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.
In: 2159
Have you read “The Trail” K had Kafkaesque experience. He was charged with something he did not know and was executed for something he did not know. No one told him what is it that he is charged with or what’s going on with him.
[removed]
[removed]
A couple relevant video clips.
[know your Kafka if you want to use the word Kafkaesque](https://youtu.be/FaWgRw78Y1M)
[Franz Kafka International – World’s Most Alienating Airport](https://youtu.be/gEyFH-a-XoQ)
I think his best example is “The Trial” where a guy is persecuted by the government but they never explain why. So it’s this long struggle where things are out of your control and you lose all hope (and, in this book, your life).
I’ve always sort of equated it with “dream logic”. We’ve all had dreams where completely absurd stuff happens, sometimes totally impossible or against the laws of physics (you can fly, or you’re suddenly in a completely different location without any travel time, or thigs change around you), and mostly you and the other characters in your dream just kind of roll with it and assume that’s just the normal way things are. Completely illogical and strange–even uncomfortable or horrifying to those outside of the story (like when you wake up from a crazy dream), but accepted as “the way things are” by those in the story.
Kafka’s stories are like that–they delve into the absurd but then the absurd becomes normal. In The Metamorphosis, the main character wakes up as a giant bug (for no apparent reason), and his family freaks out a bit at first but then everybody just kind of accepts it and goes on with their lives. In The Trial, the main character is being tried for a crime but he has no idea what he’s done or is accused of, and nobody will tell him, and everybody in the story just kind of acts like it’s all the normal way things work. It’s all needlessly complicated and bizarre and doesn’t follow normal logic, but nobody affected by it seems to notice.
The term “Kafkaesque” seems most commonly to be applied to bureaucracies, which makes some sense under this definition. Bureaucracies often have strict, voluminous rules and procedures that must be followed, even to the point of absurdism (think of your last interactions with your DMV, for example), and the workers in those systems just follow those rules and requirements (because they have to) without acknowledging the absurdity or oppressiveness of the system in which they operate.
Nobody has mentioned Kafka’s axe yet.
“I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. 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. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.”
A lot of comments are about the atmosphere of his stories (which is what most people mean by Kafkaesque–an ambiance), and I think knowing one of the reasons he was writing them helps understand that.
In *Metamorphosis* the protagonist turns into a bug of some sort. No one around him calls a doctor, no one calls a scientist, no one even so much as tries to help him. They call his boss. And his primary concern throughout the story is not how his very humanity is being stripped away, but whether or not he will still have a job because of it.
In *The Trial*, the protagonist is convicted of an unknown and unspecified crime. Every character he interacts with essentially tells him that he is in the wrong; his lawyer berates him for a seemingly minor mistake. The ruthlessness and brutality of the system is never remarked upon or drawn attention to– the normality with which it is treated is terrifying.
If something is being described as Kafka-esque, they are usually referring either to the bizarre complexity and byzantine nature of a thing and how that bizarreness and byzantine-ness is weaponized as a tool of oppression (such as in *The Trial*), ***or*** they are referring to how something that is alarming or strange is treated as normal (such as in *Metamorphosis*).
Essentially, if something is Kafka-esque, it’s something that is systemic, and usually carries a theme of surreal-ness, bizarreness, or horror– and almost always in reference to its complexity or tendency to devalue human experience.
Today it is used to describe a situation that is bizarrely and stupidly bureaucratic and illiberal. For example: You are sent an official letter stating you are accused of a crime, but no one will tell you what that crime is. You must go to a different office every day to fill out forms explaining why you are not guilty. You are not allowed to tell anyone you have been accused on the penalty of immediate execution.
For Kafka fans, I think The Castle flavor is probably more dominant than The Metamorphosis, although the latter is much better known.
The use of this word depresses me because he was such a wonderful writer, yet his name is an adjective referring to just one aspect of his work. It’s like “Orwellian.” He was one of the greatest essayists of all time, yet we use his name for dystopian ideas because of one book.
Latest Answers