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Franz Kafka (July 3, 1883 – June 3, 1924) was one of the major
German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. A middle-class Jew based in
Prague, his unique body of writing — many incomplete and most published
posthumously — has become amongst the most influential in Western literature.
Kafka's works – including the stories Das Urteil (1913, "The Judgement"), In der
Strafkolonie (1920, "In the Penal Colony"); the novella Die Verwandlung ("The
Metamorphosis"); and unfinished novels Der Prozess ("The Trial") and Das Schloß
("The Castle") – have come to embody the blend of absurd, surreal and mundane which
gave rise to the adjective "kafkaesque".
 Life
Family
Kafka was born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague, the
capital of Bohemia. His father, Hermann Kafka (1852–1931), was described as a
"huge, selfish, overbearing businessman" (Corngold 1972) and by Kafka himself as "a
true Kafka in strength, health, appetite, loudness of voice, eloquence,
self-satisfaction, worldly dominance, endurance, presence of mind, knowledge of
human nature ...". Kafka struggled to come to terms with his domineering father.
Hermann was the fourth child of Jacob Kafka, a butcher, and came to Prague from
Osek, a Czech-speaking Jewish village near Písek in southern Bohemia. After working
as a traveling sales representative, he established himself as an independent
retailer of men's and women's fancy goods and accessories, employing up to 15
people and using a jackdaw (kavka in Czech) as his business logo. Kafka's mother,
Julie (1856—1934), was the daughter of Jakob Löwy, a prosperous brewer in
Poděbrady, and was better educated than her husband.
Kafka was the eldest of six children. He had two younger brothers, Georg and
Heinrich, who died at the ages of fifteen months and six months, respectively,
before Kafka was six, and three younger sisters, Gabriele ("Elli") (1889–1941),
Valerie ("Valli") (1890–1942), and Ottilie ("Ottla") (1892–1943). On business days,
both parents were absent from the home. His mother helped to manage her husband's
business and worked in it as much as 12 hours a day. The children were largely
reared by a series of governesses and servants.
Kafka's sisters were sent with their families to the Łódź ghetto and died there or
in concentration camps. Ottla is believed to have been sent to the concentration
camp at Theresienstadt and then to the death camp at Auschwitz.
Education
Kafka learned German as his first language, but he was also fluent in Czech. Later,
Kafka also acquired some knowledge of French language and culture; one of his
favorite authors was Flaubert. From 1889 to 1893, he attended the Deutsche
Knabenschule, the boys' elementary school at the Fleischmarkt (meat market), the
street now known as Masná Street in Prague. His Jewish education was limited to his
Bar Mitzvah celebration at 13 and going to the synagogue four times a year with his
father. After elementary school, he was admitted to the rigorous classics-oriented
state gymnasium, Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium, an academic secondary school with
eight grade levels, where German was also the language of instruction, at
Staroměstské náměstí, within the Kinsky Palace in the Old Town. He completed his
Matura exams in 1901.
Admitted to the German Charles-Ferdinand University of Prague, Kafka first studied
chemistry, but switched after two weeks to law. This offered a range of career
possibilities, which pleased his father, and required a longer course of study that
gave Kafka time to take classes in German studies and art history. At the
university, he joined a student club, named Lese- und Redehalle der Deutschen
Studenten, which organized literary events, readings and other activities. In the
end of his first year of studies, he met Max Brod, who would become a close friend
of his throughout his life, together with the journalist Felix Weltsch, who also
studied law. Kafka obtained the degree of Doctor of Law on June 18, 1906 and
performed an obligatory year of unpaid service as law clerk for the civil and
criminal courts.
