Passion. Kafka Thought

Franz Kafka (1883—1924) is the pioneer of Western modernist novels in 20th century. He presented in his works a creative aesthetical style. Many schools of modernism and post modernism literature can be traced back to Kafka's roots. Substantially, Kafka processes a spirit that can penetrate tribulation and an ability to take writing as a belief to counteract the despairing feelings in his life. That's the greatest thing in him.With his unique form and style, Kafka set himself up as the forerunner of the modernism novels. Nonetheless, his writing approach as a lone, ascetic writer can also be interpreted as a form of counterbalancing the condition of being desperate in the absurd world. Kafka is not a predictor, but a writer who is the most sober-minded in the real world. What he wanted to express in his novel is how we face up to the spiritual sufferings from the world and personal angst when God is Dead. In his novels, Kafka experienced and acknowledged the sufferings as a sharp sense that exists in the inner heart, and comes to mind of a person from time to time. The characters in Kafka's story are always unable to stand up to the external unlucky forces; they have been struggling, in a half-dreaming half-awake status, for discerning this world and further identifying the self-existence.Kafka's sense of despair is a stronger emotion than that of angst. Facing the internal angst of himself, he bravely took the challenge of the meaningless erosion and headed for despair. Kafka's sense of despair coming from the nihility has produces an individual go-astray alien existence. This ambiguity of life has actually created the realm which Kierkegaard termed as the aesthetic life. In his fighting against absurdity, Kafka finally left the hope of belief to the art. To some extent, Kafka tried hard to overcome the sense of despair in real life with his belief in art. Kafka is of cross-age great significance in the history of literature because he breaks away from the conventional describe-it-as-it-stands true reflection theory of the traditional realism novel before 20th century, and gives the unique aesthetic meaning to the literature form. With his visionary writing approach, Kafka endues a concrete form to the despair and therefore symbolically renders salvation for the despair.