What Is Kafkaesque? - The 'Philosophy' of Franz Kafka — Transcript

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1. 0:00Franz Kafka is regarded as one of the greatest literary figures in recent history.
2. 0:04He is known for his uniquely dark, disorienting and surreal writing style
3. 0:08A style and quality still particular tune that anything that resembles
4. 0:11it has come to be known and referred to as Kafkaesque. To understand his writing in the qualities of Kafkaesque
5. 0:17It is helpful to understand his early life.
6. 0:20Kafka was born in Prague in 1883 to a man named Hermann and a woman named Julie. His father was a highly successful well-to-do
7. 0:27business man who through sheer force of will and a brash aggressive personality managed to rise from the working-class, build a successful business,
8. 0:34marry a well-educated woman and become a member of higher middle society as parents tend to do
9. 0:40Hermann hoped for a child that would measure up to his ideal stature of a person.
10. 0:44Franz Kafka was not that. Franz was born a small,
11. 0:47anxious and sickly boy and he mostly remained that way. As a result through no fault of his own
12. 0:52Franz would become a great source of disappointment for his father and a sort of psychological
13. 0:56punching bag for him as he attempted to mold Franz into who he wished he was but could never be.
14. 1:01Throughout his adolescence Franz developed an urge to write as a means of dealing with his increasing sense of anxiety, guilt and self-hatred.
15. 1:08Of course
16. 1:09his father did not allow him to pursue writing and ultimately define the borders around Kafka's life, forcing him to pursue law as a profession.
17. 1:16During his time studying law in college Kafka continued writing and met one of his only real friends Max Brod. Another writer who would eventually
18. 1:24convince Kafka to publish his first three collections of work. These pieces sold very poorly however, and essentially went unnoticed.
19. 1:30After college Kafka would go on to work in a law office and then for an insurance company.
20. 1:34Here, Kafka would become subject to long hours unpaid overtime,
21. 1:38massive amounts of paperwork and absurd, complex bureaucratic systems.
22. 1:42Kafka was understandably miserable.
23. 1:45While working at the insurance company Kafka continued writing on the side.
24. 1:48Producing some of his most notable pieces including The Trial, The Castle and America.
25. 1:52He did not attempt to publish any of these at the time however
26. 1:55and even left much of his work unfinished believing it to be unworthy.
27. 1:59Kafka continued working at the insurance company for the majority of his remaining short life while continuing to write around his work scheduled .
28. 2:06In 1924 he died of tuberculosis at age 41.
29. 2:10Kafka never went on to publish any more of his writing nor did he ever personally receive any success or
30. 2:15recognition for the small amount he did. He died believing that his work wasn't any good. On his deathbed
31. 2:20he even instructed Max Brod to burn all of his unpublished manuscripts following his death.
32. 2:25Obviously, Brod did not follow Kafka's instructions because here we are 100 years later talking about him.
33. 2:31After Kafka died Brod spent the following year or so working to organize and publish his notes and manuscripts. Over the decade following
34. 2:39Kafka would become one of the most prominent literary and philosophical figures of the 20th century.
35. 2:43In other words,
36. 2:44one of the greatest writers and thinkers of the century lived his life with his work buried in some drawer.
37. 2:50Aware, unaware or indifferent to the fact that he was sitting on some of the most significant works in recent history.
38. 2:55He lived his life in the eyes of his father. An inadequate disappointment and yet in the eyes of history
39. 3:01he's an immensely important individual. One can only wonder how many individuals like Kafka have and continued to walk this earth.
40. 3:07Completely disconnected or restricted from ever seeing who they really are or could be. How many Kafkas have lived and died without ever sharing their voice
41. 3:15with the world whose voice would have changed it forever. How many people never know who they'll be after they're gone.
42. 3:21Fortunately for everyone other than Kafka, his work was saved and an entirely new genre of thinking and writing developed in his name
43. 3:28Kafkaesque
44. 3:30Generally the term Kafkaesque tends to refer to the bureaucratic nature of capitalistic, judiciary and government systems. The sort of complex,
45. 3:38unclear processes in which no one individual ever really has a comprehensive grasp on what is going on
46. 3:43and the system doesn't really care. But the quality of Kafkaesque also seems to extend much further than this.
47. 3:49It is not necessarily exemplified merely by what these systems are.
48. 3:53But rather the reaction of the individuals subjected to them and what it might represent.
49. 3:58And one of his most famous novels, The Trial
50. 4:00The protagonist Joseph K. is suddenly arrested at his home one morning. The officers do not inform K why is being arrested though?
51. 4:06And he's then forced through a long absurd trial in which nothing is ever really explained or makes much sense.
