Concept of Absurd Hero in Kafka’s Works

Saeed Yazdani (Ph.D)

Assistant Professor
Dept of English
Islamic Azad University, Bushehr Branch
Bushehr, Iran

Abstract

This article focuses on this conviction that most of Kafka’s

heroes lead a meaningless existence in a meaningless world.
This is manifested by the plethora of interpretations his stories
and novels have given rise to. This paper seeks to illustrate this
by taking Kafka’s masterpiece The Trial, The Castle, The
Metamorphosis, and other important short stories as its focal
point. It presents different interpretations pertaining to the
persistence of absurd heroes in the above-mentioned works,
pointing out Camus’ attitudes toward absurd in Kafka. The
paper also gives our own view of the works which, we believe,
manifest Kafka’s heroes as victims overcome by paradoxes and
contradictions faced by humanity, turning tragic at the end. An
attempt is made to establish a relationship between Kafka’s
heroes in different stories and bring about their similarities and
differences.

Key Words: absurd, Existentialism, dehumanization, aphorism,

paradox

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Introduction

One of Kafka's most effective tools in presenting his

philosophy through a work of fiction is the implementation of
events and characters with overwhelmingly absurd natures.
This technique allows the author to state a very definite point
by using a situation that is so obviously exaggerated compared
to actual life that the reader is much more apt to understand the
author's intentions than if the events presented were more
realistic. Most critics consider Kafka’s work as a desperate cry
with no recourse left to man.
In most of Kafka’s stories, his heroes undergo the process of
initiation leading into crisis. Such crisis either leads to a sense
of guilt or a condition of alienation. This crisis establishes a
struggle which expresses itself in the meaningless demands
made by the heroes. Under pressure the heroes are forced to
give up their demands. They cannot comprehend the
dominating transcending organizations which seem irrational to
the rational reader. This results in an anguish from which these
heroes can not escape. The reader faces a pessimistic world
with no hope for humanity.

Discussion

Kafka in his works presents both the natural and the

extraordinary, the tragic and the everyday, the absurd and the
logic. Camus believes that in order to understand the absurd in
a literary work, it is necessary to trace the paradoxes and

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contradictions in the work. This is true in the case of Kafka
who presents both tragic and everyday in his novels. In his
works, there is

The human condition… a basic absurdity as well

as an implacable nobility. The two coincide, as
is natural. Both of them are represented… in the
ridiculous divorce separating our spiritual
excesses and the ephemeral joys of the body.
The absurd thing is that it should be the soul of
this body which it transcends so inordately.
Whoever would like to represent this absurdity
must give it life in a series of parallel contrasts.
Thus it is that Kafka’s by the everyday and the
absurd by the logical. (Camus, “Hope and the
Absurd in the Works of Franz Kafka”, p. 149)

This naturalness is well established in the case of Kafka’s hero

in The Trial. The adventures of his hero are extraordinary, and
therefore seem natural. It is at this point when Kafka identifies
himself with his hero. Kafka lives and is condemned along with
his hero. What happens is natural for them, and does not arouse
any astonishment on their parts. It is these contradictions which
reinforce the presence of absurd in Kafka’s works.
Most of Kafka's heroes have grown into symbols
representing our times just as Goethe's Werther and Byron's
Manfred have represented the late eighteenth and nineteenth

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centuries respectively. They ‘reflected a universal discord, a
break between man and his world, and they aired the minds of
their contemporaries by lifting this conflict above the threshold
of their consciousness.’ (Franz Kafka : Parable and Paradox,
Heinz Politzer, p 334)
In this perspective, Kafka is in agreement with Camus who
was born one year after Kafka's breakthrough. The latter has
pursued the same path as that of the former. Camus describes
his hero in The Myth of Sisyphus as the wisest and most prudent
of mortals, rolling ceaselessly a rock to the top of a mountain,
to return down the same mountain. Following the rock down,
Sisyphus makes a pause. Sisyphus' face that ‘toils so close to
stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down
with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he
will never know the end.’ That hour highlights his suffering
that is the hour of his consciousness. He seems to be superior to
his fate, and stronger than his rock. During his descent, the
powerless and rebellious Sysiphus realizes his wretched
condition. For Kafka as well as Camus, Sisyphus represents a
barren humanity, which Camus replaced by what he called the
absurd hero.’His Sisyphus, who conquers an unintelligible and
cruel fate by consciously scorning it, reinstates the dignity of
suffering mankind by assuming an attitude which is both
absurd and heroic.’ In this way Camus is able to establish a
parallel between his Sisyphus and the ‘tormented shadows of
Kafka's principal figures’ (336).
Absurdity is an important element in both novels. It is an aid
in explaining the relative meaninglessness of life's events. It is

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a key in supporting the Existentialist ideas which are manifest
in the novels.

