What is Kafkaesque?

Franz Kafka, arguably one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, has left us with very little work to gauge his philosophy or his influence on modern writers. 3 novels which are mostly incomplete and a few tens of short stories is all we have got.

Yet, his influence on a part of human emotion is so great that we now call it ‘Kafkaesque’. These are those emotions which we want to hide from the world and yet we all end up with them during the darkest hours of our lives. When we are clawing through the dungeon of despair to regain what we assume to be ‘humanity’, when we are falling into an abyss of senselessness or feel helpless in front of authority or when we are mocked and humiliated by the onlookers and especially by those who are close to us. When we feel alienated from the beauty of the world and enter into the world which Dante used to dream about. Here Kafka comes and helps us put those emotions into words.

His world is not for faint hearted, it is surreal & dark. It gives you a sense of being feeble and powerless. As if there is no escape from it, the harder you would try, more the quicksand of authority would suck you in. It feels like a nightmare. In his world ‘authority’ could be, the law, politicians, police, industrialists, even our family but most of all, our fathers & father figures. In his world we are ashamed of our naked bodies and our sexual urges, we suddenly find ourselves being laid bare by our tormentors and get the feeling that we should die or our tormentor should squash us like a bug.

This brings us to the question, What is ‘Kafkaesque’?

“Someone going to catch a bus and finding that all the buses have stopped running and saying that’s Kafkaesque. That’s not.” But, Kafkaesque, “Is when you enter a surreal world in which all your control patterns, all your plans, the whole way in which you have configured your own behavior, begins to fall to pieces, when you find yourself against a force that does not lend itself to the way you perceive the world.You don’t give up, you don’t lie down and die. What you do is to struggle against this with all of your equipment, with whatever you have. But of course, you don’t stand a chance. That’s Kafkaesque.”

Be it, the labyrinths of bureaucracy or tyranny of our families and fathers, Kafkaesque means to struggle through a disorienting and illogical ordeal whose the outcome is pointless and success is just an illusion. There is another layer which makes ‘Kafkaesque’ so interesting. It is not only the absurd grinding of bureaucracy but also that the characters (or we ourselves) have circular reasoning in response to these problems. Kafka is in turn pointing to our shortcomings and our desire to conform to the environment we live in and hence he points out that we, ourselves have the power to change the world we live in.

In simple words, “kafkaesque is often applied to bizarre and impersonal administrative situations where the individual feels powerless to understand or control what is happening”

How would we describe Kafka’s philosophy?

Kafka was basically a writer and that also not a trained one, he never claimed that he had anything philosophical or profound to say. As if he was just writing about his deep hidden nightmares. However, Sartre called him an ‘Existentialist’ and Albert Camus called him an ‘Absurdist’. If two of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century call him a philosopher we should too. His concern for human existence in its true sense makes him an existentialist. He doesn’t start with any kind of philosophical motives but his work perfectly fit into it. He deeply cared about human existence and its struggles in their true nakedness.

Kafka doesn’t try to search for meaning in his meaning world, au contraire, he always believed and makes us believe in this chotic world the pursuit of objective truths is an exercise in futility. His exigent desire is for solitude and peace rather than meaning.

“Example of Kafkaesque- The Metamorphosis”:

People overuse and provide poor examples for the term Kafkaesque. The Metamorphosis is ideal for the analysis of this concept.

Kafkaesque describes the terrible and surreal experiences of people. In the story, the main character wakes up and understands that he is no longer a human. He is a gigantic insect. This drastic change happened while Gregor Samsa was experiencing uneasy dreams. The situation is unrealistic. Because transforming the human body into an insect in ordinary life is impossible and absurd. Gregor is not the only person who goes through a change. Gregor’s sister becomes a young woman. His parents have to shift their responsibilities to survive.

Another example of Kafkaesque in the story is that the character is responsible for his experiences. Before the Metamorphosis, Gregor worked as a salesman and hated his job. He understood that life does not bring any satisfaction to him. He did nothing to change this horror. Gregor continued his career to provide his family with everything needed. The character could escape reality and abandon his responsibilities. Gregor could start a new life; he chooses to suffer.

The decisions of Gregor are the primary indication of his Kafkaesque. He realizes that he is the only person who brings constant negativity into his life. He is responsible for his meaningless existence and the lack of support from his family. By transforming him into an insect, the world gives Gregor a chance to show his real potential. The character accepts the terrible reality and continues to exist in suffering.

Kafkaesque is a complex concept that aims at describing surreal life situations. The Metamorphosis is the work in which the whole experience of the main character is Kafkaesque. In the story, Gregor Samsa is the creator of his horrible circumstances. He does nothing to improve his life. Gregor fails to accept the significance of physical change and starts to live in denial.

Although he might not have shared this explicitly, Kafka’s works remind us not that we wish to give up, but that despite all the absurdities and problems we wish to continue, we wish to struggle against the universe and forge our own way. We wish to find and connect over honesty however hard it may be. In today’s world, we are left with no choice but to follow the system and after reading Kafka, you feel it is almost impossible to resist the possibility of opposing and winning against the system.

“If the book we’re reading doesn’t wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to.”, Franz Kafka

Krish Charlie…✍🏻