The image of ther mystical wolrd in the Works of Franz Kafka

Abstract

The article discusses the influence of Jewish worldview, traditions, especially Jewish mysticism on the personality of Franz Kafka and his literary works.  In his prose works and aphorisms written in the esoteric genre, Kafka made extensive use of plots and contexts from various variants of Kabbalah and Hasidic mysticism. In Kafka’s  works, we find abundant “traces” of Kabbalah:motifs, themes and figures, as well as popular Hasidic legends, interpretations of ther Bible, sermons etc. This intertextual parallels point the reader to Kafka’s works is at a depth level that cannot be understand without decoding it. Kabbalistic subtext is especially felt in Kafka’s novel “Process”, sort stories “Before the Law” and “Transformation”. In these works, attempts to escape from life’s problems and sins, to find the true path, are brought to the fore.