A Study On Kafka’s Guilt And Responsibility Consciousness

Franz Kafka is regarded as the pioneer and master of western modernismliterature. His novels portray a spiritual world which is bizarre and full of irrationalcolor, and reveal the unique loneliness and melancholy mood. Kafka was unknownduring his lifetime.After he died, the value of his works is gradually been recognized,and attracts more and more readers and researchers into his literature world.Perceiving social era with his sharp tentacle, Kafka reveals the survival situationof modern people and gives deep insight into the modern people’s guilt.“People” isthe most essential issue and is the core in Kafka’s works, such as Man’s existencesituation, people’s living in shadow of the original sin, people’s fighting againstpatriarchal rule and legal right institution, people’s alienation in the modern civilizedsociety etc. People generally find the embarrassment and the absurdity of his survivalstatus through his works, which display fear, loneliness and confusion. Thereforethey can resonate with his works. Combining Kafka’s personal life with his works,this thesis tries to understand his inner world which was full of guilt andresponsibility consciousness. The main points are as follows:The introduction part introduces Kafka’s life and his works, and sorts out theresearch status about Kafka at home and abroad. Kafka displays a profound literaryworld to us through his works. Although researchers have studied him in differentaspects such as religion, history, society, culture, psychologyand ethnic etc,however,there are few studies on Kafka’s guilt and responsibility consciousness.By discussingkafka’s guilt and responsibility consciousness,this thesis makes people know moreabout his works and his thought. The first chapter defines the guilt and responsibility consciousness. This chapterexplains the specific meaning of sense of guilt and responsibility respectively, thenaccording to Kafka’s life experience and his ideas in the prose: For sin, suffering,hope and the true path to observe, introduces his unique inner world which is full ofguilt and responsibility consciousness.The second chapter portrays Kafka’s guilt and responsibility consciousnessreflected vividly in his creative works. Protagonists0f Trial and the missing, in theabsurd situation of power and rank order, fell into a sense of sin; Mr. Georg in TheJudgment and Gregor of The Metamorphoses who can’t reach the state of self andothers’ satisfaction at the same time, sink into the sin for lack of responsibility; K ofThe castle who is against the strong legal right order, deeply gets into guilt.The third chapter analyzes the reasons for the formation of Kafka’s unique guiltand responsibility consciousness. From the large background，Highly pecking orderof the20th century makes modern people’s spirit nowhere to return, which makesKafka get into the sense of guilt and responsibility. In addition, Kafka’s character,painful childhood experiences, unfortunate marriage, the unfriendly relationship withhis father and the edification of the Jewish religious culture also influence theformation of Kafka’s guilt and responsibility consciousness.