Work
On November 1, 1907, he was hired at the Assicurazioni Generali, a huge Italian
insurance company, where he worked for nearly a year. His correspondence, during
that period, witnesses that he was unhappy with his working time schedule - from 8
p.m (20:00) until 6 a.m (06:00) - as it made it extremely difficult for him to
concentrate on his writing. On July 15, 1908, he resigned, and two weeks later
found more congenial employment with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for
the Kingdom of Bohemia. He often referred to his job as insurance officer as a
"Brotberuf", literally "bread job", a job done only to pay the bills. However, he
did not show any signs of indifference towards his job, as the several promotions
that he received during his career prove that he was a hardworking employee. A
little-known fact about this period, reported by Peter Drucker in Managing in the
Next Society, is that Kafka invented the safety helmet. He received a medal for
this invention in 1912 because it reduced Bohemian steel mill deaths to fewer than
25 per thousand employees. He was also given the task of compiling and composing
the annual report and was reportedly quite proud of the results, sending copies to
friends and family. In parallel, Kafka was also committed to his literary work.
Together with his close friends Max Brod and Felix Weltsch these three were called
"Der enge Prager Kreis", the close Prague circle.
In 1911, Karl Hermann, spouse of his sister Elli, proposed Kafka collaborate in the
operation of an asbestos factory known as Prager Asbestwerke Hermann and Co. Kafka
showed a positive attitude at first, dedicating much of his free time to the
business. During that period, he also found interest and entertainment in the
performances of Yiddish theatre, despite the misgivings of even close friends such
as Max Brod, who usually supported him in everything else. Those performances also
served as a starting point for his growing relationship with Judaism.
Later
years
In 1912, at the home of his lifelong friend Max Brod, Kafka met Felice Bauer, who
lived in Berlin and worked as a representative for a dictaphone company. Over the
next five years they corresponded a great deal, met occasionally, and twice were
engaged to be married. Their relationship finally ended in 1917.
In 1917, Kafka began to suffer from tuberculosis, which would require frequent
convalescence during which he was supported by his family, most notably his sister
Ottla. Despite his fear of being perceived as both physically and mentally
repulsive, he impressed others with his boyish, neat, and austere good looks, a
quiet and cool demeanor, obvious intelligence and dry sense of humor.
In the early 1920s he developed an intense relationship with Czech journalist and
writer Milena Jesenská. In 1923, he briefly moved to Berlin in the hope of
distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing. In
Berlin, he lived with Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher from an
orthodox Jewish family, who was independent enough to have escaped her past in the
ghetto. Dora became his lover, and influenced Kafka's interest in the Talmud.
It is generally agreed that Kafka suffered from clinical depression and social
anxiety throughout his entire life. He also suffered from migraines, insomnia,
constipation, boils, and other ailments, all usually brought on by excessive
stresses and strains. He attempted to counteract all of this by a regimen of
naturopathic treatments, such as a vegetarian diet and the consumption of large
quantities of unpasteurized milk. However, Kafka's tuberculosis worsened; he
returned to Prague, then went to Dr. Hoffmann sanatorium in Kierling near Vienna
for treatment, where he died on June 3, 1924, apparently from starvation. The
condition of Kafka's throat made it too painful to eat, and since intravenous
therapy had not been developed, there was no way to feed him (a fate resembling
that of Gregor in the Metamorphosis and the main character of A Hunger Artist). His
body was ultimately brought back to Prague where he was interred on June 11, 1924,
in the New Jewish Cemetery (sector 21, row 14, plot 33) in Prague-Žižkov.
Personal
views
Kafka maintained his indifference to formal religion throughout most of his life.
Yet, while never depicting the characters in his stories as Jewish, he never tried
to obfuscate his Jewish roots. Intellectually, Hasidism held a strong appeal for
him, especially because of the value it places in transcendent, mystical
experience. During the last ten years of his life, Kafka even professed an interest
in moving to Palestine. The ethical and procedural dilemmas presented in "The
Judgment," "The Stoker," "A Hunger Artist," and "A Country Doctor" all bear
distinct traces of Kafka's interest in rabbinical teachings as they pertain to law
and justice. In addition, many of Kafka's short stories bear striking similarities
to Jewish folk tales and parables (Before the Law, for example) The humorously
meticulous style of the argumentative narrator in "Josephine the Singer," on the
other hand, shadows the rhetorical conventions of rabbinical discourse.
Source : Some of the information on
this page came from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU
Documentation License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Franz
Kafka - Manifestor - Biography
