About the Author: Franz Kafka

5 facts

-Born 3 July, 1883, Prague (Capital of what was then Bohemia)
-Trained as a lawyer and worked in an insurance company specialising in workers' injury claims.
-Strained relations with both his father and mother, the former over bearing and authoritarian, the latter shy and emotionally distant.
-Was haunted by the personal view that people would find him both mentally and physically repulsive, something which people noted as being the opposite.
-Died 1924, age 40, of tuberculosis.

5 motifs

-Clerks/secretaries/businessmen
-Physically repulsive features/characteristics
-Over bearing and repressive authority figures (ie bosses, parents etc.)
-Cramped apartments
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5 Characters

-Gregor Samsa
-Grete Samsa
-'The Mother'
-'The Father'
-'The Office Manager'

5 Themes

-Isolation/Alienation
-Loneliness
-Self-doubt
-Fatalism
-Existentialism

5 Works

-The Metamorphosis
-Meditations
-The Trial
-In the Penal Colony
-The Judgement

Kafka's work is a strange mix of highly realistic and mundane descriptive passages coupled with absurdist situations and observations. Much of his work seems highly cathartic and, although surreal and absurd in places, seems to borrow elements of his own life. This is evidenced by the use of motifs and characters that are taken directly from his own life and experiences and the fact that most of his work centres on themes of self doubt, alienation and loneliness, which he struggled with personally through out his life.

His work instantly provokes a vivid emotional response something which I feel could be effectively transferred into visual work. I really like the ambiguous nature of much of his work, such as omitting a conclusive description of the bug or 'vermin' in The Metamorphosis, which would allow for an overly personal response to his work as well as potentially creating work that, much like his work, would be ambiguous in places and allow for a variety of different interpretations.