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Kafka's Things Fall Apart

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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 …show more content…

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 …show more content…

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

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At that time it was difficult to get papers permitting Jewish people to leave the country. Rifka writes, “I’ve never been to another country before, not even in another village.” Rifka knows nothing about the world outside her village. Unfortunately, a complicating factor was that Rifka’s brother was being hunted by soldiers because he escaped from the army. As a result, in order for Rifka and her family to depart

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For this final reading response, I have decided to look in depth at Thomas Nelson’s piece of writing called Darkness in the Look and to also interpret and analyze specific aspects of this particular reading. In the reading, Nelson does quite a wonderful job analyzing Disney’s representations of evil over the decades between 1938 and 1974. His view is that darkness in Disney was used in the first few films to convey a more haunting, and dramatic form of evil and that as the years progressed, Disney moved away from imagination being directly linked to lightness and darkness within the icon world of Disney. Throughout this response, I will be contrasting, in particular the idea of evil being prevalent in nature and in one’s self to evil being within one entity, or

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He starts facing alienation when he’s mother gets a new husband and marries, his father doesn't really understand him; for that reason he always feels lonely and unneeded, thus, alienation is a theme that transcends race or class, as the other two

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913 Words | 4 Pages

In the years of the Holocaust, darkness shadowed the Jewish people. They were forced to be ripped apart from their families, they were starved to the point of death, and they were overall dehumanized. These traumatizing events inspired Elie Wiesel to write his memoir, Night, which caused him to give a detailed record of the horrors of humanity that he endured. This also played a part in his speech “The Perils of Indifference”. Unfortunately, the world is not filled with light.

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Representing a roster of personal and social problems, darkness is found

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When humans are surrounded in an endless chasm of darkness, they find it necessary to grasp onto whatever dim hope may be near them. They find it necessary to set their minds onto a mission or action, however feasible or relevant, and turn all thoughts away from death or despair. Light and dark are words commonly thrown about, usually to describe gradients of color. But humans need light in the sense of comfort, a way out, or the promise of salvation. They have to find this light in life, to turn away from the darkness.

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In the novel Fahrenheit 451, the author builds up the subject of distance through the primary characters Clarisse, Montag, and his significant other Mildred. In result, alienation causes their destruction as the plot progresses. Alienation is passed on through the fundamental character Montag. This is shown by the negative feelings he has towards social ways. He found that his general public has "everything they need to be happy, but they aren't happy" and that "somethings missing" from life in his community.

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Evil comes from within someone’s mind, actions, and words. Wiesel states, “They told us there was a labor camp on the site. The conditions were good. Families would not be separated. Only young would work in the factories.

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997 Words | 4 Pages

... I am happy to work. Traveling is exhausting, but I couldn’t live without it,’” (Kafka 147). The fact that he could no longer leave his own room probably made his experience more traumatizing.

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1601 Words | 7 Pages

Kafka’s father tells him that he will have intercourse with his mother and sister, causing Kafka to struggle with the Oedipus complex throughout the story. In both stories, the protagonists eventually succumb to fate, regardless of how hard they tried to

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1504 Words | 7 Pages

Kafka was born into a middle-class family; his mother was well educated, and his father had a long history in business. Kafka, however, didn’t have the greatest relationship with his parents. His father had a terrible temper and didn’t approve of Kafka’s writing endeavors. He also put Kafka under tremendous pressure to continue the family business since he was the only son. Kafka’s childhood experience with an economically driven family dynamic was manifested in his novella The Metamorphosis.

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729 Words | 3 Pages

Kafka suffered a harsh, stubborn father who was never easy to please, an unsatisfying physical appearance, and problems in his community concerning his devotion to Judaism. I believe that these were reasons that greatly influenced his writing. The thought that his faith in Judaism made him an outcast in society, not having a place to belong as

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The belief of having no purpose in life is what sparks the view of darkness in the

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Kafka illustrates in his novel the permanent conflict between an elusive law and a vain search for truth and justice. In The Trial, the law appears to be hidden and distant while still demanding, through its representatives, rigorous obedience. Society is thus divided in two groups differentiating the people incarnating the law to those who must obey it. This submission, however, can lead to the lost of what constitute mankind, the one element, according to René Descarte, that truly differentiates humans to animals: the possession of our souls. Indeed, Joseph K is ashamed of the despicable nature of human kind and dies, in submissiveness towards the law, “like a dog”

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4517 Words | 19 Pages

The absurdity in K.’s existence is very apparent and true, for all the substance and simultaneous action that he does, there is a void between his efforts and the result that he wants to achieve. Kafka wants his character to take the existential leap of faith, to embrace his struggles with open arms and live with

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