Franz Kafka: A Study of His Work and Writing Advice

If you know the term “Kafkaesque”—even if you only have the vaguest of ideas of what it means—then you have been touched by the influence of Franz Kafa. He is known as one of the greatest writers of the 20th century and hugely impacted the genre of existentialism. Nowadays, he is undeniably one of the greats, whose writings are discussed in colleges and whose stories remain in the minds of readers with unforgettable imagery and transportive, efficiently economic descriptions and scenarios that refuse to leave.

His childhood was tragic, but in spite of it, he managed to write, always to write, and although he would describe it as far from a joyful process most of the time—he is tragically memorable in that regard, compared to most modern authors posting to social media about the joys and specific vibes of their writing process—he nevertheless found some sort of transformative strength in the process of writing. Today, we would call it “getting in the zone,” and Kafka used it to channel the grief of his harsh, difficult life into stories that are equally uncomfortable and memorable.

Considering his tremendously reaching and long-lasting influence, it may come as a surprise that, at the time of Franz Kafka’s death, his stories were only known to a small number of readers. He told his lifelong friend, Max Brod, that he didn’t want his stories published, but—luckily for history and the world of literature—Brod published them anyway, after Kafka’s death in 1924.

The Hard Life of Kafka

Kafka’s stories reflect aspects of his life, in parts, but the absurd turbulence that his characters often encounter through the plots written for them are a mirrored ghost of Kafka’s own wretched, painful life.

He was born into a family of German Jews in 1883, but “as they belonged to the Ghetto, they were excluded from relationships with the German minority in Prague;” Kafka’s father ruled the house as a tyrant, so much so that even his wife would not speak up against his wishes. Kafka suffered from “insufficient parental affection and lack of emotional ties with his parents” who were always working. He grew up a neglected child, and this would become a source of trauma that affected him for the entirety of his life—he rightly viewed his father as an “almighty ruler,” and so Kafka experienced a lonely, isolating childhood so unfairly barren of friendship or parental support that its unfairness rings harshly through the centuries, where today the answer is the same as it should’ve been back then: such treatment is unacceptable. Indeed, he was “doubly aware of feeling a foreigner, within his family and in his own City.” Furthermore, it is generally agreed that Kafka suffered from clinical depression and social anxiety throughout his entire life, helped in no small part by the verbal abuse of his father which he suffered “for a good part of his life” as they lived in the same house.

The terrible, acute feeling of foreignness would affect his grown-up life, and perhaps it is the reason that his “sexual innocence lasted much longer than for other boys of his age and he showed no interest in matters related to the opposite sex” for a long time.

However, he did have relationships with several women in different years of his later life, although ultimately never married any of them. While he wrote letters to Felice Bauer, whom he met in 1912, for five years, their relationship ended in 1917, although they had been engaged twice. The engagement was a source of great dread to him, for their five-year relationship was far from happy, being an “ongoing struggle” for Kafka between domestic and emotional security and solitude the prioritization of his writing—and in 1914 when Felice’s family held a celebration for both of them, Kafka wrote in his diary that he felt “tied hand and foot like a criminal.”

The same year, he began suffering from tuberculosis and two years later he developed an “intense relationship” with Czech journalist and writer Milena Jesenská. However, merely three years after that, he became lovers with Dora Diamant, a 25-year-old kindergarten teacher, after he’d moved to Berlin “in the hope of distancing himself from his family's influence to concentrate on his writing.” Mauro Nervi, a Kafka scholar, believes the “loving relationship” between Kafka and Dora was “very helpful” for him. He also had other things he enjoyed in his life despite its immense difficulties—he enjoyed swimming, hiking in the mountains, and horseback riding: exercise was an “important antidote” to his depression.

The Power of Kafka's Stories

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is a strange, eerie, unforgettably twisted tale—and as such, the story of a man waking up one morning to discover he is now a giant insect is one of Kafka’s most well-known works. Overall, his stories struck chords with readers and were so “vibrant and alive” that the term “Kafkaesque” was coined to refer to stories that were filled with the same types of painful ponderances and surreal feelings or situations. It was, and still is, a term for referring to stories that are so strange they can only be compared to Kafka’s writing, to him and only him—the term linking any author’s story bestowed with this razor-specific definition and categorization to Kafka himself, to his writing style and how he deals with emotion and theme. If a piece of writing is Kafkaesque, then—in the words of the author of Franz Kafka: Representative Man, Frederick R. Karl—"you don’t give up, you don’t lie down and die. What you do is struggle against this with all of your equipment, with whatever you have. But of course, you don’t stand a chance. That’s Kafkaesque.” Such is the enormous nature of Franz Kafka’s influence.

Specifically, the unique nature of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is because it was “perhaps the first-of-its-kind experiment in the literature world.” Described as “timeless in its appeal,” the story starkly portrays the disturbing inner world of the human subconscious—more specifically, the story’s relationship between the protagonist, Gregor, and his father were written to mirror Kafka's own relationship with his father, whom he “admired and feared.” The book “serves as a classical analysis of an overlapped territory between a literary piece and its author.” As an example, in the story, the protagonist’s father isn’t exactly highly concerned when his son hasn’t left for work yet; he knocks on the door to inquire, but it’s more of a cold-hearted inquiry, and his next demand that Gregor answer him is more akin to an interrogation. Just like in Klafka’s real life, the father in The Metamorphosis—the same as other works by him—is an antagonist.

