History Creator / FranzKafka

* MagnumOpusDissonance: Most people today who think of Kafka think of ''Literature/TheMetamorphosis'' or ''Literature/TheTrial''. Kafka never thought much of ''Literature/TheMetamorphosis'' and died wanting the incomplete manuscript for ''Literature/TheTrial'' destroyed. Instead, the only one of is works he had a kind word for was ''The Verdict'', which only the enthusiasts have heard of today.

%%* CallingTheOldManOut: Almost. ''Letter to His Father'', which was never given to his dad. %% Zero Context Example

** "The Burrow" is another story featuring a badger-like creature as the main character.

* BadassBureaucrat: The protagonists of all three novels ''try'' to be this at different times, with little to no effect.
* BeleagueredBureaucrat: Poseidon in the short story of the same name. The protagonists of ''The Trial'' and ''The Castle'' encounter a few, in their more upbeat moments.
* BewilderingPunishment: The central point of ''The Trial''.

* CallingTheOldManOut: Almost. ''Letter to His Father'', which was never given to his dad.

* ClassicalAntiHero: His more detailed protagonists, almost without exception.
* CrapsackWorld: The late 19th-early 20th Century landscape of his stories.

* DisproportionateRetribution: "The Judgement" among others.
* DownerEnding: Much of his work.

* FishOutOfWater: Karl Rossman in America.

* IceCreamKoan: Deliberately.

* GrayAndGreyMorality
* KafkaKomedy: Franz Kafka is the TropeNamer. When read the right way by a person with a very dark sense of humor, his books can be genuinely funny. According to his friends, Kafka himself would sometimes laugh out loud while reading his own work.

* MyRuleFuIsStrongerThanYours: The protagonists of all three novels think this at times. They are wrong, so very wrong.
* NoEnding: Two out of his three novels have no ending. ''The Trial'' does have an ending, but it's known that Kafka hadn't finished work on it when he died.

* OntologicalMystery: ''The Trial'' is a cynical, bureaucratic example.

* ShaggyDogStory: [[ShootTheShaggyDog The dark kind.]]
* ShootTheShaggyDog: Almost everything by Kafka falls into this category.

* YankTheDogsChain: ''In spades.''

* YankTheDogsChain: Things may start to look bright. It never pays off.

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Kafka’s work doesn't directly ever reference his Jewish background, but the Jewish angst somehow seems to seep through anyway.

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Even in Kafka stories where nothing strictly impossible happens, he still has a way of making the situation just off-kilter enough that it ''feels'' fantastical. (See, for instance, "[[https://web.usd475.org/school/jchs/staff/artley/SiteAssets/SitePages/Home/The%20Judgment.pdf The Judgment]].")

* MundaneMadeAwesome: Even in Kafka stories where nothing strictly impossible happens, he still has a way of making the situation just off-kilter enough that it ''feels'' fantastical. (See, for instance, "[[https://web.usd475.org/school/jchs/staff/artley/SiteAssets/SitePages/Home/The%20Judgment.pdf The Judgment]].")

* CivilizedAnimal / PartiallyCivilizedAnimal: Kafka's story "A Report to an Academy" is narrated by an ape who has taught himself to imitate people and even take part in human society. Other Kafka stories, such as "Josephine the Singer" (whose title character is a mouse), also feature animals which speak or exhibit human characteristics.

* BeleagueredBureaucrat: Poseidon in the short story of the same name. The protagonists of ''The Trial'' and ''The castle'' encounter a few, in their more upbeat moments.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: His first published collection, "Meditation" (also translated as "Contemplation"), is much less dark and fantastical than the work he's best known for. True to the title, most of the pieces are short, reflective, semi-fictional musings on everyday life (though Kafka's trademark sardonic wit ''does'' still show through in more subtle ways).

* AuthorAvatar: A lot of his characters at least share some traits with him, such as a domineering father and a creative desire stifled by the doldrums of everyday life. A couple of them are named “K“.

* AuthorsOfQuote: Kafka's aphorisms are often reprinted, mostly as epigrams at the start of a book.

* BiographyAClef: Creator/StevenSoderbergh's film ''Kafka'' uses the author's fiction as a key to tell his life story.

!!Works by Franz Kafka with their own pages include:
* ''Literature/TheMetamorphosis''
* ''Film/TheTrial''

!!Other works by Franz Kafka include examples of:

* AmbiguouslyJewish: Kafka's work doesn't directly ever reference his Jewish background, but the Jewish angst somehow seems to seep through anyway.

Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was one of the major German-language fiction writers of the 20th century. His unique body of writing--much of which is incomplete and was mainly published posthumously--is among the most influential in Western literature. His stories, such as ''Literature/TheMetamorphosis'' (1915), and novels, including ''The Trial'' (1925) and ''The Castle'' (1926), concern troubled individuals in a nightmarishly impersonal, modern, and bureaucratic world.

* OffscreenInertia: Present in great effect due to most stories being unfinished. There is no suggestion that the protagonists of ''The Castle'' or ''America'' will ever get closer to their goal, or indeed any kind of resolution. Not that the protagonists of the finished stories fared much better. There are suggestions that at least the protagonist of ''America'' would in the fullness of time reach a similar fate as the protagonist of ''The Trial'', had the story been finished. Also, many of the short stories, including for example ''The Burrow'' ends exactly as they started.

* CantGetAwayWithNuthin: He was a Trope Codifier. One of the most revealing exchanges in all his work is towards the end of ''The Trial'', when Josef K goes to the cathedral and talks to a priest: