, and the use of its disease like reason to break its engagement. But he saw also his statute of writer like a handicap for a “normal” family life, which would have become an enormous problem with Felice less intellectual and more overflowing of life.

Kafka, which showed signs of Hypocondrie, suffered, as it now is thought, of clinical Dépression and social Phobie, but presented also phenomena probably related to the stress: Migraine S, Insomnia S, Constipation S and Furoncle S. It was wary of regular medicine and tried to fight its complaints with cures naturopathes, a Régime vegetarian and by drinking Lait not pasteurized. It used its holidays to follow rest cures in Sanatorium S, for which its employer often granted exceptional vacation to him. In 1922, the writer is prépensionné, in consequence of his defective general state of health.

Although the personal situation of Kafka strongly improved after its removal in Berlin, and that he wrote again much, the winter characterized by the Inflation of 1923 - 1924 in Berlin was again disastrous for its health already staggering. The essential consumer goods were done rare and it was to make some come from Prague; moreover the cold in badly heated housing was not favorable to its cure. When in March 1924, Brod visited him, its state was at this worsened point that it took it along with him to Prague; in April, a tuberculosis of the larynx was diagnosed.

It was clear that Kafka did not have any more as a a long time: one knew then neither the Pénicilline nor the Perfusion, so that Kafka - a state fed more and more with difficulty which presented features of the character of Gregor in the Metamorphosis and from the main character of its news a famished artist . In the last months, it was supported by its doctor and friendly Robert Klopstock, who directed in manner criticizes the medical care of Kafka, but the patient could not receive any more from the assistance but of Analgésique S.

Kafka was integrated into the Sanatorium of Kierling close to Vienna, where he died the June 3rd 1924, probably of malnutrition, Dora Diamond at its sides. Its body was brought back to Prague, where it was buried the June 11th 1924 in the new Jewish cemetery Žižov ( Prague-Strachnitz ).

The trade of writer

Kafka regarded the writing as a deeply intimate need, as if it acted for him of “an atrocious activity”, which implied “a total opening of the body and heart”. He spoke about “a sea frozen in itself”; a book should be “the axe” with which “to open” this sea. For Kafka, one was to write as if one were in a dark tunnel, without still knowing how the characters were going to develop later on.

In connection with its work

Kafka wrote all its works in German, if they are not some letters written in Czech that he addressed to his mistress Milena Jesenská.

During its life, Kafka published only some short accounts, as well as the new the Metamorphosis , therefore an any small portion of its work. Among its large Romance, the Castle and America were never finished. the Lawsuit has an end well, but the seventh chapter remained without end and moreover the succession of the chapters is not certain.

Before its death, Kafka charged in writing his/her friend and executor max Brod to destroy all its manuscripts. However, Brod saw in the written indication of his/her friend that only was to carry out this “judgment to him” and thus a permission not to make so that: he, which knew and appreciated the work of Kafka like no one other, had informed this one on several occasions that it would make of sound better in order to preserve its work for the posterity. A little later a discussion started about this double direction supposed by Brod of the “will” of Kafka (anything else that a short missive). One will never know with certainty if Kafka were serious, when it wished that all its work not published either destroyed. On the other hand, it is the writer himself which destroyed or made burn by his/her Dora friend various manuscripts, among which a great number of accounts and at least a play.

With regard to the manuscripts of Kakfa that Brod did not have in hands before the war, the Gestapo was given the responsability to satisfy its last wills, at the beginning of 1933, after the takeover by Hitler, by seizing approximately 20 newspapers and 35 letters in the Berliner apartment of Gilded. In spite of the active interventions of the Czech embassy in Berlin, these manuscripts as of other parts which fell into the hands from the Nazis were not found and are regarded as missings forever.

Brod, as for him, rejected the instructions of his/her friend and took care of the posthumous publication of most of its work. It already published the large novels of Kafka in the years 1920; it could not collate and publish the remainder of its works, mainly the many newspapers and letters before the beginning of the Second world war. The night when the Nazis occupied Prague in March 1939, it succeeds in fleeing in Palestine with the majority of the manuscripts of Kafka, where the remainder of the work of his/her friend could be published gradually. Max Brod will make known this author who, of alive sound, had not drawn the attention of criticisms. After its death, its work will be analyzed, criticized, rented. Kafka from now on is regarded as a major writer of avant-garde.

The writings of Kafka reflect the feelings of the company of the beginning of the 20th century. Its characters evolve/move in a world where the reports/ratios and the relations which govern them them are incomprehensible; where they are delivered, impotent, with unknown forces, as in a nightmare. The life is an irresolute mystery, a labyrinth which one does not know the exit and what awaits us there. Kafka studies the psychology of its characters vis-a-vis extraordinary situations, of which they do not know holding them and the outcomes, and their relationship to their entourage.

Kafka approaches the topics of loneliness, the dreams, the fears and the complexes. The character is lost, déboussolé, it does not seize all that surrounds it, the reader is in the same situation. The particular atmosphere of the novels and news of Kafka gave rise to an adjective, “kafkaïen”, which returns to something of absurdity and illogical, of confused and incomprehensible.

Works

(The dates mentioned are the publication dates)

1910: Considerations
1913: the Driver , or others Soutier ( Der Heizer )
1913: Glances ( Betrachtung )
1913: the Verdict ( Das Urteil )

1913: Soutier ( Der Heizer ) -->

1915: the Metamorphosis ( Die Verwandlung )
1919: the penal Settlement ( In der Strafkolonie )
1919: a country doctor ( Ein Landarzt )
1921: First suffering ( Erstes Leid )
1924: a champion of fast ( Ein Hungerkünstler )

Works published after its death:

1925 : the Lawsuit ( Der Prozess )
1926: the Castle ( Das Schloss )
1927: America ( Amerika ) (although published later, it was written before the Lawsuit and the Castle )
1931: Wall of China ( Beim Beam DER chinesischen Mauer )
1934: In front of the law

See too

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