During Europe’s period of economic advancement, industrialization, and militia power Franz Kafka crafted a novel that perfectly exemplified what was to become of the country in the following years. Written by Kafka in 1914, The Trial contained numerous totalitarian representations, mocking the form of government in which the citizens are bound to the absolute rule of an autocratic authority. The book was not published and exposed to the world until the initial introduction of despotism in the late 1920s. Kafka did not plan to and was not intentionally mocking the totalitarian state of Eastern Europe, but it is vividly shown through the setting in an impoverished city that is forced to live with conformity, the unexpected arrest of the protagonist, …show more content…
The party was led my Adolf Hitler and soon became known as the Nazi Party. The Nazi Party was the most terrifying totalitarian regime that ruled over Germany until the end of World War II. “By 1928, the Nazi Party now had 100,000 members and Hitler had absolute control.” As Germany’s economy began to fall in the 1930s, Hitler won the citizens over with strong economic and military plans. “Hitler moved quickly to establish a dictatorship. He used terror to gain power while maintaining an air of legality throughout.” He abolished freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in Germany so he could control every facet of the individual Germans lives. The totalitarian government structure spread throughout most of Central and Eastern Europe, leaving Czechoslovakia the only liberal country by 1938. Joseph Stalin was also a prominent autocratic leader at the time. “Stalin's aim was to create a new kind of society and a new human personality to inhabit that society: socialist man and socialist woman.” Strong political forces were established in both regimes to enforce the beliefs of the ruler. Exile and execution were a commonplace for those who went against the ‘popular’ conviction ("Lecture 10: The Age of Totalitarianism: Stalin and …show more content…
was completely unexpected. Kafka does not specify a reason for why K. was on trial at all throughout the novel. Upon his first arrest he could only think that he “lived in a country with a legal constitution, there was universal peace, all the laws were in force” but Kafka teaches the audience throughout the novel about laws that are unknown to typical civilians (Kafka 4). The readers are introduced to the court belief that one must be punished for not following through with its orders and going against its beliefs. This became prevalent to the readers when Kafka revealed to K. that the workers who he complained about to the court were found being punished; “We’re to be flogged because you complained about us to the Examining Magistrate” (Kafka 84). In addition, throughout the novel there were no instances that could have possibly led to K.’s execution. The only logical reasoning that the audience could pick out is Joseph K.’s refusal to follow the court’s secret and unspoken rules. For example, when he was summoned to execution on his thirty first birthday (a year after his first arrest) but refused to kill himself, he left it to the court officials to execute him in a terrible way. “Radicals were either imprisoned or exiled because of their liberal, democratic, socialist, communist or anarchist inclinations” in totalitarian regimes, this is closely connected to what the court system did to K. for being defiant ("Lecture 10: The
For thousands of years, the Jewish People have endured negative stereotypes such as the "insects of humanity." As Sander Gilman pointed out, the Nazi Party labeled Jews as "insects like lice and cockroaches, that generate general disgust among all humanity" (Gilman 80).1 These derogative stereotypes, although championed by the Nazis, have their origins many centuries earlier and have appeared throughout Western culture for thousands of years. This fierce anti-Semitism specifically surfaced in Europe’s large cities in the early twentieth century, partially in conjunction with the growing tide of nationalism, patriotism, and xenophobia that sparked the First World War in 1914. Today, one often learns the history of this critical, pre-WWI era from the perspective of Europe’s anti-Semitic population, while the opposite perspective—that of the Jews in early twentieth-century European society—is largely ignored. Questions like: "How did the Jews view and respond to their mistreatment?" and "How were the Jews affected mentally and psychologically by the prejudices against them?" remain largely unanswered. Insight into these perplexing social questions, while not found in most history books, may be discovered in a complex and highly symbolic story of this era: "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. Through the use of an extended metaphor, "The Metamorphosis" provides both a basic summary of the common views held against Jews and offers an insight as to what may be the ultimate result of Europe’s anti-Semitism. This work serves as a social commentary and criticism of early twentieth-century Europe. It fulfills two main functions: first, it provides an outline of the s...
Politzer, Heinz. Franz Kafka: Parable and Paradox. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1962, Pp. 37-41.
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama and Writing. Ed. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 7th Compact Ed. New York: Longman, 2013. 268-98. Print.
To fully understand this story, it’s important to have some background information on Franz Kafka. He was born into a German speaking family in Prague on July 3rd, 1883. He was the oldest of six children. His father Harmann Kafka was a business man. His mother Julie Kafka was born into a wealthy family. Kafka considered the vast differences in his paternal and maternal relatives as a “split within himself” (Sokel 1). 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 o...
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.
Pawel, Ernst. A Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. 2nd ed. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1984.
Franz Kafka’s “Before the Law” is often referred to as a parable. Thus, it is logical to approach Kafka’s work as an allegory and search for the deeper meaning underneath the story. We can then try to uncover the identity of the characters; of the gatekeeper, the man from the country, and the Law and subsequently relating them to something that fits the example of the plot; a man’s confused search for god, a man’s quest for happiness but never accomplishing it, a academic’s quest for recognition which never comes. Any given number of innovative readers...
In “A Hunger”, “The Penal Colony”, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Kafka succeeded in showing his individuals as obsessed with their profession; however their obsession caused their doom because society asks so much from an individual, only so much can be done. However, regardless of that, these individuals choose their work over themselves, and not even bad health or death can stop them. Because society places immures pressure on Kafka’s work obsessed character, they neglect their well-being and cause their own downfall.
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.
“To what extent was Nazi Germany a Totalitarian state in the period from 1934 to 1939?”
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. .
ii Kafka, F. The Trial. Translated by Willa and Edwin Muir. Introduction by George Steiner. New York, Schocken Books, 1992, 1.
Historians argue that in Nazism, ‘the value of the totalitarian concept seems extremely limited’ as they compare the regime to other totalitarian states. They state that Nazism could not have been totalitarianism because it wasn’t as organized and monolithically structured as Stalin’s Russia. The Nazism ideology was a mere scheme of self-fulfilment and lacked the methodical theory of Marxism. Under no circumstance was there a level of state possession and influence over the economy in comparison to that which developed in Stalin’s Russia. In spite of the Nazi Party’s dominance over state affairs, authority was divided between themselves and a quantity of major power groups including the industrialists and the armed forces, while Stalin’s Communist Party possessed unconditional power over all Russian state affairs. A German historian stated that Hitler ‘...brought about a state of affairs in which the various autonomous authorities ranged alongside and against one another...’ Hitler relied on a level of popularity from the nation acquired through promoting himself through propaganda to maintain his leadership. There are no implications that Stalin sought popular appeal to maintain his power. Generally, historians have debated the weak dictatorship of Hitler but never have they contemplated ...
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.