Here is an autobiography of Franz Kafka, as well as reviews and a literary analysis of "A Country Doctor."

1. “A Country Doctor”
by Franz Kafka
Caitlyn Barrera

2. Franz Kafka
Born:
July 3, 1883
Prague, Bohemia,
Austria-Hungary
(Czech Republic)
Died:
June 3, 1924
Klosterneuberg, Austria
Parents:
Hermann Kafka
Julie Kafka

3. Franz Kafka
Siblings:
Georg
(died in infancy)
Heinrich
(died in infancy)
Gabriele
(died in Holocaust)
Valerie
(died in Holocaust)
Ottilie
(died in Holocaust)
Friends:
Max Brod (lifelong friend)
Felix Weltsch

4. Franz Kafka
Education:
Deutsche Knabenschule
elementray school
Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium
secondary school
Charles University of Prague
Doctor of Law
Work:
law clerk – civil and criminal courts
insurance officer –
Assicurazioni Generali
Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute
Yiddish theatre

5. Franz Kafka
Relationships:
Felice Bauer
dictaphone company
representative
engaged twice
Julie Wohryzek
hotel chambermaid
engaged once
Milena Jesenská
Czech journalist
Dora Diamant
kindergarten teacher

6. Franz Kafka
"What have I in
common with
Jews? I have hardly
anything in
common with
myself and should
stand very quietly
in a corner, content
that I can breathe.”
Religious Background:
Kafka was raised Jewish.
but considered himself
atheist in his adolescent years.
His Jewish education ended
with his Bar Mitzvah
celebration.
Dora Diamant sparked his
interest in the Talmud, which
influenced his writings in his
later years.
Writing for him was a “form
of prayer.”

7. Franz Kafka
Early Years:
He wrote hundreds of letters,
some specifically addressed to
his father, his fiancée Felice
Bauer, and his sister Ottla.
He wrote “Brief an den Vater”
(Letter to His Father) which
showed the true colors of how
he felt about his relationship
with his father.

8. Franz Kafka
Later Years:
In 1917, Kafka was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was forced to
retire from his job at the Worker’s Accident Insurance Institute.
His tuberculosis influenced his writings.
He had even admitted to his friend, Max Brod, that he had predicted
his illness in “A Country Doctor”.

9. Franz Kafka
Max Brod:
He was Kafka’s lifelong friend.
Because Kafka’s health was
worsening, he requested
that Brod, his literary
executor, destroy any
unpublished manuscripts.
Fortunately, Brod did not
adhere to his friend’s wish.
He published The Trial, The
Castle, Amerika, and The Great
Wall of China, helping Franz gain
fame after his death.

10. Franz Kafka
Published Works:
“The Trial” – 1925 (Brod)
“The Metamorphosis” – 1913
“In the Penal Colony” – 1919
“A Hunger Artist” – 1924
“A Country Doctor” – 1919
“The Castle” – 1926 (Brod)
“Amerika” – 1927 (Brod)

11. Franz Kafka
Legacy:
Franz Kafka’s books garnered favor during World War II and greatly
influenced German literature.
In 1988, Kafka’s The Trial was auctioned and sold for $1.98 million,
which was the highest price ever paid for a modern manuscript at
that time.
He has his own term in literature:
kafkaesque – marked by a senseless, disoriented, often
menacing complexity

12. Franz Kafka
Style:
philosophical views on the absurdity of life
surrealism
strange and horrifying
metaphorical and symbolic
examines characters’ psychology and reasons for actions
usually ends with an intuitive twist

13. What the Critics Say
“Kafka is the ultimate challenge in A Country Doctor: he will not let the
reader walk away from this tale. Just as the doctor cannot escape his
nightmarish predicament, cannot reach home, we too are left in the book's
nightmarish grip. We have no choice but to ponder on the difficult themes
of the book and, ultimately, just what is means to be human.”
-Carloine Dalzell
“At the time of writing A Country Doctor, Franz Kafka believed it would be
his last book. Perhaps this explains the similarities which can be drawn
between the Doctor and Kafka himself: the terrible change in the Doctor,
one that cannot be undone and one that he is powerless (or so he feels) to
prevent; and Kafka's upbringing which created feelings in him of being
‘unfit for life among the living’ and that he ‘was an absolute Nothing’.”
-Ernst Pawel

14. What the Critics Say
“In this perplexing story Kafka struggles to find the meaning of ‘duty’ in a
doctor's life as well as the relationship of ‘duty’ to Kafka's concept of ‘faith’.
Kafka may have borrowed many of the concepts and images in his story
from Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals. But unlike Nietzsche, who
was an atheist, Kafka was a religious skeptic. This story reflects his
ambivalence toward his Jewish faith. He argues for the importance of faith
by confronting its absence: How are we to live without it? Without faith, can
physicians perform their duty to heal? Kafka believes that illness is
fundamentally spiritual in origin, that physicians need moral knowledge to
truly heal, and that the practice of medicine should be an act of faith.”
-Aaron Manson

