Franz Kafka Letter to Father

This letter, which Kafka wrote to his father Hermann Kafka in November 1919, never reached its recipient. The letter, which is a perfect introductory text to step into the author's works and inspirational world, can also be considered one of the great confessions of the 20th century literary history.

In his letter, in which an accusatory tone and a slight irony are mixed together, Kafka expresses his request to be accepted by his father. In fact, he saw the alienation and lack of communication between him and his father as part of a broader existential impasse, which he focused on in most of his works. The author held his father responsible for his inability to marry and become an adult, as in the story called Judgment, where the character named Georg Bendemann, who was preparing for marriage and becoming an adult man, was sentenced to death by his father.

The relationship between Hermann Kafka, a successful businessman, and his son was determined by his traditional expectation of an only son who would continue his business. This was actually a common example of the typical father-son conflict experienced by the newly formed patriarchal Jewish middle class.