The Trial

The characters of the chaplain, in Albert Camus’ The

Outsider, and the priest, in Franz Kafka’s The Trial, are quite
similar, and are pivotal to the development of the novel. These
characters serve essentially to bring the question of God and
religion to probe the existentialist aspects of it, in novels
completely devoid of religious context. The main idea visible
about these two characters is that they are both the last ones
seen by the protagonists, Mearsault and K., both non-believers
in the word of the Lord. Whereas the chaplain in The Outsider
tries to make Mearsault believe in the existence of god, the
priest tries to warn and explain to K. what will happen to him.
The reason the chaplain is the last one to see Mearsault is
because it’s his job to let the prisoners have a final shot at
redemption before they are executed. The reason that K. meets
with the priest is out of advice given to him by someone, and he
is the last character that he shows K. interacting with (although
it might be true that K. meets and interacts with other people
after the meeting, but they are neither mentioned nor visible
later on). The priest doesn’t try to make K. confess or anything
of the sort, he is mainly there to converse with the character, his
religious position is almost put to no use. The existentialist

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view of religion is that humans have been alienated from God,
and from each other.
Existentialism is present in nearly all of Camus’ The
Stranger where Meursault's interactions with society occurs.
One such piece of evidence supporting Meursault's
existentialism is his interaction with Marie. His association is
merely sexual and physical. Meursault uses Marie to help him
pass his time; he spends an entire Saturday with her. When
questioned about love and marriage, Meursault's replies show
indifference through their nothingness. Meursault is
existentialist to the extent that he couldn't care less about the
path his life takes. The reader is constantly bombarded with
short phrases revealing ever more Meursault's worthless
outlook on a worthless existence. Examples of this come in the
form of Meursault confining himself to only one room in his
apartment, his ignorance to social expectations, his mindless
identification with old Salamano and his dog, and most
importantly his disregard for human life and the consequences
for the removal of it. The Stranger's Meursault is existentialist,
finding a need for a meaning to life only when his is about to be
taken.

Camus was existentialist, and he referred to Kafka as an

absurdist-existentialist. Both have produced works bringing to
light the grim reality of Existentialism, yet neither has created
an advertisement for it. It could even be said that the novels

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where written to give meaning to the lives of the authors, and
to stop society taking the roads of the protagonists.
The Trial which abounds with symbols of darkness and
light, is steeped in twilight. Twilight covers all the places, but is
finally extinguished by the night of K.’s execution. In “Man
Desires for Light”, Brod recalls a conversation with Kafka
during which the latter described the human world as ‘one of
God’s bad mood, one of his bad days’. In reply to Brod’s
question as to the existence of any hope in this world, he
replied, ‘plenty of hope, for God, an abundance of hope, only
not for us’. K, is unaware of the existence of any hope. If The
Trial as a statement separates light from darkness, hope from
torment, ‘then the realization that there is hope but not for us
can only increase the shadows of forlornness thronging upon a
lost world.’ (Politzer, p 170) The irony is that although light
shines it is unable to dispel the twilight. K.’s day has been a
bad day.
The Trial is a parable of human existence. In the Cathedral
the priest tells K. the following parable: ‘Before the law stands
a doorkeeper. To this doorkeeper comes a man from the
country and begs for admittance into the law …’. Man is called
into this world, ‘ he is appointed to it, but wherever he turns to
fulfil his calling he comes up against the thick vapours of a mist
of absurdity …It is a Pauline world, except that God is removed
into the impenetrable darkness and that there is no place for a
mediator.’ (qtd in politzer, 179) Man’s imprisonment in the
world is revealed, but Kafka’s vision of truth and freedom
radiates through the distortions which everyday life entails.