15. What the Critics Say
“Albert Einstein could not read Kafka. He handed back a novel of Kafka’s
that Thomas Mann had lent him, confessing he had been unable to finish it,
saying, ‘The human mind isn’t that complex.’ Something of Einstein’s
bafflement has been felt by every honest critic approaching Kafka’s work. It
speaks for itself. It is plain, unadorned. It holds no mystery. Kafka hides
nothing.’
-Brian W. Aldiss
“Kafka is most clear in this story: the impossibility of curing our age is his
subject.”
-Ein Landarzt

16. A Country Doctor
Literary Elements:
Similes:
“...lowering their well-formed heads like camels...(96)”
“...the carriage is swept away like a piece of wood in a current...(97)”
“...a wound as large as the palm of one’s hand has opened opened up (99).”
“...wide open as the surface entrance to a mine (99).”
“Worms as long and thick as my little finger...(99)”
“...the horses’ heads in the window openings waver like shadows (99).”
“...as slowly as old men we proceeded across the snow waste...(100)”

17. A Country Doctor
Literary Elements:
Metaphor:
“I have discovered your great wound; you will be destroyed by this
flower on your side (99).”
Irony:
“But I’m not out to improve the world, and I let him lie there (98).”
Alliteration:
“...the priest sits home and picks his vestments to pieces...(99)”

18. A Country Doctor
Literary Elements:
Symbols:
“‘No!’ yells Rosa and with a true foreboding that her fate is
inevitable, she runs into the house...(97)”
“...naturally rose-colored and in addition spattered with blood,
firmly attached to the inside of the wound...(99)”
“...you will be destroyed by this flower on your side (99),”
The color rose as well as the flower is an age-old symbol for love. He
wrote this story while he was engaged to Felice, so the character of
the maid could be a symbol for his fiancée.

19. A Country Doctor
Literary Elements:
Symbols:
“Poor boy, there’s no hope for you. I have discovered your great
wound; you will be destroyed by this flower on your side (99).”
“...in the sickroom the air is barely breathable...(97)”
“...embraces my neck and whispers in my ear: ‘Doctor, let me die.’
I look around; no one has heard...(97)”
Could the occurrence between the doctor and the boy represent
Kafka’s strained relationship with his father? After all, these two
characters don’t seem to see eye-to-eye and have a
misunderstanding when they first meet.

20. A Country Doctor
Literay Elements:
Symbols:
“But the moment she has reached him, the groom embraces her and
shoves his face against hers (96).”
“But I instantly recall that he’s a stranger, that I don’t know where
he has come from...(97)”
The groom represents Kafka’s obsessive fear of sexuality and
superiority. This character is his “alter-ego” because Kafka is not
out-going and erotic in the least bit, but shy and reserved. The
character of the groom is also the counter part to the doctor. So does
the doctor represent Kafka himself?

21. A Country Doctor
Literary Elements:
Story Structure:
2 horses in the pigsty – “‘Hey there, Brother! Hey there, Sister!’ (96)”
Is this foreshadowing for the patient an his sister?
groom’s bite – “...two rows of teeth have left their red marks on the
girl’s cheek (96-97).”
Is this foreshadowing for the boys’ wound in his side?
wound – “Brought on by two hatchet blows...(100)”
Parallels:
2 carriage rides – fast; slow
2 examinations –finds nothing; discovers wound
2 songs – threatening; praising

22. A Country Doctor
Literary Elements:
Story Structure:
Past  Present  Past  Present
Does Kafka revert back to the present-tense in his story to
dramatize the rape scene and the future of his beloved Rosa?
By writing like this, he elevates the final catastrophe to the
level of timelessness.
In summary, the whole story is the inevitable consequence of a
single mistake. The doctor chose professional desires over erotic and
sensual desires for his beloved Rosa.

23. Works Cited
Aldiss, Brian W. “Franz Kafka: Overview.” St. James Guide to Science Fiction Writers. Ed. Jay P. Pederson.
4th ed. New York: St. James Press, 1996. Literature Resource Center. Web. 15 Nov. 2011.
Dalzell, Caroline. "Franz Kafka A Country Doctor Literary Review." By Caroline Dalzell. Humanities360, 6
Apr. 2009. Web. 10 July 2014.
European Graduate School EGS. "Franz Kafka - Biography." Franz Kafka. N.p., 2012. Web. 10 July 2014.
"Franz Kafka." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 10 July 2014.
"Franz Kafka." Online.info. Kafka-online.info, 2007. Web. 10 July 2014.
Gray, R. Franz Kafka, "A Country Doctor" Kafka, "Country Doctor" N.p., 14 Oct. 2013. Web. 10 July 2014.
Landarzt, Ein. "The Metamorphosis and Other Stories." Rev. of "A Country Doctor” Summary and
Analysis (n.d.): n. pag. Houghton, Mifflin, Harcourt. Web. 10 July 2014.
Manson, Aaron. "A Theology of Illness: Franz Kafka's "A Country Doctor"" Literature and Medicine
24.2 (2005): 297-314. Print.
Nervi, Mauro. "Kafka's Life (1883-1924)." The Kafka Project. Kafka.org, 1 Aug. 2011. Web. 10 July 2014.
Pawel, Ernst. The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. London: The Harvill Press, 1984.