Franz Kafka was actually very progressive for his day in the way he uses women in his collection of short stories. While other prominent writers of the time are still writing two demential female characters in supporting roles of their husbands, fathers, and sons, Kafka uses female characters to spell out a more inflated dynamic to his already tragic characters.
True there are few leading ladies in Kafka’s short stories. The one who is present is merely a an observer - Josaphine the singer. But Kafka tells of his females characters by how important they are to the male characters in the story.
In The Metamorphosis published in 1915, Gregor Samasa wakes to find himself turned into a giant insect. Despite this he is desperate to get to work in order to support his family. His father can’t work, his mother and sister shouldn’t have to because they are women. But Gregor can’t even get off back and is stranded in bed in the body of horrible insect. In this nightmare scenario his only ray of comfort comes from his sister. She’s the first to reach out to him. She’s the one who stops their father from killing him on sight. She’s the one who keeps him fed tries to make him comfortable as his condition drags on and on.
He regrets that she has to find work because it’s his job to be the provider. But she has always wanted this. She is a talented violinist. She has wanted to attend school, or get a job to be more than burden to him. Had he accepted her help sooner would this have happened? However it is her getting out into the world, becoming busy and more useful that causes her to slowly abandon Gregor. It is also her ultimate betrayal that kills him.
The importance of his sister overshadows every other woman in Gregor’s life. His mother is a sponge of maternal affection, their to protect him but not much else. And the maid who replaces the sister when she gets work, is more of a threat than a comfort. Her unloving care is a choir or a service. Also, the sister is the first to be named as all other family members go by their tittle alone until the last few scenes.
The family doesn’t need Gregor anymore because he can’t work. And the sister wishes for him to leave kills him literally and almost instantly.
It’s no surprise that the dreams of a man who was engaged twice to the same woman should involve the utter resolving of his since of self and his place in the world.
In “The Stoker” the woman presented is, by modern standards, a villain. A thirty six year old woman who seduced a sixteen year old boy and destroyed his life. It’s not familiar territory, even today, to discuss how young boys can also be victims of sexual assault by women, and yet here it is.
The problem for the boy is compounded as everyone in his family blames him for the assault. His parents send him, ill prepared, to America to escape the scandal. His freshly discovered Uncle uses the story to embarrass him, to humble him, before greater more masculine men. The uncle only knows the story because the thirty-six year old maid wrote and told him the whole thing; she thought she was helping him!
A true villain, who by acts of “good intension” destroys a young boy’s life - twice. A villain only a boy could experience in a story only a man could tell. The stickiness of unwanted love. The fear of an unasked for family. And the humiliation of having your confidence squashed at the verge of manhood. It’s all things I never expected to feel, or have empathy for. .
The tension in “The Country Doctor” is created by yet another sexual assault this time the doctor has been forced to leave his assistant, Rosa, alone with a possible rapist. It wasn’t intentional and he wants desperately to see her . But first he has a patient to visit. The patience seems to be faking his symptoms. But he must preform for the sake of his audience, the people paying him to treat the faker. Now it appears that the man may really be sick.
Rosa’s dangers never leaves the doctor’s mind and as soon as he is able he tries to race back to her, but is further hindered. I’ve never read a story where the male protector instinct for a woman in his employ was used to drive the plot. Rosa is not his lover, nor sister, nor mother. She is a woman that needs his help though. Because no one else can help her. But can he?
This to me puts Kafka in a leave of his own. So few male writers ever address sexual assault in all it’s horrors and here he’s tackled it from two perspectives I, as a woman, had not considered. The sorrier, the helplessness of this man knows he needs to protect his woman but can’t reach her. It’s to say there are good men out there, there are horrible women out there also.
These stories are relevant today as they were when he wrote them. And in the wake of the “Me too movement” I think they are powerful stories to consider.
“Josephine the Singer” isn’t about her being a woman or singer. It’s about her being just like everyone else. She has an ability that tempts her to be put on a pedi sat, but there is no dedistal for Josephine. She must work as men work. As the women work, as the children must group and work. She claims weakness, but no one cares. She stops singing and no one cares. All she wants is to be special, but no one cares. And when she dies no one cares, and no one remembers her.
Is this how Kafka saw women over all? Just another person of humanity begging to be treated special, but really no better or worse than any other? Sure they turn heads and draw away attention from the stress and horrors the day to day. But there is no reason to hold women to a different standard.
Or maybe this is how he saw the wealthy, and the celebrity. What about being able to dance and sing gets you out of cranking the societal wheel? We are all cogs in this machine. What makes the Kardashians so special?
Kafka used women as tools for drawing emotional plots in a world run by strong men. A good natured woman can give a man strength when he has no more. A wicked woman can destroy all a boy’s hopes and dreams before he’s even dreamed them. Women are to be loved, and protected, but not worshiped for they same as men. Just cogs in the machine.
A reflection on Kafka's love life can be found here: https://2012thetrial.wordpress.com/2012/03/20/a-continuing-reflection-of-kafka-in-his-writings-on-women/
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