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In the last scene, K. is lost in ambiguities and questions.
Why is he chosen for this unjust trial? Is he born in the image
of his Creator? He does not find any answer to these questions.
It is at this moment when the final ambiguity is introduced.
Once he is brought to his execution, kneeling down, he spreads
out his fingers which can be considered as an attitude of
rejection. Rejecting the light before him, K. may want to
‘preserve his humanity in an existential solitude’, and in order
to escape being continuously persecuted by the court, he may
free himself from it by his death. He is overwhelmed with a
shame. The shame of a man who has lost his trial and has to die
like a dog. He wonders if it is the primal shame of man who has
to appear before ‘his Supreme Judge as naked as he was born’.
Or if it is the shame which should ‘survive him, man’s shame at
the mercilessness of a law and at the deadliness of a light still
worshipped as divine.’ (p 217) Therefore in The Trial, it is the
flesh that wins out.

The Metemorphosis

It deals with the transformation of the central character into

an insect. It shows the last stages of the hero’s ordeal. Unlike
the story, “A Report to an Academy”, where an animal is
humanized, the character in The Metamorphosis, Gregore, is a
man who is dehumanized. The dominating paradox is that
although he is in continuous motion but he does not move from
the spot. Kafka tries to portray this story as an escapist wish

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dream come true. But indeed it shows man’s inability to live
in this meaningless world, and an insect’s pleading to retain his
own status as a salesman (Gregor’s original profession). The
world is seen through the eyes of an insect. This reinforces
Kafka’s attempt to show this world as meaningless and absurd.
Gregor’s sister Grete is the only one who tries to establish
contact with him; she believes that it is Gregor’s not his
family’s misfortune.

He has not really lived; existence, physical and

metaphysical, has moved past him and left no trace.
The metamorphosis has failed to change him. He dies
a thing, as he lived, a thing. The salesman has been
dealing in things; the insect has clung to things; love
and music he has craved as if they were things.
Resigning himself in his last words, this human being
reduces himself to impersonal matter. He does not
die, he is put out.(p 79)

In most of Kafka’s works, the unnatural is treated rationally. In

such stories like The Metamorphosis, the unnatural turns itself
into orderly sequence of nature. The process of Gregor’s
metamorphosis in neither an allegorical sterilization nor a
dream. It is the chief horror of the story. Like Joseph K. he is
condemned without proper judgment, and remains in the dark
about the reasons of his punishment. He is forced to accept his
own fate. In this regard, Gregor and K. lead absurd lives. The
Metamorphosis represents the horrible imagery of an ethic of

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lucidity. It is also the product of the amazement man feels at
being conscious of the beast he becomes effortlessly.
As mentioned earlier an absurd work needs to manifest a
secret complicity that joins the logical and the everyday to
change into tragic. In The Metamorphosis, the hero is a
traveling salesman. That is why the only thing that bothers him
is that his boss will be angry at his absence! ‘Legs and feelers
grow out of him, his spine arches up, white spots appear on his
belly…I shall not say that this does not astonish him, for the
effect would be spoiled… it causes him (only) a slight
annoyance.’ (Camus, p 150)

A Hunger Artist

It is another story dealing with a meaningless life lead by an

artist who is willing to dedicate his existence to the perfection
of his craft. His desire for starvation is insatiable. He intends to
surpass himself from other artists who have performed the
same art of fasting. This grasp for what can no longer be
grasped is typical of Kafka’s heroes. Having joined a circus, he
has now been ‘moved from the center of attention to the
periphery; the one-man show has degenerated to something less
than a side show; the virtuoso is treated like an animal or even
worse…’ (Politzer p 306) his is an act of self denial and a feast
of sacrifice. His fasting represents a passive act, which is a
paradox. ‘disregarding the world and its neglect, humbled by
the cognition of the deceit that was his art, he carries the
paradox of his existence beyond the threshold of his life.’ His

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face shows conviction without pride, firmness without the
triumph of victory. ‘It is, alas, the face of a dead man.’(p306)
Although he has not undergone metamorphosis literally, but a
great cat takes the place of the dead man. The animal lacked
nothing, while the artist was consumed by universal want. The
difference between the artist and the animal lies in the fact that
the animal seems to be enjoying the pleasure of being treated
nobly by both the crowd and its attendants, thus a sort of
freedom, but the artist finds freedom through death.

