while i understand that this is meant to be a joke about hellish capitalism, again, we cannot erase an important dimension to his work: franz kafka was a jew. he and his families were jews during a time period where traditional, religiously-based jew hatred was being replaced with a new pseudoscientific belief that jews were to be hated and oppressed because they were a subhuman race. this transition to race-based hatred of jews meant that even assimilated jews- who considered themselves citizens of states before they were ever jews- were now being irrationally targeted and hunted.
the termĀ āanti-Semitismā was created specifically to name this new racial hatred of Jews. it was coined in 1879- 4 years before Kafka was born.Ā
inĀ āthe metamorphosisā,Ā Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". in kafkaās real world, jews woke up one morning, in their country that they were told was now enlightened and accepting of all people, and found out that they were now consideredĀ āmonstrous verminā. and then 6 million jews of his generation were exterminated.Ā
i am giving the simplest analysis to this right now, but we need to understand that you cannot just blanketly universalize his work. you cannot remove the context of kafkaās jewishness or that he lived at a time when antisemitism became fervently racial. yes, discuss how his work comments on capitalism, society, etc. but to only use ONLY these lenses and to ONLY universalize his work is dishonest, whitewashes his work and life, and further exhibits how little non-jews know or care about the jewish history and the how antisemitism has impacted jews for over 2000 years.
