1. What did Kafka try to express through the metamorphosis of Gregor Samsa? 2. Is Samsa partly to blame for having incurred his fate? 3. Samsa’s metamorphosis goes hand in hand with a description of the world around him as he sees it in his new state. Give some specific […]
Read more Study Help Essay QuestionsCritical Essays Kafka and Existentialism
Kafka’s stories suggest meanings which are accessible only after several readings. If their endings, or lack of endings, seem to make sense at all, they will not do so immediately and not in unequivocal language. The reason for this is that the stories offer a wide variety of possible meanings […]
Read more Critical Essays Kafka and ExistentialismCritical Essays Kafka — A Religious” Writer?”
To know Kafka is to grapple with this problem: was Kafka primarily a “religious” writer? The answer seems to depend on the views one brings to the reading of his stories rather than on even the best analyses. Because so much of Kafka’s world remains ultimately inaccessible to us, any […]
Read more Critical Essays Kafka — A Religious” Writer?”Critical Essays Kafka’s Jewish Influence
Prague was steeped in the atmosphere of Jewish learning and writing until the social and political turmoil of the collapsing Austrian Empire put an end to its traditional character. The first Jews had come to Prague in the tenth century, and the earliest written document about what the city looked […]
Read more Critical Essays Kafka’s Jewish InfluenceCritical Essays Understanding Kafka’s Writing
A major problem confronting readers of Kafka’s short stories is to find a way through the increasingly dense thicket of interpretations. Among the many approaches one encounters is that of the autobiographical approach. This interpretation claims that Kafka’s works are little more than reflections of his lifelong tension between bachelorhood […]
Read more Critical Essays Understanding Kafka’s WritingSummary and Analysis Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk” (Josephine Die Sanngerin)”
Summary The story’s double title is one of its striking outward features. Kafka attached special meaning to this, arguing that it expresses an equilibrium, a set of scales, the careful weighing between the evaluation of Josephine and the people around her. While the meaning of “singer” becomes clear, however, Kafka’s […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Josephine the Singer, or the Mouse Folk” (Josephine Die Sanngerin)”Summary and Analysis The Great Wall of China” (Beim Bau Der Chinesischen Mauer)”
Summary The discussion of the system employed in the construction of the wall takes up most of the story’s first section. The way average workers react to the piecemeal system of building is contrasted with the way the sensitive workers react. This latter group would succumb to discouragement rather easily […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The Great Wall of China” (Beim Bau Der Chinesischen Mauer)”Summary and Analysis A Report to an Academy”(Ein Bericht An Eine Akademie)”
Summary Wounded and captured by an expedition, a formerly “free” ape found himself aboard a boat headed for Europe. Confined in a tight cage, he realized for the first time that escape was impossible. Thus he decided to opt for something less than animal freedom — in fact, he didn’t […]
Read more Summary and Analysis A Report to an Academy”(Ein Bericht An Eine Akademie)”Summary and Analysis Investigations of a Dog” (Forschungen Eines Hundes)”
Summary Like “The Burrow” and “Josephine the Singer,” this story deals with an animal that finds itself in a world beyond the empirical one. Unlike Gregor Samsa in “The Metamorphosis,” the animal is not abruptly torn out of a concrete situation and plunged into a conflict with the universal sphere; […]
Read more Summary and Analysis Investigations of a Dog” (Forschungen Eines Hundes)”Summary and Analysis The Burrow” (Der Bau)”
Summary In terms of narrative method, Kafka writes from within the mind of the protagonist, and the introspective protagonist — through whose eyes we see the maze of the burrow — is the author himself. Any number of entries in his diary reveal the affinity of Kafka’s existence with that […]
Read more Summary and Analysis The Burrow” (Der Bau)”