Kafkaesque is a term to describe unnecessarily complicated and frustrating experiences, like being forced to navigate labyrinths of bureaucracy. But does standing in a long line to fill out confusing paperwork really capture the richness of Kafka's vision?
2/10
2/10
Beyond the word's casual use, what makes something Kafkaesque? Franz Kafka's stories do indeed deal with many mundane and absurd aspects of modern bureaucracy, drawn in part from his experience of working as an insurance clerk in early 20th century Prague.
3/10
3/10
Many of his protagonists are office workers compelled to struggle through a web of obstacles in order to achieve their goals, and often the whole ordeal turns out to be so disorienting and illogical that success becomes pointless in the first place.
4/10
4/10
For example, in the short story, "Poseidon," the Ancient Greek god is an executive so swamped with paperwork that he's never had time to explore his underwater domain. The joke here is that not even a god can handle the amount of paperwork demanded by the modern workplace.
5/10
5/10
He's unwilling to delegate any of the work because he deems everyone else unworthy of the task. Kafka's Poseidon is a prisoner of his own ego. This simple story contains all of the elements that make for a truly Kafkaesque scenario.
6/10
6/10
It's not the absurdity of bureaucracy alone, but the irony of the character's circular reasoning in reaction to it that is emblematic of Kafka's writing. His tragicomic stories act as a form of mythology for the modern industrial age, employing dream logic to explore
7/10
7/10
the relationships between systems of arbitrary power and the individuals caught up in them. Take, for example, Kafka's most famous story, "Metamorphosis". When Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect,
8/10
8/10
his greatest worry is that he gets to work on time. Of course, this proves impossible. It was not only the authoritarian realm of the workplace that inspired Kafka. Some of his protagonists' struggles come from within.
9/10
9/10
So on the one hand, it's easy to recognize the Kafkaesque in today's world. We rely on increasingly convoluted systems of administration that have real consequences on every aspect of our lives.
10/10
10/10
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
