The Most Influential Writers Of The Twentieth Century

Franz Kafka was born into a middle class German-speaking Jewish family from Prague, Bohemia, now the Czech Republic. Although Kafka obtained a degree in law, he spent his short adult life working as a traveling insurance salesman. He considered this job as a “bread job”, a job performed to only pay bills. At the time Kafka wrote Metamorphosis he had been employed for four years. In parallel, Kafka’s main character in the Metamorphosis possessed a job as a traveling salesman for four years to pay off the family debt and support them. He is dissatisfied with his job, which is noted when he says” O God, he thought, what a demanding job I've chosen, day in, day out on the road…”(Kafka p.612). I have to deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships, which never came from the hear, To hell with it all!”(Kafka p.612). The metamorphosis of Gregor liberates him from his dreaded job, as well as, releases him from his financial obligation to his parents.

Elie Wiesel was born on September 30, 1928, in Sighet, Transylvania. He grew up with three sisters and had a strong interest in religious studies. In 1944, Nazis forced Jews who resided in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania to relocate to labor and death camps in Poland. When Elie was at the age of 15, he and his entire family were sent to Auschwitz. Elie lived in camps with inhuman conditions and was almost starved to death. He was eventually freed from Buchenwald in 1945. Out of all of his family members only him and two of his sisters survived. Elie then moved on to become many great things like a writer which won him a Nobel-Prize. He wrote many books including the one i am reading “Night”. Elie also taught Judaic studies at the City University

The situation and background in which Kafka was brought up holds particular significance throughout his career, as it led to his insecurity, evidenced through examination of his life

Elie Wiesel was born September 30, 1928 in Sighet Transylvania. Elie had three sisters and pursued religious studies at yeshiva which he was influenced by his grandparents traditional spiritual beliefs of his grandfather and mother. At the age of 15 elie and his family were shipped off to Auschwitz and were now part of the Holocaust. After the camp that ended in 1945 his two sisters and him were the only people to survive in his family. Then after going to college at Sorbonne and writing all his dozens of books he became a teacher at Boston University teaching Humanities. Then going to the City University New York that he taught Judaic studies.

The “roaring 20’s” and the “Jazz Age” produced great literature. The characters and plots were often held together by images, ideas, sounds or words that help a reader understand an idea and help to explain the central idea of a literary work. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is full of rich symbols.

Born on July 3, 1883, in the Jewish ghetto of Prague in the Czech Republic, Franz Kafka was the eldest son in his Jewish middle class, German speaking, family. From the start he was shaping out to be an outsider which was

A tidbit of history has been included to provide a background for Kafka. His upbringing is not considered normal. In 1883, he is born in Prague, Czechoslovakia to a successful Jewish couple. This combination dictated that he is neither Czech nor German, so his father sought to better the family’s name through Franz by insisting his schooling and social life be centered around the German-speaking elite of the provincial city. Throughout his childhood, he had a history of ailments that contributed to his propensity to dwell on intellectual studies instead of outdoor activities. He received a doctorate in law from the German University in Prague in 1906 per his father’s wishes. After graduating, he accepted a position as a legal clerk for a short period and found it lacking. In 1908, he left that position and started his career with a semi-governmental insurance company that probably saved his life as he is exempted from the mobilization during Hitler’s regime. This

            Franz Kafka had trouble at home with his father.  His father wanted him to become a lawyer, but Franz did not want to be a lawyer, he wanted to be a writer.

In real life, Kafka had very close and friendly relation with his father but they were quite contradictory to each other. The behavior of Kafka’s dad was very stern and strict just like Gregor’s father in “The Metamorphosis”. The relation of Kafka and his father can also be determined by upper class and lower class because Kafka’s father was very ethical but Kafka himself was quite immoral.

Albert Einstein once said “I want to know God’s thoughts, the rest are details”. Einstein wanted an equation that would encapsulate all physical laws. To put the beauty and the power of the universe into a single equation was his life’s goal. Although Einstein’s name is now synonymous with genius, his professors would have never predicted him to be this successful as he would always cut class, and he could not get a single job after graduating. Einstein thought he was such loser that he wrote a letter to his family saying perhaps it would be better if he was never born. His father had to apply on behalf of Einstein for academic positions, but they all said there were no positions available. His father passed away thinking that Einstein was a total disgrace to the family. In 1902 Einstein moved to Switzerland, and began a career far from science. One of his friends got him a job to be a patent clerk in the Swiss patent office. He spent six days a week reviewing applications submitted by inventors to the Swiss government. He had to analyze the patents and strip them to their essence, which honed his skills as a physicist. Since it was not intellectually demanding it would give him ample time to contemplate the universe. Einstein’s daydreams would change the way the universe was understood.

Before the 20th Century, literature was pretty straightforward; the narrators were reliable, the timelines were linear, and the perspective was clear, but then somebody got the idea to mix it up. This is how we got books such as The Great Gatsby and one of our class texts, Orlando. For some, this was a startling and uncomfortable transition from what used to be considered the, “normal” format which was very up front in terms of structure and voice. Others found it to be more exciting and, while it was still weird and unsettling for those people, it forced people to think more about what the books were trying to communicate, instead of just being handed the message; they had to work for it. This has become one of the leading reasons that societies are encouraged to read; if you read a book that forces you to think, your mind becomes stronger and this promotes an increase in intelligence and creativity.

Franz Kafka is an icon of dark existentialist and absurdist literature that frequently wrote about themes of isolation, alienation, and authoritarian oppression. His well-known work includes the short stories "The Metamorphosis", and “ The Judgment.” as well as his prominent "Letter to His Father", in which he attempted to clarify the tense relationship and his emotional oddness. Franz Kafka was born in Prague on July 3rd, 1883. Prague was a perplexed city, a great deal like Kafka himself. With several languages and ethnic groups struggling for a position in Prague, it was apparent in the late 19th

Viktor Emil Frankl was born on March, 26th 1905, at Czeringassa 7, in Leopoldstadt, in Vienna Austria, where Sigmund Freud and Alfred Alder also grew up (Klingberg, 2014). He was the middle child out of three children. His older brother, Walter was two and a half years older, and his younger sister, Stella, was four years younger. His mother was Elsa Frankl, was a polish woman from Prague with a gentle manner. His father, Gabriel Frankl, had been a hard working man who was the Director of Social Affairs (Redsand, 2006). By the time Frankl was four years old he knew he wanted to be a doctor and he pursued that interest while into high school. He took classes focused on psychology and philosophy. He began corresponding with Freud when he was

This week’s paper we were to research and identify three prevailing philosophical perspectives at work during the 20th Century. To begin I will research the history of a few new tendencies in contemporary philosophy. Then I will discuss the Tom Rockmore interpretation of such tendencies. Tom Rockmore is Professor of Philosophy and a McAnulty College Distinguished Professor, Dr. Rockmore's current research interests encompass all of modern philosophy, with special emphasis on selected problems as well as figures in German idealism (Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx) and recent continental philosophy (Heidegger, Habermas, Lukacs). He is continuing to explore the epistemology of German idealism as well as the relation between philosophy and

Before he began attending the theater, Kafka’s parents were one of his biggest influences. Kafka’s life was very short, so family was a pivotal influence in his writing because they were an integral part of his youth, which was a majority of his life. Starting from his childhood, Kafka did not have a strong relationship with his father. The two disagreed about everything, especially religion: “Kafka