With a peculiar style of writing and a daunting representation of life’s elements, Franz Kafka is one of the most recognized modernist authors. He was constantly recommended to me but swayed by my Dorian Gray phase; I never bothered to disrupt my sweet, romantic idea of life with gory existential anxiety. A few days back, I finally decided to give a whirl to several classic short stories of Kafka, and to my surprise; they were successful in providing a much-needed interlude to me. Next, the sincere surfing to know more about the author’s personal life began, and then came a series of letter exchanges between Franz Kafka and Felice Bauer, Kafka’s love interest — an aspiring writer and a self-sufficient woman from Berlin. The ‘love letters’ certainly contained a distinct idea of love, which was at times enough to qualify to the conventional nature of romantic relationships but the letters also unveiled a disturbing way in which Kafka writes to Felice. A constant attempt to put his mental anguish and work over Bauer’s domestic aspirations appears to dominantly exist. Their relationship reveals bigger, universal features of dominance, gender dynamics, and power relations prevalent among individuals romantically involved with each other.
‘You were unable to appreciate the immense power my work has over me; you did appreciate it, but by no means fully. As a result you were bound to misinterpret everything that my worries over my work, and only my worries over my work, produced in me in the way of peculiarities which disconcerted you’
– Kafka in a letter to Felice in November 1914
This excerpt from a letter written by Kafka, when analyzed with the context, unravels the prevalent inequality in his relationship with Felice. In later parts of the letter, he expresses his anguish over Felice’s desire to have an apartment and live the conventional married life. He also considers Felice as an ‘enemy’ of his work. Such tendencies ultimately have their roots in traditional patriarchal conditioning. Isn’t it worth noting that how condescendingly Kafka has assumed that Felice, who admired authors like Dostoyevsky, can never understand his intellectual pursuits? Men had dominated the sphere of Western academia for a considerable amount of time and thus had become a part of the established structure in the 20th-century. Any challenge to this established structure, in the form of women expressing their intellectual prowess, was seen as a threat to this order. Kafka’s assumptions were a result of the same fear of disruption of this male-dominated order. The 20th-century rigmarole repeats itself in current times. Power relations in romantic relationships exist with a considerable intensity even today. Our very own notion of an ideal relationship relies on a dominant-submissive idea, with the ideal man requiring to be in possession of a good fortune while no such parameters hold equal importance for women. When two individuals are romantically engaged with each other, they do not come as single beings. Rather, they carry with them the advantages and disadvantages of historical structures. Social structures have favored men for ages and therefore the power balance biased towards them can be easily noticed.
Let’s for a moment believe that Felice was a simple physical and emotive being, as Kafka assumed her to be. Let’s believe that she was incapable of understanding Kafka’s academic interests and her aspirations were absolutely domestic in nature. Even if this would have been the case, it gives no fair reason for her desires to get negated. Equality implies a non-discriminatory treatment to varying inclinations, despite the hierarchy created by society.
‘You must answer, Felice, no matter how much you may object to my letter . . . There were moments during last night when I thought I had crossed the borderline of madness, and I didn’t know how to save myself . . .’
– Kafka in a letter dated November 1914
Another crucial theme in Kafka’s letters is that of mental instability or as he calls it his personal ‘peculiarities’. It is the same peculiarity that provided inspiration for some of his admirable works. The mental challenges are evident in the excerpt presented above. Like every other concept, our approach towards mental health indicates an ingrained bias towards a particular gender. For instance, the way Kafka’s anxiety and mental torment governed her relationship with Felice without equal importance being given to Felice’s emotional reaction to his whimsical letters (in one of them he even asks Felice not to write to him ever again) points towards a discriminatory practice that has been highly normalized. To be mentally unhealthy has always been a privilege enjoyed by men of the upper social stratum. Emotional expression of mental frustration by women has always been considered as ‘cynical’ or ‘crazy’. Women are allowed to be melancholic only when the cause of their melancholy falls under strictly regulated social structures. For example, stakeholders of social order can withstand a woman mourning or being depressed over her dead husband but when the same mental torment stems from internal factors, like existential anxiety, it is often perceived as overly dramatic and unnecessary.
Be it the power dynamics of romantic relationships or approaches towards mental health, we have normalized certain features that constantly try to maintain the notion of male superiority. The onus to fight their own battle against this normalization relies upon women. Women need to understand that even the seemingly sweet and hunky-dory structure of romantic relationships has deep-rooted gendered prejudices embedded in it. Such prejudices account for women as the ‘second sex’ while favoring male superiority. In a world where things are seen from a very evident male perspective, women need to acknowledge and smash these gendered biases to unfetter their individual and collective ambitions.