On The Paradox Of Art In Kafka's Creation

Paradox is a philosophy terminology shown in a logical way. The critic Abrams thought that "paradox is self-contradictory or preposterous, but it also contains real meaning of the statement". In the literary creation, paradox is often used by some writers as the mode of thinking and rhetoric. For Kafka, paradox is not only a philosophy concept, but also an aesthetic and artistic style. Paradox has close relation with kafka's thoughts and creation. Only by studying paradox in Kafka's creation can we understand the real meaning of his works.The first part of the thesis is about the paradoxical features of the figures in Kafka's novels. In his literary world, each one has a hope of life which seems very close and easy to get but is really hard to realize. Therefore, between the hero's life aim and his incapability, there is an awkward predicament and dilemma. Undoubtedly, both characters and actions of the figures have paradoxical features in the paradoxical situation. On the one side the figures earnestly seek freedom, while on the other side they have to abandon freedom; they long for solitude, but they otherwise fear even evade solitude; although the figures are realistic and have true feelings, their speech and manners are unbelievable, absurd and illusory.The second part of the thesis is about the paradoxical features of Kafka's thoughts. As a thin, weak and sensitive child, Kafka was unfortunately born in a society of "unstable being". Due to his parents' carelessness, father's rude attitude and the absent of mother's love, Kafka had been terrible psychology from childhood. He had paradoxical and self-split personality, and even the figures in his novels also have split personalities and consciousness. Because of his father's rudeness Kafka always felt constrained and feared his strong father and all the others including himself. What's more, because of his unfortunate childhood, Kafka longed for compensation of love especially. However, since he was incapable of realizing his desire, he had to endure the mental agony alone.The third part of the thesis is about the paradoxical features of kafka's artistictechnique. Freud thought that literary creation was a kind of "daydream" and hence appreciation was "enjoying our daydreams". Most of Kafka's novels have the similar structure to dreams. In Kafka's creation, dream and reality had been combined to become absolute and super-reality in an ingenious way which made the readers feel the puzzle and terror of being. Most of the figures in his novels are tragic, however, his tragedies are shown in comic ways by using fantastic and exaggerate plots. In order to express the things that cannot be explained, Kafka had chosen a special mode of speech-paradoxical speech, such as mocking, ridiculous and humorous words-to explain the paradoxical life. He always put the figures in embarrassed situation, then described their actions by using paradoxical speech. The essence of Kafka's paradoxical speech is ridiculing the failures of man's endeavor and expressing the feelings of Kafka's inner heart.All the time, the study of Kafka emphasizes on his creation in light of religion, philosophy, sociology and psychology, therefore little can be found in the study of his artistic technique of his writing. Although my thesis is a pioneer study, there is unavoidable superficiality and contradiction, and may be made up for in my future study.