Essay About Franz Kafkabiography And Ideal World

Franz Kafka
Essay Preview: Franz Kafka
Report this essay
Franz KafkaBiography:        Birth: July 3, 1883                Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary                (now Czech Republic)        Death: June 3, 1924 (aged 40, due to tuberculosis)                Kierling (near Vienna, Austria)        Nationality: German        Religion: Jewish        Best Known Works: The Trial (Der Prozess; 1925)The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung; 1915)The Judgment (Das Urteil; 1912)The Castle (Das Schloss; 1926)Expresses anxieties and alienation felt by many in 20th century Europe and North AmericaWas widely known for stories that often present a grotesque view of the worldIndividuals burdened with guilt, isolation, and anxiety make a futile search for personal salvationHis views present the self as a part of interacting forces lacking a stable core“Approximation of Objectivity” is achieved through describing the world in symbolic language and from various vantage pointsHe proposed that one can never truly know another human being, so there is no use in striving for interpersonal relationships.Man, alone, must determine what constitutes a moral action although he can never foresee the consequences of his actions. Man, as a result, comes to regard his total freedom of choice as a curse. Existentialists, such as Kafka, is guilty in their failure to choose and to commit themselves in the face of too many possibilitiesThe discrepancy between the ideal world and the human world results in the estrangement of individuals from their society or their selvesAbsurdity: a search for meaning in a meaningless world: exigent desire is for solitude and peace rather than finding objective truths about the worldAlienation: estrangement of individual from the society or from his purposeof self        : “You are nothing more than your role…what you contribute to the whole.”Philosophical basis: open systemhuman experiences about the world and not so much of the human perception of the worldBachelor Archetype: inability to resign oneself to the everyday and to become blind to the absurdity of the human condition: “the Bachelor is resigned to his fate of an ever-dwindling world and has no choices before him to change his fate”