Introduction

In this paper the hypothesis is presented that Franz Kafka was a person with autism. This is done by analyzing and discussing his biography, letters, diaries and major works. Kafka’s autism is an integral diagnosis which encompasses both his personal life and his work. This interpretation is contrary to other interpretations from the past which in all cases were only partially applicable to explain Kafka’s life and work. In Kafka research the big secret of Kafka was how he was able to write he did, like no one before him had done. It was widely assumed that this secret would never be revealed. However, it is hypothesized that Kafka’s autism is the big secret of how Kafka was able to write like he did. This big secret is more important than all the little secrets Kafka incorporated in his work although they might turn out not to be intended as secrets at all, once Kafka’s work is analyzed from the right perspective. The key parable ‘Before the Law’ is also discussed because it is the main literary work to understand Kafka’s autistic frame of reference in his writing. Therefore the function and use of parables are also discussed to support this autism hypothesis concerning Franz Kafka which ultimately makes his life and work more understandable and accessible.

Diagnosing Kafka

In Kafka research one of the suggested diagnosis was that he might suffer from a narcissistic neurosis, however the alleged main source of this disturbance is almost completely assigned to the inadequate role of the mother which is an obsolete and outdated psychoanalytical explanation (Verbeek 1984). Narcissistic persons are assumed to arise from poorly affectionate parents, by their absence, by leaving the upbringing to others, by withholding affection but to spoil the child out of guilt feelings. Especially the ‘empathic failure’ of the mother is thought to be the main cause of narcissistic neuroses. However the symptoms of this so called narcissistic neurosis can scientifically better be explained with the symptoms of autism spectrum disorders which leave the unwarranted role of the mother out of the origins of the psychopathology of the individual. The psychoanalytical view confuses autistic egocentrism with narcissistic tendencies which are completely different self-consciousness phenomena. This psychoanalytical view is also wrong regarding Kafka’s presumed anorexia nervosa which is confused with the often observed eating problems in autistic individuals because of their digestive problems which are the result of the hyper conscious awareness of autistic persons which include internal processes. The hyper awareness of digestive processes can result in peculiar forms of food preferences or restricted appetite.

Verhaar (1975) wrote, “From the extensive autobiographical material one can conclude that Kafka has lived his life as a defenseless person, not able to cope with his father, his daily work, his city of birth, too weak for love, for life itself, only capable of writing and even that was difficult for him to finish properly.” From an autism perspective it is interesting to notice that Kafka had problems with all these daily tasks and customs which normal people don’t seem to have any problem with. The important question is why Kafka did have so many problems with life in general. Why could he not do what he thought others could do? This question is also how his protagonists behave in his stories and novels, and with their help Kafka tries to answer, however mostly in vain but it is at the same time not a senseless effort. The alienating feeling of the unattainability of the attainable, not capable to do what others could because he thought he couldn’t; this paralysis was a hindrance in his life and was the important theme in virtually all of his stories. This sense of impotence is characterized that it primarily exists as a feeling and only because of the fact it exist as a feeling it becomes a reality. This feeling of being incapable of living life, the unattainability of the attainable and the feeling of impotence can also be attributed as a good description of the struggle in daily life and how autistic persons experience life among non-autistic persons (Atwood 2007).

It is therefore more productive and scientifically more correct to regard Kafka’s behavior and his artistic expressions as one of a genuine autistic person rather than to analyze every detail or idiosyncracy of his autobiography assuming they are peculiarities and odd behavior of a cognitively ‘normal’ person or assuming he was a rather strange neurotypical person. By assuming that Kafka was a neurotypical person he and his work were subjected over the decades to unwarranted overinterpretations, mystification, complications and all sorts of presumed riddles rather than to look at Kafka from the correct neurological perspective.

For a person to be diagnosed with autism, childhood experiences are regarded as important and helpful and often a good indicator that the diagnosis might be correct. However medical information of Kafka’s childhood are scarce and moreover as Reiner Stach noted: “All we have from those final high school year are fragments of memory, bits and pieces of an intellectual mosaic, and a dozen somewhat spectral names; too little to derive a vivid picture, let alone the compelling logic of a coming-of-age novel” (Stach 2017). Like Kafka himself, here it is thought that Kafka’s psychosocial makeup and his anxieties cannot be explained solely on the basis of early-childhood traumas; it arises only when insecurities, rejections and desertions are experienced and interpreted as traumatic (Stach 2017). Thus contrary to psychoanalytic, abandonment and attachment theory framing of how the adult might recall these experiences as though they were actual traumas, it is the autistic mind with its inherent state of anxiety that caused Franz Kafka to recall his childhood memories the way he did. Moreover Kafka’s biography, letters, diaries and work provide compelling evidence to justify a posthumous autism diagnosis.

