Franz Kafkas Use of Humor Essay -- Biography Biographies Essays

Franz Kafkas Use of Humor Franz Kafka, born on July 3, 1883 in Bohemia, in the city of Prague, has been recognized as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. His whole kit and caboodle have been called cloudy, mysterious, inexplicable (Oates ix). Most people hear the marge Kafkan or Kafkaesque and think of dark, fantastic tales with almost no groundwork in our known reality. But what of Kafkas sense of irritation? I in person laughed out loud several times while reading Kafkas Amerika. Were these snippets of humor part of Kafkas plan or mere accidents? According to Roy Pascal, author of Kafkas Narrators A Study of His Stories and Sketches, There is a good deal of humour in these early stories, as in the novels and later stories, but it is often uncertain and can be overlooked (Pascal 40). The humor that Pascal refers to is not the ordinary vaudeville, slap- stick so common in todays society. Kafka never laughed so more than as he did with Felix Weltsch, and it wa s Weltsch who first stressed the role of humor in Kafkas work - gallows humor spiked with desperation, but liberating for them both (Pawel 131). Kafka was a slice who was more subtle than most and preferred his humor in a more deliberate vein. Irony was a flavor that seemed to work meliorate for Kafka. By taking a look at some of Kafkas works we can see this irony more clearly. In Kafkas short reputation entitled, The Judgement, written in 1912, we see one of the unusual uses of irony by Kafka. The central figure, Georg Bendemann, has just gotten into a long and somewhat heated telephone line with his aging and infirm father. Suddenly Georgs father threw the blankets off with a cogency that sent them all flying in a moment and sprang upright in bed. Only one hand touched the ... ...afka used humor, as shown here, he used it to further emphasize the horror of what was going on in his worlds. Works Cited Gray, Ronald. Franz Kafka. London Cambridge University Press, 1975. 74-75. Janouch, Gustav. Conversations with Kafka. Trans. Goronwy Rees. New York New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1971. 33. Kafka, Franz. The complete Stories & Parables. Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York Quality Paperback Book Club, n.d. - - -, Amerika, Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York, Schoken Books, 1974. Oates, Joyce Carol. Foreword to The hump Stories & Parables. Trans. Willa and Edwin Muir. New York Quality Paperback Book Club, n.d. Pascal, Roy. Kafkas Narrators A Study of His Stories and Sketches. Cambridge Cambridge University Press, 1982. 189-230. Pawel, Ernst. The incubus of Reason. New York Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1984.