PRESENTATION OUTLINE
-Kafka was born in 1883 into middle class German speaking, Jewish family in Prague the capital of the kingdom of bohemia.
-Kafka was fluent in the Czech and German language, but he considered German his mother tongue.
- Kafka was regarded by critics as one of the most influential authors of the 20th century.
Most of his works, such as "The Metamorphosis", "The Trial", and "The Castle", are filled with the themes and archetypes of alienation, physical and psychological brutality, parent–child conflict, characters on a terrifying quest, labyrinths of bureaucracy, and mystical transformations.
-Kafka turned as a lawyer after completing his legal education, he obtained employment with an insurance company.
-He used to write short stories in his spare time but he had little time to write due to his long day job or as he used to refer to as "bread-job".
- The Metamorphosis is said to be one of Franz Kafka’s best works of literature. It shows the difficulties of living in a modern society and the struggle for acceptance of others when in a time of need.
- In this novel Kafka directly reflects upon many of the negative aspects of his personal life, both mentally and physically.
-Kafka had a problem with controlling his sexual desires. he had many close relationships with several women.
-Kafka had an active sex life.Kafka was "tortured" by sexual desire and Kafka's biographer Reiner Stach states that his life was full of "incessant womanising" and that he was filled with a fear of "sexual failure".
Some of his most famous quotes:
-"By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired".
-"Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old".
Death
-Kafka had laryngeal tuberculosis and in March 1924 he returned from Berlin to Prague.
- He died there on 3 June 1924. His cause of death seemed to be starvation: the condition of Kafka's throat made eating too painful for him, and since parenteral nutrition had not yet been developed, there was no way to feed him. Kafka was editing "A Hunger Artist" on his deathbed, a story whose composition he had begun before his throat closed to the point that he could not take any nourishment.