Why Kafka was an Autistic Person

The autistic perspective was not long ago regarded by the autism establishment as either a mere defect or malfunctioning version of the neurotypical perspective rather than to recognize the autistic frame of reference as an autonomous and specific perspective to engage reality. In the history of Kafka research, Kafka is often incorrectly associated with all sorts of diagnoses which only referred to his behavioral symptoms but none of them could explain or simply ignored his mental expressions and the logic of his writings which should also be addressed by an explanatory diagnosis (Mishara 2010; Perez-Alvarez 2003). Most posthumous Kafka diagnoses are primarily based on comments of his behavior which rules them out as being scientifically reliable diagnosis of what Kafka might have been suffering from. These diagnoses are therefore at best just speculations. In this section relevant autism spectrum disorder symptomology is used to prove the case that Franz Kafka’s was a person with autism. The most convincing behavioral symptoms of autism are highlighted and supported with examples from Kafka’s biography and work.

The present theory asserts that the main evidence of Kafka’s autism is best explained by the analysis of the logic of his autistic mind and the elucidation of the main themes of his work, the parable ‘Before the Law’ and undisclosed connections in his other works. In this chapter relevant autistic traits in connection with Kafka’s biography are discussed because they also resemble my personal experience. The discussion of his behavioral symptomology is presented as additional evidence. These behavioral traits are to be found in most autism textbooks (Amaral et al. 2011; McPartland et al. 2014; Atwood 2007).

Memory

Kafka’s excellent memory enabled him not to study that much during the academic year instead he managed in a final sprint a couple of months before the finals to pass his exams without much damage. Although he passed with rather average scores. In his previous schools it was his routine to read books in the evenings and neglecting his homework then the next morning to memorize his schoolwork at top speed. His memory was that good (Kafka 1976). Another instructive example of his photographic memory, are Kafka’s recollections of his first meeting with Felice Bauer in his letters (Stach 2005). From the situation around the time Kafka wrote ‘Letter to his father’ one can read how to interpret his memory. Reiner Stach notes: “The overwhelming impression is that even when Kafka talked about experiences that dated back to his childhood; it was a matter not just of harking back to decades past but of describing a perpetual state that eludes chronological classification. It is as though a tiny step was connecting the most remote periods. Or ‘marching in place’ as Kafka later sought to grasp the law of his life” (Stach 2013). These excerpts from Kafka’s autobiography read like examples from an Autism textbook regarding the special talents and cognitive strengths of these persons (Atwood 2007).

Pronoun Reversals and Existential Problems

Pronoun reversal, the use of you for self-references and I for an addressee have often been associated with autism spectrum disorders. Thus pronoun reversals are described as idiosyncratic language impairment in autism, which some researchers accurately propose they characterize an atypical understanding of the social world because deictic shifting is embedded in understanding the self- and other- relationship (Mizuno 2011). This requires the recognition of the self-stance relative to other’s existence. This view can be understood by emphasizing the significance of the ability to flexibly shift the viewpoint in social communication in stating that ‘perspective-taking is at the very core of language structure and higher cognition’ (MacWhinney 2005). Pronoun reversal can also be observed in some of Kafka’s work such as: “An Imperial Message”, it’s function is to underscore the autistic logic behind the story, which Kafka himself was unaware of.

The problem of individual identity is also evident in Kafka’s novels but also in his diaries where the sense of existential disorientation is such, that a degree of uncertainty arises about one’s own distinctive individual identity (McKinlay 1996). A very interesting feature that appears from time to time in Kafka’s personal diary and that is the way he at times adopts an alter ego who addresses him as ‘du’. The following extract from March 9th 1914 relates to him considering going to Berlin:

“But you are spoiled.

No, I need a room and a vegetarian diet, almost nothing more

Aren’t you going there because of F.?

No, I choose Berlin only for the above reasons, although I love it and perhaps I

love it because of F. and because of the aura of thought that surrounds F.; but that

I can’t help.” (Kafka 1976)

This example demonstrates a total inability to come to a decision. The author challenges himself with the various factors which have a bearing on the situation. What is of particular importance is that he assumes two different roles within his own mind. From a neurotypical perspective there can be no definite, secure, personal identity where a person feels the need to project some of his feelings and attitudes on to another persona. Furthermore, the other persona is continually questioning him:

“Then what do you want to do?... Leave your job? … Then what do you want to do?” (Kafka 1976)

For the outsider or non-autistic person this might be something deeply unsettling about this ‘other voice’ within him. These examples might lead critics to assume that the world of Kafka is a chaotic one. This is however a fundamental misunderstanding of how Kafka’s mind worked. These examples make more sense once Kafka’s autism is taken into account.

Pronoun reversal as one of the features of autism might also explain why Kafka uses a prose which is stark and unemotional and which does not dwell on psychology. The pain and suffering are no less real for Kafka’s protagonists, but the reader is left to fill in the details for himself and complete a psychological picture which is only given in outline (McKinlay 1996). Moreover Kafka’s so called ‘He’ aphorisms and the confusing intermingled use of ‘Sie’ and ‘du’ which are similar expressions are considered as mysteries in Kafka research (Stach 2013). These phenomena must be regarded as expressions of the compartmentalized self-consciousness of a genuine autistic person in which The ‘I’ and The ‘Self’ are not experienced as a unity or at least fundamentally different from a neurotypical person.

Attention to Detail

By examining the original manuscript of ‘The Metamorphosis’ we can pinpoint the spots at which Kafka exercised control over his autobiographical material. A rather perplexing correction in the manuscript indicates that Kafka deliberately encoded autobiographical material in his texts with a positively bureaucratic attention to detail (Stach 2005).

Kafka’s Tendency to Focus on Details Rather than onto the General Meaning of Situations

Individuals on the autism spectrum tend to be more, sometimes overly focused on details; this can often be at the expense of understanding the actual meaning or appreciating the nature of a situation or context. This tendency is also noticed in Kafka’s novels and in his personal life. However what is known as the central coherence deficit does not take into account that genuine autistic persons engage with reality and the external world from a different neural perspective. From a neurotypical perspective it may seem that persons with autism do not understand the gist of situations but this assumption is however a narrow view of social reality because the autistic person has his own logic to assess social situations and reality. However the autistic assessment of specific (social) situations might not make sense for most neurotypical persons because they don’t understand the autistic logic on which the reactions and behavior of the autistic person are based.

There is evidence in Kafka research which clearly indicates that Kafka showed excessive attention to detail to the point he did lose sight of the general context of the stories and novels he was working on. Kobs (1970) did research into Kafka’s minute description of details in his work which paradoxically leads to indistinctness. Although this research is valuable to unravel the phenomenon Kafka, it is important to remind ourselves that these conclusions are how the reader might interpret what in Kafka’s autistic perspective is a logical process or sequence of events. According to Kobs (1970), Kafka’s mania for details leads to fragmentation of reality. That is why Kafka avoided the use of metaphors because they obfuscate the concreteness of reality. Kafka was more confident in the use of parables and images. What he did was translating images into word because he was also confident in the use of language. His hyperbole activity by accentuating the concreteness resulted in that the whole falls apart into pieces, Kobs calls this ‘Einzelkeiten’. Reality poorly endures such focusing because the whole or general meaning of the story gets lost by the gaze on details. According to Kobs (1970), Kafka did not maintain the balance between the whole and details, which is an accurate assessment because of this fact Kafka’s novels and stories are unnecessarily inaccessible. Kafka remains stuck in details, connects one detail to the next and loses sight of the whole of the story. This is how Kafka seems to let his protagonist understand reality. It is by focusing from one detail to the next. However this is not the main reason why Kafka’s protagonists seem to lose sight of the whole because as already stated Kafka’s stories and novels are based and guided by his autistic neural frame of reference which is an alien type of logic and reality for the neurotypical reader. Thus the sense of disillusion, contradictions between details, hopelessness and despair in face of their reality by his protagonists are the result of the dominant impact of the general autistic perspective on the narrative which fundamentally differs from the neurotypical sense of reality.

In sum, Kafka’s protagonists are implicated to suffer from a weak realization function. The prejudices by which reality is engaged are sources of all sorts of contradictions, frictions and serious problems with adapting to circumstances. This was not only a problem for the protagonists of Kafka’s novels but also for Kafka himself which is evident from a letter Milena Jensenká wrote to Max Brod (Kafka 1990).

