Franz Kafka's The Judgement depicts the struggle of father-son relationships. This modernistic story explores Georg Bendemann's many torments, which result from the bonds with both his father and himself. Furthermore, the ever-present and lifelong battle that Georg has been fighting with his father leads him to fight an even greater battle with himself. Ultimately, Georg loses the struggle with himself by letting go of his newly found independence and instead, letting external forces decide his fatal outcome.
Georg Bendemann's relationship with his father has always been a complex and undulating one. Initially, up until the death of Georg's mother, his father had had total control over Georg- both psychologically and business wise (Lawson 22). In correlation with his father's power, Georg has been a pathetic, lonely, and subservient person. While speaking of Georg, the narrator states, "Perhaps during his mother's lifetime his father's insistence on having everything his own way in the business had hindered him from developing any real activity of his own" (Kafka 78). Since his father has been making all of the decisions, Georg has not been able to develop into an independent and strong person. However, a dramatic shift occurs when Georg's mother passes away. Georg is the one who starts calling the shots, and it is the father who gets pushed into the background. The father's loss of power is seen when he states, ."..I'm not equal to things any longer, my memory's failing, I haven't an eye for so many things any longer" (Kafka 82). During his father's decline, Georg takes the initiative to become the self-assertive individual that he has always longed to be. In addition, not only does Georg take control of his busin...
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...Bendemann's life abruptly changes with the death of his mother. However, along with this change, Georg has to deal with the many torments of the relationship with his father as well as the relationship with himself. Eventually, Georg loses the struggle with his father and allows himself to succumb to his subservient side by committing suicide. As a result, the emotional impact of this dramatic and complex story on the reader is a profound one.
Works Cited:
Kafka, Franz. "The Judgement." Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. The Complete Stories. Ed. Nahum N. Glatzer. New York: Schocken, 1971. 77-88.
Lawson, Richard H. Franz Kafka. New York: Ungar, 1987.
Neumann, Gerhard. "The Judgement, Letter to His Father, and the Bourgeois Family." Trans. Stanley Corngold. Reading Kafka. Ed. Mark Anderson. New York: Schocken, 1989. 215-28.
After this event, the reader can really see that deep down, the protagonist loves and cares for his father. As he hears his father enter the house babbling gibberish, he begins getting worried.
The Metamorphosis is said to be one of Franz Kafka's best works of literature. It shows the difficulties of living in a modern society and the struggle for acceptance of others when in a time of need. In this novel Kafka directly reflects upon many of the negative aspects of his personal life, both mentally and physically. The relationship between Gregor and his father is in many ways similar to Franz and his father Herrman. The Metamorphosis also shows resemblance to some of Kafka's diary entries that depict him imagining his own extinction by dozens of elaborated methods. This paper will look into the text to show how this is a story about the author's personal life portrayed through his dream-like fantasies.
The major themes of the poem reflect the poet's own inner life and his struggle with the loss of his father. Through this complicated and intricate poem the inner feelings of the poet are made manifest through the speaker's tone towards the father. The exchange between father and son represents a magical moment in the speaker's childhood: dancing the waltz with his father. In the second stanza, the poet comments “My mother's countenance / could not unfrown itself (Roethke 7-8).” Here the poet seems to regret the fact that he hoarded his father's time after a long day at work, when his father could have been s...
Sokel, Walter H. "Franz Kafka." European Writers. Ed. George Stade. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992. 847-75. Print. European Writers. Ward, Bruce K. "Giving Voice to Isaac: The Sacrificial Victim in Kafka's Trial." Shofar 22.2 (2004): 64+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Oct. 2013. .
"Franz Kafka." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2003. Literature Resource Center. Web. 10 Feb. 2014
Bernstein, Richard. “A VOYAGE THROUGH KAFKA'S AMBIGUITIES”. New York Times 02 May 1983. : n. pag. ProQuest Platinum.
Franz Kafka, b. Prague, Bohemia (then belonging to Austria), July 3, 1883, d. June 3, 1924, has come to be one of the most influential writers of this century. Virtually unknown during his lifetime, the works of Kafka have since been recognized as symbolizing modern man's anxiety-ridden and grotesque alienation in an unintelligible, hostile, or indifferent world. Kafka came from a middle-class Jewish family and grew up in the shadow of his domineering shopkeeper father, who impressed Kafka as an awesome patriarch. The feeling of impotence, even in his rebellion, was a syndrome that became a pervasive theme in his fiction. Kafka did well in the prestigious German high school in Prague and went on to receive a law degree in 1906. This allowed him to secure a livelihood that gave him time for writing, which he regarded as the essence--both blessing and curse--of his life. He soon found a position in the semipublic Workers' Accident Insurance institution, where he remained a loyal and successful employee until--beginning in 1917-- tuberculosis forced him to take repeated sick leaves and finally, in 1922, to retire. Kafka spent half his time after 1917 in sanatoriums and health resorts, his tuberculosis of the lungs finally spreading to the larynx.
Kafka, Franz. ?A Hunger Artist.? Literature and its Writers. Ed. Karen S. Henry. 3rd ed. Bedford/St. Martin?s, Boston/New York 2004. 255-262
New York: Vintage International, 1988. Print. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Trans.
Kafka wants the readers to feel sympathy for Gregor because of the reactions of the parents and the chief clerk. He wants the readers to pity Gregor because no one else will. Gregor hears ‘the chief clerk em...
Kafka felt that “the powerful, self-righteous, and totally unselfconscious personality of his father had stamped him with an ineradicable conviction of his own inferiority and guilt” (Sokel 1). He felt the only way to ever be successful was to “find a spot on the world’s map that his father’s enormous shadow had not reached—and that spot was literature” (Sokel 1).... ... middle of paper ... ...
ii Kafka, F. The Trial. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. Introduction by George Steiner. New York, Schocken Books, 1992, 1.
Pawel, Ernst. A Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. 2nd ed. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1984.
In Franz Kafka’s short story, Metamorphosis, the idea of existentialism is brought out in a subtle, yet definite way. Existentialism is defined as a belief in which an individual is ultimately in charge of placing meaning into their life, and that life alone is meaningless. They do not believe in any sort of ultimate power and focus much of their attention on concepts such as dread, boredom, freedom and nothingness. This philosophical literary movement emerged in the twentieth-century, when Kafka was establishing his writing style in regards to alienation and distorted anxiety. A mirror to his own personal lifestyle, this story follows the short and sad life of a man unable to break out of the bonds society has placed on him. These bonds are not only evident in the work place, but at home too. Being constantly used and abused while in his human form, Gregor’s lifestyle becomes complicated once he becomes a giant insect and is deemed useless. Conflicts and confusion arise primarily between Gregor and his sister Grete, his parents, and his work. Each of these three relationships has different moral and ethical complications defining them. However, it is important for one to keep in mind that Gregor’s metamorphosis has placed him into a position of opposition, and that he has minimal control over the events to take place. Conflicts will also occur between family members as they struggle with the decision of what to do with Gregor. In the end they all come to the agreement that maintaining his uselessness is slowly draining them and they must get rid of him.
If Kafka thought he had confronted and dealt with his faults, then there was no reason the engagement should not have worked out happily when resumed. But, like K., though he thought he was aware of and owned up to his own faults, he was still convicted for his denial and the engagement was again broken off. The Trial is Kafka’s exploration of the extreme consequences of denying one’s own guilt and thus one’s own humanity. In some senses, it serves as a warning, or a sort of parable of its own, and in others it is simply an expression of anguish. The story serves to warn against thinking so highly of oneself that we only interpret infractions of the outright law as guilt.