52. 4:11The trial is riddled with corruption and disorderliness and by the end of the novel after having me entered the entire thing
53. 4:17K. is never told why he was arrested and yet he remains guilty of his final conviction.
54. 4:23In another one of his more popular stories, Metamorphosis
55. 4:25The protagonist Gregor Samsa awakes into having suddenly been turned into an insect with no clear explanation.
56. 4:31The first and recurring issues Gregor faces throughout the novel are the problems of getting to work, dealing with his boss and
57. 4:38providing financially for his inconsiderately needy family. Gregor, of course cannot do this.
58. 4:43He is a bug and so he experiences increased dread trying to deal with his situation while becoming a useless nuisance to his family.
59. 4:50In both stories the protagonists are faced with sudden absurd circumstances.
60. 4:54There are no explanations and in the end there is no real chance of overcoming them. They are outmatched by the arbitrary senseless obstacles
61. 5:01they face. In part because they can't understand or control any of what is happening.
62. 5:05The crux of Kafka style and work seems to be carried by this
63. 5:08confrontation with the absurd. A conflict in which a character's efforts, reasoning and sense of the world are met with inescapable parameters of senselessness.
64. 5:16Where in success is both impossible and in the end ultimately pointless.
65. 5:20And yet, they try anyway.
66. 5:22It's fair to argue that one interpretation is that these circumstances are emblematic of Kafka's take on the human condition.
67. 5:29Specifically, the unyielding desire for answers and conquest over the existential problems of anxiety, guilt
68. 5:35absurdity and suffering. Paired with an inability to ever really understand or control the source of the problems and effectively overcome them.
69. 5:43But the kicker and perhaps most important part is even in the face of absurd despairing circumstances Kafka's characters don't give up,
70. 5:50atleast initially. They continue on and fight against their situations trying to reason,
71. 5:55understand or work their way out of the senselessness, but in the end it is ultimately to no avail.
72. 6:01Perhaps in this, Kafka is suggesting that the struggle to find solace and understanding is both inescapable and impossible.
73. 6:08As conscious rational beings, we fight against the absurdity, trying to resolve the discrepancy between us and the universe.
74. 6:13But ironically we only serve to self perpetuate the very struggle
75. 6:17we are trying to resolve by trying to resolve the unresolvable. And in this sense on some level we almost want the struggle.
76. 6:24Of course, this is just one interpretation
77. 6:27Ultimately because of its vague, surreal and inexplicable quality Kafka's work lends itself to nearly as many interpretations as readers.
78. 6:35Perhaps the idea is that we should accept our absurd condition
79. 6:38and not take it so seriously.
80. 6:39Perhaps the ideas that we should and must struggle against it or perhaps the ideas that we can't know what the idea is.
81. 6:47In truth only Kafka will ever have known exactly what his work meant and it's fair to speculate that in some sense
82. 6:52perhaps not even him. What is undeniable though is that Kafka's work has left a lasting impact on literature, philosophy and humanity at large.
83. 7:00It has helped readers around the world feel less alone in their own hunches of truth and moments of Kafkaesque experiences.
84. 7:06Kafka's own story is not necessarily unusual. His father although cruel,
85. 7:10his life although sad. Neither were nor are all that uncommon.
86. 7:14To be born into a faulty family, bad place in the world or a weak body or brain?
87. 7:19To live and die having never recognized one's full potential, to have been stuck in a bureaucratic cog of a business organization or government system.
88. 7:26To have felt that guilt and anxiety of existence for no clear reason. We've all at least at times
89. 7:31experienced the Kafkaesque. Kafka's work is not considered great because it describes something profoundly unique
90. 7:37but because it describes something mundanely common in a profound way.
91. 7:41An encapsulation of an often indescribable experience a part of life that touches us all.
92. 7:46When referring to Kafka, Writer Anne Rice once said that his work helped her realize the following approach in her own work.
93. 8:02Kafka's works ought not to alleviate the soul through remedies of false hope or delusion but rather through the direct
94. 8:08confrontation with the darker aspects of self. By distorting reality to map more accurately onto his own sense of human experience,
95. 8:15he revealed a certain remedy of unhindered self-examination
96. 8:18and carved out a place in the world for others to do the same.
97. 8:34Wrote Kafka in a letter to a friend.
98. 8:36Although you might not have shared this explicitly,
99. 8:39Kafka's working embodies and reminds us not that we wish to give up but that despite all the absurdities and problems
100. 8:45we wish to continue. We wish to struggle against the universe and forge our own way.
101. 8:50We wish to find and connect over honesty, however hard it may be.