An excerpt from this letter to prove this point:

“He doesn’t understand the simplest things in the world. Were you ever in a post office with him? After he composes a telegram and picks out whatever little counter he likes best, shaking his head, he then drifts from one counter to another, without the slightest idea to what end or why, until he finally stumbles on the right one, and when he pays and receives change, he counts it and discovers one krone too many, and so he gives one back to the girl behind the counter. Then he walks away slowly, counts once again, and in the middle of descending the last staircase he realizes that the missing krone belonged to him after all. So there you stand next to him, at a loss, while he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, wondering what to do. Going back is difficult; upstairs there’s a crowd of people pushing and shoving. ‘So just let it go,’ I say. He looks at me completely horrified. How can you let it go? Not that he’s sorry about the krone. But it’s not good. There’s one krone missing. How can you forget about something like that? He spoke about it for a long time, and was very dissatisfied with me. And this repeated itself with different variations in every shop, in every restaurant, in front of every beggar.”

A similar scene is repeated between Kafka and a beggar and it is once again about one krone. Milena’s letter gives a precise description of Kafka in which we very clearly can see the resemblance with his literary protagonists. Both the author Kafka and his literary protagonists seem to be unable to separate details from the general meaning of the situation.

Discrepancy Between Events and Emotional Reactions

This is evident in both Kafka’s writing and in his real life however most of his anger and frustrations were put in his writing (Verbeek 1984). This effect can be assigned to the dominant influence of primary emotions on mental images in persons with autism. As an example, Kafka was short on human affection and love for his parents and sister Ottla in the period he wrote The Judgment and The Metamorphosis. In the period before he wrote The Metamorphosis he was entangled in a family quarrel regarding the asbestos factory. This was a confrontation with his family and he was seething with rage because his sister Ottla took the side of his parents. He threatened to commit suicide by jumping from the fourth floor apartment. This example also shows the discrepancy between the real events and his emotional reaction which is more a testimony of a death struggle or fight and flight reactions rather than acknowledging that unfortunate things can happen in life. These emotional outbursts can be regarded as signs we are dealing with a genuine autistic person (Atwood 2007). The same discrepancy between daily events and the content of his writing is apparent after the encounter in the Hotel Askanischer Hof when he wrote The Trail and In the Penal Colony.

Kafka often accused himself of being an insensitive and cold person. He did not really experienced love and as result in his work love is not a motif. This discrepancy can be found all through Kafka’s work while in reality the only thing that was happening was that he did not feel at ease at home, he felt like being a stranger and rejected by everyone. Nobody understood what he was doing although his family took care of him, let him be, but nobody showed interest in what he was writing which was the only thing of worth for Kafka. This obvious indifference evoked enormous emotional reactions in Kafka which is evident in his writings that is at odds with the rather on the surface peaceful and rather tranquil life he led.

Honesty and Conscientiousness

According to his friends Kafka was not able to lie and his work, notebooks, diaries and letters indicate that he by all means could not believe in lies. Kafka was very scrupulous that sometimes seemed excessive. Max Brod wrote about his inconceivable precise conscientiousness or thoughtfulness concerning both his work and injustices which he could not ignore. Kafka asked himself often moral questions regarding these issues (Verbeek 1984). This trait is one of the hallmarks of persons with an autism spectrum disorder who are often regarded as ‘pure’ and honest and tend not to deceive (Atwood 2007). As Milena Jensenká wrote, “He is without the slightest asylum… That which has been written about Kafka’s abnormality is his great merit. I rather believe the whole world is sick and he the only healthy one, the only one to understand, feels correctly, the only pure human being. I know he does not fight life as such, only against this kind of life.”

Kafka could not stand white lies and broken promises which shattered his trust which was extraordinarily fragile and was hard to reestablish (Stach 2005). Another example follows from his correspondence with Felice Bauer around November–December 1913 where first he did not receive letters from her for seven weeks. She then lied about the reason why she did not send any letters. He lamented this situation with the metaphor. “Lies are dreadful; no mental torment is worse than that” (Kafka 1973). This statement did not become irrefutable until 1920, after he had had more experience in this regard. But even in 1913 he would have found it impossible to form an alliance with a woman who had no misgivings about lying (Stach 2005).

Physical Problems, Noise Sensitivity and Hypochondria

It is well known that Kafka often suffered from insomnia and also complained about fatigue, about his limited physical power, about his digestion, Kafka makes frequent notes about stomach problems in his diaries, hair loss and the anxiety to suffer from spinal curvature and also of being too skinny (Politzer 1966). Kafka was also sensory sensitive and because of that he was irritated by the slightest noise.

