Vermin and Stars: Franz Kafka’s Judaism
Abstract:
The following text is is a historical look at Franz Kafka’s Judaism in his personal life as well as his bibliography—it seeks to contextualize and explore his own complicated relationship with his Judaism through a combination of his own writings and letters as well as specifically Jewish readings of what may be his most famous work, The Metamorphosis. I am not here to claim that the Jewish reading of Kafka’s work is the definitive one, nor to attempt that it was secretly intended as Jewish. But I wanted to write a project that acknowledged and discussed Kafka’s very nuanced, complex, and somewhat troubled relationship with his own Jewishness—as well as his political Zionism—in the backdrop of the early 20th century in which he lived, and to marry that with these various readings of The Metamorphosis that focus on its Jewish themes not merely in themes, but in storytelling techniques as well. It is my firm belief that Kafka’s Judaism is deeply important to his existence as a person, yet outside of certain academic circles it is rarely discussed or brought up. This project aims to rectify that, and hopefully bring newer readers to understand Franz Kafka better as an author and a person through his Jewishness—as well as expand on why that still matters today in the present.