We are all probably familiar with this term, but I still have no idea what does it really mean. I’ve read two books by the author Franz Kafka, the guy who was the origin of this very term. I tried looking online, searching for definitions and stuff, but I still have no idea what was that all about, nobody explained it clearly. I wanted to find a simple definiton with an example, but I found pile of text. Maybe they need all that “extra” stuff to explain it because it is not very simple, I guess. Can it be explained in a few words, if so please do it and if not, I will go through the long version, too. Thank you.
Edit: Thank you, I went through your comments, they were really helpful.
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I will give you an example: When I was younger I had a temp job where I was working in the post room for a large company that had just moved into brand new offices. Myself and two other were tasked with sorting out any mail that came in and giving it to the right people. However the company’s old post room in their old office was still in use so we technically had no post coming into our post room. So the three of us sat there for 2 weeks getting paid to do nothing.
This was what I would describe as a Kafkaesque situation, where red tape, the powers that be or some other power decides on a course of action that leaves the individual in a state of inertia but also where they cannot escape. In extreme cases (As exampled in “The Trial”) This course can lead to a person’s death due to the adherence to external rules over the reality staring you in the face.
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