Obeying (Social) Rules and Obligations

His engagement with Felice Bauer was predominantly inspired by contemporary social pressure to be a married man. He regarded marriage and children as the most highly desirable things on earth in a certain sense (Stach 2013). Obligations regarding the asbestos factory were experienced as compulsory or a rule of honor because he had committed himself to this endeavor by investing in it with free will till he faced a nervous breakdown and threatened to commit suicide if he was not relieved from his obligations. Adherence to rules is also a well-known trait in persons with autism.

Shame and Guilt

The autistic person’s sense of loyalty towards family and close friends and his inability to deceive is the mechanism behind the infinite sense of guilt experienced by genuine autistic persons when situations do not occur according to plan or people behave not according to expectations and the logic of the autistic person. This guilt is evoked regardless of the fact whether or not the autistic person is to blame for these deviations. Guilt is a main theme in Kafka’s work. All protagonists in Kafka’s work feel guilty. According to critics, their guilt feeling are the drivers of their actions and suffering, of their meekness, as well as their aggressiveness and ultimately of their presumed failures as functioning human beings. Kafka’s protagonists act out their destinies by denying the reality of guilt, yet somehow they are all guilty. Kafka’s characters don’t show the more obvious guilt and a conscious acceptance of responsibility but exhibit merely the residue of a guilt morality although in entirely negative terms, namely as crippling guilt feelings. In Kafka’s work guilt feelings lead only to despair which has existential origins.

His protagonists all suffer from severe sense of guilt which cannot be explained from the actions and occurrences in the stories itself. What is happening in reality is that the sense of guilt is implied by the author and narrator. In fact Franz Kafka superimposes his autistic guilt onto the protagonists of his stories which has the effect that the causal mechanisms behind the guilt felt by the protagonists cannot be discerned from events within the story. The manner guilt is implied in his stories follows from Kafka’s real life autistic perspective through which all of his novels and stories are written and presented to the reader. This guilt is true for both his real life events and for his personal projections into his work.

Finally it is important to understand without delving too much in physiological details that the autistic mind with its inability for deceit and culminating in self-sickening loyalty to people close to the person with autism, will suffer intensely when confronted by deceit and illogical or irrational behavior. The main culprits are discomforting cognitive links or simply put mental short-circuits with the dominant primary emotions in the autistic mind. This creates intense guilt feelings in the autistic mind and will have severe impact on the body of the autistic person. Infinite guilt can be seen as a reaction to compensate for the inability to recognize deceit or because of illogical or irrational behavior when the autistic person is not aware of his own frame of reference and is also not aware of the fact that others have a different neural frame of reference. Thus these infinite feelings of guilt are triggered to compensate for fight and flight primary emotions which makes the autistic person really miserable which forces him to look for some form of cognitive release or outlet. That will ultimately culminate in meek, apologetic and docile behavioral reactions or sometimes in aggressive behavior. As a result the guilt stems also from Kafka’s interest in tracing the human reasoning process in great detail up to the point where it fails. His protagonists are desperately trying to comprehend the world by following the ‘normal’ way which is obviously doomed to fail since they encounter the world from a different vantage point. Not able to act ‘normal’ will cause in most genuine autistic persons a crippling sense of guilt, shame and sometimes despair.

Concreteness of Thinking and Literal Mindedness

Kafka’s method was that he did not need to invent or develop anything; he could devote his entire creative power to fitting together all the parts to form a perfect whole. His diaries reveal that the conflicts, metaphors, gestures and details were all there. In many cases, the images had already taken on linguistic shape. Kafka did not work form a welter of emotions but instead focused on the amassed material that his emotions brought out, hence the unparalleled, provocative plethora of references and links between the visual and linguistic elements in his texts (Stach 2005). Literal mindedness and concreteness of thinking is also a well-known autistic trait which sometimes can be confused with fantasy when applied in creative endeavors.

The Need to Confide in Someone

The constant, senseless need to confide in someone that came over Kafka after only a few hours at for example, The Jungborn clinic is recognizable trait of genuine autistic persons (Stach 2005). This need to confide in someone shows where current autism theory is wrong by assuming cognitive rigidity in (genuine) autistic persons which can be attributed to misdiagnoses and false positive Asperger’s diagnoses (Geurts et al. 2009). While in Matliary, where Kafka stayed to recover from his tuberculosis he often confided in Robert Klopstock, one of his favorite fellow patients. Klopstock must have been deeply impressed to find that one could have long and serious discussions about Zionism, Christianity, Dostoevsky, and love to clown around and think up practical jokes with one and the same person (Stach 2013).

