Fathers and Sons, Sons and Lovers Franz Kafka and Brief an den Vater

Abstract

Brief an den Vater, which has been subject of frequent psychoanalytic interpretations is based on the conflict between Franz Kafka and his father Hermann. Consequently it contains a lot more biographical information than many of his other works. But it is at the same time much more than a letter and significantly reflects Kafka's inner feelings and his perceptions of the outer world. The letter more than transcends the limits of an autobiographical composition which would have been an indirect description of his experiences and spills into much larger territory. He talks about his father's character and its influence on his personal existence as his son. This depiction of a classic father-son conflict is not something unknown to Kafka's audience. It is frequently seen as the basic theme in the criticism of his writings and described in the context of Freud's definition of the Oedipus complex. This conflict however, in Kafka's case is not merely Oedipal. His father figure step by step internalizes the patriarchal power relations of the bourgeois society in own being. Therefore as Deleuze and Guattari mention, it is much more than an Oedipus complex than it looks. This article, titled "Fathers and Sons, Sons and Lovers" discusses this theme in Brief an den Vater and in Kafka's other work.