Kafka's Things Fall Apart

Violence and evil play a role in fostering hopelessness; even so that alone is not enough to cause one to reject themselves and their reality. If such were the case, the entire world would be clouded with darkness and turmoil. However, if one is unable to find others to share their burdens of life with, they will inevitably suffocate. Kafka is a victim of this, being alienated from others for the majority of his story. He was separated from most of his family until he ran away from his father at the age of 15. During his journey to find the rest of his family, he often struggles with distinguishing reality with his consciousness, which leads to Kafka isolating himself and somewhat awkward situations. Due to being unfamiliar with the situation

While they plan to submit to the Trisolarans, views within the ETO differ considerably. The contradicting views lead to friction within the organization and led to three separate factions being formed within the ETO known as the Adventists, Redemptionists, and Survivors. As the story progressed, each faction views alienated them further from each other, which lead to even more conflict, peaking with the factions being on the verge of civil war with each other. Alienation is used to highlight the environment surrounding the characters and affects the development of each character as a result. In both texts, alienation fostered evil to grow within the ETO and Kafka the story progressed. Being isolated for extended periods created social awkwardness for Kafka. Moreover, it left him with a burden that was unreasonably heavy for one to carry alone, which led to his poor sense of morality and the eventual defiling of his family. The views within the ETO created rifts within the group because the members came from extremely different backgrounds; once they broke into factions, it was a certainty for the isolation within the groups to further distance the groups from each other

The greed of the individual and prioritizing of one group over another has left an unerasable mark on human civilization. It sowed a seed that has to continue to bloom with each generation, and it will continue to throughout time. “The world of the grotesque is the darkness within us. … Until Edison invented the electric light, most of the world was totally covered in darkness. The physical darkness outside and the inner darkness of the soul were mixed together, with no boundary separating the two. They were directly linked.” (Murakami, pg. 225) being born from the darkness, it is only natural that humans choose to stay in an environment that they are familiar with. This fact is exactly why Kafka conceded to his father’s curse, why the Trisolarans were willing to crush all other existing life for their own sake, and why the ETO nearly blew up and nuke and started a civil war. Such dark tendencies are merely on the path that humanity has always walked, and any other path is a deviation from one’s