Kafka’s works were an “important source of identification of the authentic universalities of human experience…a defense of the idea of multiculturalism through the rethinking of questions of minor identities…” It seems he had a wide impact that was, simultaneously and paradoxically, minor, as his works reminded everyday people of the importance of things central and essential to all of them, showcasing, for instance, the “experience of minorities and the self as the Other,” among many other topics.

This illustrates the universality of Kafka’s work, and of The Metamorphosis in particular as the protagonist finds himself turned into something Other—to his family, to his society, and significantly, to his routine of how he usually gets up in the morning.

Kafka is significant in the way that he portrays day-to-day things as alien and uncomfortable. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka dedicates several almost agonizingly detailed paragraphs to the protagonist’s attempt to simply get out of bed while struggling to use his new, huge insect body. Kafka twists ordinary activities that everyone has done—such as getting out of bed—into horrific, fantastical obstacles, channeling his own feelings and depressive worldview into his words.

How Kafka Approached Writing

Franz Kafa took a peculiar approach to the process of writing. It was hardly ever enjoyable for him, but rather a dreaded sludge he forced himself to get through, and he often complained about it. For instance, in his diary of September 23, 1912, he mentions just how irritating and distracting nearby sounds were or wrote that he noticed people walking down the street outside, suggesting he got distracted often—or rather, he would let himself get distracted often. In this way, Kafka juxtaposed lots of other writers. That’s not to say others of the time, or today, don’t get distracted or don’t find the process of writing difficult, but Kafka described his disgust and the loathsome tedium related to writing in such precise detail it’s practically a realm of its own. While he did experience “exhaustion, delirium, and joy” while writing, it was also “a kind of suffering.”

Although writing was “hard and painful work” for Kafka, he nevertheless had an “obsession” with it, so much so that he “often fell into despair for not writing when and how he wanted to”—for he had developed a personal outlook on the process of writing which he called “écriture automatique” or automatic writing—that is, “writing which bypasses conscious control.”

For Kafka, the process of writing became a refuge and a release. He couldn’t stay away from it— was a mixture of loathing and dependence he bound himself to because the transportation of getting carried away by his writing process, the healing act, was too good to ever abandon completely. Although writing depressed and despaired him, it also “exposed his weaknesses to the light,” and “gave him distance from (and thus rescued him from) that despair.”

Complicated though Kafka’s opinion on writing was, and considering his complicated and difficult relationship with it, techniques and advice can still be gleaned from his process, which was, essentially, to write without hardly any outlines or guidelines whatsoever; it was “a very original and unorthodox way of writing.”

Indeed, his story “The Judgement,” which he wrote in 1912, was a piece he deemed “faultless”—but his pride came from, not the story itself, but for the way in which it was written: in a harried, continual, eight-hour streak. While not recommended or healthy, writing without rigidly sticking to pre-determined ideas can be freeing at times—although it is very risky; Kafka’s success with “The Judgement” stood against “an endless series of failures, of never completed narrations.” So, while such a technique can be useful sometimes, it won’t solve everything about a particular story—make the plot and characters collide and work together effortlessly—but will, instead, often create more failures and consequences than solutions. To illustrate this, Kafka once wrote in his diary in 1915: “If I can’t pursue the stories through the night, they break away and disappear.”

And yet, another lesson can be taken away from such entries, from the fact Kafka required absolute silence to write in—the almost life-giving result of writing no matter what. Although constantly beset by health problems, depression and insomnia, he was an “intrinsically motivated individual” propelled by writing simply for “the sake of writing, not to have his work published or because of any other external influences.”

Even though he claimed to loathe writing, he poured himself into his works, and his views about writing were as complex as he was, for once he had an idea, he refused to compromise it for anything. Indeed, his works “contain comparatively few corrections,” and if there were any, he made them right away as part of the writing process, including them in the immediacy of his “écriture automatique.” If he had to rework a piece of writing substantially, then he would start it all over from the beginning.

Kafka once stated, “Don’t bend; don’t water it down; don’t try to make it logical; don’t edit your own soul according to the fashion. Rather, follow your most intense obsessions mercilessly.”

The Strange and Vital Legacy of Kafka

While Kafka might’ve disliked the scrutiny his writings and his life have undergone by scholars and students today, his influence is indisputable, and he remains a fascinating and sad puzzle of an author. He is considered one of the most brilliant and revolutionary German language authors of the 20th century. In fact, Israel considers him a “key figure” who “belongs on the intellectual map” of the country; Kafka’s stories are used there in an “attempt to bring Israelis closer to a lost European past.” His appeal is universal, his impact necessary, his stories needed so they can speak uniquely to our inner souls.

Though he found life painful and writing miserable, through his works Franz Kafka created a strange and enduring legacy. It is one of oddness and miserable persistent obsessions, of unique and unforgettable stories that could have only come from a life and mind in turmoil. If you find Kafka and his approach to writing as fascinating as I do, try writing like him—without restraints, without outlines; draw influence from the people around you and write as if your characters live within the dream of your specific worldview. Let yourself get carried away by the process of writing and see where it takes you. You might end up surprising yourself.