The Nightmare That is Kafkaesque

I must say that I am not the biggest Kafka fan; I don't recall ever having read his work before, but now that I have I'm not so sure that I liked it. By that I mean that I did not like it. I found his work to be...almost empty. I suppose that that is an element of "kafkaesque", or when a story feels like it will go somewhere, but it never does. It's like the event that the reader is waiting for and building up to never happens. It's frustrating, but that is the intended purpose for Kafka's work. This brings us to analyzing the Gothic themes of "the Castle" and "the Judgement"; we will start with the latter. I personally feel that "the Judgement" is a metaphor of religious persecution, a common theme Gothic work. This differs from the traditional religious figure because it is represented by Georg's father, who delivers the death sentence of drowning. I don't consider there to be a paranormal element in this story, but this is instead represented by his Godly-figure of a father. There is also no maiden in distress in this story, but we do have a self absorbed character who seems to consider himself as a higher class than that of his friend. Overall, "the Judgement" is a Gothic representation of religious persecution. In Kafka's other piece, "the Castle", the elements are slightly less clear. The most predominant characteristic of this story is the disorientation and seemingly endless path that K. walks on towards the palace; however, no matter how far the path is followed it never seems to end at the castle. In addition to this Kafkaesque theme is the confusion of the reader and of the characters isolation is also tied in here as K. seeks companionship, but can't seem to find it. Kafka really seems to modernize his stories with these new takes on classic Gothic themes.