The Castle

The Castle is another important novel which manifests the

meaningless life of one of many Kafka’s heroes. Camus has
placed both The Trial and The Castle as related to one another.
He believes that ‘the more truly absurd The Trial is, the more
moving and illegitimate the impassioned leap of The Castle’
seems. (Camus152) Here one finds the paradox of existential
entity. He believes that The Castle can be considered a
theology in action and the individual adventure of ‘a soul in
quest of its grace, of a man who asks of this world’s objects
their royal secret, and of women the signs of the god that sleeps
in them’ (Camus 148 )
The Castle is much more complex than The Trial. In both
the novels man’s place in the scheme of things, and the nature
of bond between man and his fellow beings, prevails. In The
Trial, after the crisis of the arrest, an unhealthy bond occurs. In

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The Castle, it is the sexual relation which results in
frustration. In both novels the question of guilt is central.
In The Castle, like the other works, the details of everyday
life stands out which paves the way for a representation of
absurd. Another important feature of a work of absurd is the
persistence of consistency in that concerned work. In The
Castle, each chapter is endowed with a new frustration and a
new beginning. It is a consistent method used by Kafka to
present the meaninglessness and aimless adventure of his hero.
The great hope of the hero, K., is to get the castle to adopt him.
Unable to achieve this alone, he decides to become in
inhabitant of the village. He wants to cast off the curse that
makes him a stranger to the village. This could be achieved by
taking Frieda as his mistress. In this respect he feels
transcended. On the other hand, K. breaks with Frieda in order
to get closer to Barnabas sisters, in particular Amalia, who has
rejected the shameful proposition of one of the Castle
authorities. Her act had brought a curse which seems to have
cast her out from the love of God. Amilia considers herself
unworthy of God’s grace. Camus believes that this falls in line
with existential concept, that is, truth contrary to morality. He
believes that at this point things seem to be far-reaching. ‘For
the path pursued by Kafka’s hero from Frieda to Barnabas
sisters is the very one that leads from trusting love to the
deification of the absurd.’ (Camus 152) Kafka’s hero is the man
who believes in absolute freedom, but cannot have any
perception of it because he exists in a world of slavery.

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The Castle is unspecified. The place is unknown placed in
an unknown dark forest. Another obvious oddity is that the
road K. takes to the castle never actually reaches to it, and it
gets close. The irony is that the other people can easily move
from village to that castle without any difficulty. It seems to be
a deliberate attempt by Kafka not to let his hero reach the
promised castle. Another oddity is the unusual rooms and
narrow spaces K. comes across in the inn. These spaces with
dream-like qualities are typical of Kafka’s novels. Social
practices are not less peculiar. In this regard one can establish a
similarity between The Castle and the other stories, The Trial
and The Metamophosis. The dominating conditions in all of
these stories are different from those prevailing in the world.
Apart from these qualities, there are other qualities including
the contradictions in K. in respect to his relationship with
Frieda. As they lie together, they are unable to recover the same
degree of closeness. They are likened to two dogs scraping the
ground in search of something but find nothing. In fact, later in
a conversation with Pepi., K. expresses his regret over
neglecting Frieda and confesses to an emptiness he feels in
chasing elusive goals. What is true in the case of Kafka is the
fact that failure to arrive at the presumed destination is a central
theme or situation in most of Kafka’s works.
The conflict which overwhelms K. is an important one in
presenting the absurdity of life. He finds in this world a
confusing and contradictory society which reflects his own
confusion and contradiction. He is divided between ‘the need
for isolation and for sociability’. This in evident in his

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absorption into the images of the closed-off Castle or of the
soaring eagle Klamn, while at the same time his desire for
human company. This manifests K.’s alienation. As for the
emptiness of his life one is needed to conclude that his
‘unintended but proper destination is a place where the
essential incompleteness of human life, which in his case is a
life driven by a will obsessed with empty images of power and
authority, is revealed, but not recognized.’(The Castle,
Macmillan Modern Novelists, p 135).
Therefore these contradictions, paradoxes, confusions,
oddities, details of everyday life, all and all reinforce the
presence of absurd in The Castle.

Other Stories

Kafka’s short story “An Imperial Message” deals with a

messenger failing to carry the Emperor’s last words from his
deathbed to his subjects. Comparing this dying emperor to the
Supreme Being, Politzer points to the absurdity of existence.
The messenger never reaches his destination, nor the real
content of the message is revealed. In depicting the new of the
dead Emperor, Kafka may have been influenced by one of
aphorisms used by Nietzsche in Joyful Wisdom (1882) where
the latter tells of a madman running to the market place in
broad daylight, a burning lantern in his hand, crying
consistently ‘I seek God! I seek God!’. There the madman
encounters some disbelievers who tell him that “God is dead”.

