Kafka's castle, the master of western expressionism, is such a bunch of burning black roses in my heart. This flickering flame cannot be extinguished at any time. This is my first time reading Kafka, and I was defeated by the desperate environment he created. Auden, a British poet, said: "Kafka's dilemma is also the dilemma of modern people." And I think, broadly speaking, Kafka's dilemma is the dilemma of the whole mankind. As long as human beings exist, this dilemma will not be extinct. The concrete form or symbol of the dilemma is his "castle".
I dare not comment on Kafka for the first time. Because, even many critics and experts in later generations are arguing endlessly about his ideological world, and it is difficult to draw a conclusion. Therefore, it is right to make a shallow interpretation in combination with various backgrounds related to him.
The novel Castle is Kafka's last unfinished work. Compared with other great writers of his time, his works are not many. Moreover, before his death, the Trial, Castle and Metamorphosis, which were designated as his three masterpieces by later generations, were not published. It is said that Kafka had asked his close friend Broder, a writer whom he met in Austria in 1902 and later became a lifelong friend, to burn all his unpublished works after his death and not to reprint any published works. No one knows what Kafka thought at that time, but Broder didn't fulfill his last wish for him later. Because of cherishing Kafka's precious works, Broder compiled and published all his manuscripts, which is also a great achievement.
Castle is a desperate story, a mystery that no one can reveal. The hero K is employed by the land surveyor of the castle and goes to the castle to take office. After going through all kinds of hardships, he came to a village under the jurisdiction of the castle, but was told that he had no right of abode. In order to find the way to the castle, he struggled with all kinds of irrelevant people, but he never got what he wanted until he was on the verge of despair. The castle, on the high mountain not far from the village, is within reach.
The symbolism behind this story. Critics have several different explanations. The first one starts with personal life background. Kafka's father Herman came to Prague from the Czech Republic to make a living when he was young. With a shrewd business mind, he ran a shop and made some money before he settled down. It is said that Kafka's father is very tall, and because of his small achievements in his career, he has developed a wayward and paternalistic habit. Kafka was weak from childhood, and under his father's majesty, he formed a lonely and melancholy character. He has a bad relationship with his father. He longed for a harmonious family relationship with his father, but it never came true. This is reflected in his letters to his father and many works. K in The Castle is faced with a hierarchical and untouchable castle. Except for the hopeless struggle from beginning to end, the rest is the final despair of life. This has a certain mapping relationship with Kafka's stalemate with his father.
The second kind of symbolism is more grand. Kafka family is a Jew and lived in Austria-Hungary after the First World War. The country's economy is depressed, social unrest and crises abound. In addition, for centuries, anti-Semitism in Europe has intensified, and Jews have been subjected to various restrictions, exclusions, persecution and massacres. When Kafka was alive, he witnessed the suffering of his own nation and felt sad. Later, in World War II, the fascist massacre of Jews was even more notorious. Kafka alienated the sufferings of his nation into a castle facing K in Castle, and K could not see the hope of life. Similarly, the Jews in Kafka's eyes can't see a bright future.
As for K's unremitting efforts to gain the recognition of the castle, it is interpreted by some critics as the religious significance of human pursuit of God's redemption. However, critics initially interpreted the meaning of the castle according to Kafka's life background, which was overthrown by the fact that Kafka had little connection with religion.
As mentioned earlier, Kafka's dilemma in Castle is also the dilemma of all mankind. Broadly speaking, this is a philosophical concept that I hold that life is inherently tragic. Throughout the society and times in which human beings live, there are many limitations, and all the limitations together become an indestructible and inaccessible "castle". No matter for human beings or individuals, although the connotation of castles is different, they all have similar "constraint" attributes. All the individual castles are covered by forests, and a huge "castle" of human beings as a whole is built. It is a permanently flowing and changing ecosystem, maintaining an invisible energy balance.