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(p 84) Kafka seems to have intended to draw a parallel
between this Nietzschean parable and his own parable “An
Imperial Message”. The image of the extinguished light and the
setting sun used by Nietzsche is used by Kafka when the latter
describes the capital city as ‘the center of the world,
overflowing with the dregs of humanity’ which will forever ‘lie
between the imperial sun, which is now setting, and the lone
individual, the meanest of his subjects.’ (p 86) Nietzschean
parable serves as an absurd anecdote.
Another story written by Kafka, and included in the
collection entitled The Country Doctor, is “The Bucket Rider”
which is an absurd story portraying an absurd hero. It refers to
the coal famine experienced in the winter of 1916. Kafka uses
the image of the ‘cosmic cold gripping the world’ as he saw it.
It is a statement of man’s forlornness in a wintry world. In
order to make it more credible, Kafka uses a paradox, that is,
the vision of a man riding on a bucket instead of carrying it.
The rider fails to continue. His riding has lost its meaning, and
he has to carry the bucket on his shoulder. ‘Nothing is left
except another lyrical image of a dehumanized universe’ (p88).
The title story, “A Country Doctor”, expresses the
helplessness of a man whose profession consists in helping.
‘naked and old, betrayed and wandering astray, a scarecrow
scared rather than scaring, the Country Doctor offers a prime
image of humanity’s dehumanization.’ (p 90) The boy’s
sickness shows the ambiguity characteristic of a neurotic
symptom. The boy’s sickness demonstrates the fact that

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All these so-called illnesses, however sad they may look,
are facts of belief, the distressed human being’s anchorages in
some maternal ground or other; thus, it is not surprising that
psychoanalysis finds the primal ground of all religions to be
precisely the same thing as what causes the individual’s
illnesses, true, nowadays there is no sense of religious
fellowship. (qtd in politzer 347)

Not only is the patient afflicted by sin, mortality, and

sickness, but also the physician as well. Unable to help himself,
Kafka’s country doctor tries to help himself, and as a result he
is defeated in eternity. This falls in line with what is written in
the Gospel: ‘Physician, heal thyself’ (p 348)
The process of dehumanization is the unifying theme of The
Country Doctor stories. It begins with Gregor Samsa’s
transformation into an insect in The Matamorphosis, and
continues in other stories “The New Advocate” and “: A Report
to an academy”. In these and other works Kafka has changed
the position of men and animals. In “A Report to an Academy”
the central character is an ape aping the human race. The ape
acts as a man. Once the ape is captured and put into a cage, he
finds the cage uncomfortable. He does not seek human
freedom, in fact human freedom is despicable to him, what he
requires is only a way out. He is neither beast nor man and has
learned to live in his “bastardized condition”. (p 92)
“Up in the Gallery” depicts a girl riding on a horse. Both the
girl and the spectators are like puppets “soulless” and they
seem to be as “automation”. There is a young visitor who bursts

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into tears suddenly and unconsciously. He seems to
‘understand that he is the lone human being in a universal
puppet show, a show given by puppet rider and puppet horses
for the benefit of the puppets in the audience.’ (p 93)
Kafka’s “A Fratricide” intends to debunk the myth of human
dignity. A character named Schemer kills his best friend Wese.
They both represent humanity, but doing inhuman actions.
Even the living Wese is little more than ‘a bag full of blood, a
doll whose hollowness was turned inside out and made
apparent by the murder.’
Depiction of absurd heroes by Kafka is not limited to the
above mentioned stories. Stories like “The Next Village” and
“Eleven Sons” are also filled with meaninglessness and
absurdity of human beings. In “The next village”, the
grandfather of the narrator changes into a monster. It is
basically plotless enumeration of nameless figures. Before the
eyes of a child ‘one of Kafka’s metamorphoses takes place. …
A living being whose lips are still moving freezes into a
marionette of old age and timelessness.’ (94) Kafka intends to
show the namelessness and facelessness of dehumanized men
in the stories “A Report to an Academy” and “Eleven sons”.
As a conclusion it is necessary to point out that Kafka’s
heroes are born out of confusion, at a moment when orderly
universe turns into chaos; this
namelessness helps Kafka construct an inevitable absurdity
around his heroes.

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