Unwarranted Sense of Loyalty

Canetti in his book length essay: ‘Kafka’s Other Trial’ is unable to explain why it took virtually 5 years for Kafka to part with Felice Bauer. Why he obviously needed her letters to live and not just to write. Canetti consistently depicts the path of this relationship as a steady decline and contends that Kafka ultimately would have been able to extend it only by self-deception (Canetti 1974). Here human relationship is regarded as means of guaranteeing the influx of emotional fuel and of maintaining the necessary degree of creative simulation while in reality autistic traits were at work which maintained this relationship. In fact, adherence to social rules and the undying sense of loyalty to specific close friends or family is what is at stake in this situation.

Compulsive Behavior and Repetitive Behavior

Kafka showed in different areas forms of compulsive or repetitive behavior. This was evident in his letters to Felice Bauer in which the repetition of his self-denigrations strikes the reader as compulsive which can be traced back to the major disappointments in his relationship with her. Another form of repetitive behavior is his compulsion to continuously speak about his hypochondriac obsessions with his body.

Kafka was also inept at small talk. On this issue Stach (2013) notes: “Felice Bauer had known Kafka long enough to realize that he loathed ordinary chit-chat and that when talked about aspirin, fresh air, and third-class train rides there was invariably an underlying issue of totality. Now the issue of totality was becoming explicit and the disparity between the plain everyday matters that were so important to Kafka and the ponderous arguments why they were important loomed larger than ever.” A true life, dans le vrai, Kafka had in mind. Now that Kafka and Felice Bauer had decided to marry, he tried to persuade his bride-to-be of this, as well.

Special Interests and Preoccupations

Asceticism was a magic word for Kafka, an intricate complex of images, cultural paradigms, idiosyncrasies, fears and psychological techniques that he incorporated into his thoughts and feeling and gradually made a focal point of his identity. He was entirely justified in asserting that he had ‘a fabulous innate capacity for asceticism’ (Stach 2005). The way he steadfastly denied himself warmth, meat, drugs, and medicine clearly refutes his alleged weakness of will. He reduced his food intake, toughened his body and simplified his habits. Asceticism is not austerity for its own sake; it is a process of self-regulation and self-formation based on the utopian notion of attaining complete control over one’s body, self and life. All Kafka’s interests, habits and likings were modified accordingly.

The reason why asceticism is mentioned separately is because its abnormality in the intensity and focus combined with other traits mentioned in this section also indicate Kafka was a person with autism. When the focus of the interest is eccentric which is obviously the case with Kafka’s asceticism, which also extended to his writings, then the interest could be considered unusual and of clinical significance. The DSM criteria refer to the development of non-functional routines and rituals with the routines being imposed in all or almost all aspects of ordinary life. It is without a doubt that Kafka idiosyncratic lifestyle was the main cause of his tuberculosis since none of his family members contracted this disease. Kafka’s special interest and need for asceticism can be regarded, which is very clear from his diaries and letters, to provide for a sense of identity when faced with (presumed) inadequacies or alienation (Atwood 2007).

Existential Fear

One of the few persons who really understood Kafka, Milena Jensenká quickly realized that a deep- seated fear was beleaguering Kafka and draining his will to make practical decisions. He tried to explain it, to give reasons for it, and did not appear to be fully aware of the significance of the concept of fear, until battling it through with Milena Jensenká. He felt that this fear had to have some sort of basis; it was something essential, a form of alertness, awareness that could not simply be conquered and was not treatable with therapy. Kafka was unable to make it clear to her how it felt when that inner force welled up (Stach 2013).

The Parable ‘Before the Law’ is the Key to All of Kafka’s Work

An insightful paper to understand Kafka is: The trace of the absurd in Kafka’s The Trial (Navabakhsh and Moshayedi 2011). This paper discusses some selected interpretations of The Trial. It is obvious that as a writer Kafka expressed his meaning through allegories or parables and symbols. According to Ingeborg Henel the parable of the Doorkeeper which in chapter 9 of The Trial is told by the Warden, is not only of paramount significance for an understanding of the novel but provides as it were a key to all of Kafka’s work (Henel 1976). The meaning of The Trial therefore depends on how we interpret the legend of the Doorkeeper. This is a profound and insightful statement to understand the work of Kafka. However it requires a rather different explanatory model than Henel presented to understand the legend of the Doorkeeper in her article. According to Henel the role of the Doorkeeper in the parable is paradoxical. While he is supposed to forbid the entry to the countryman, he also thereby draws attention to the fact of the entry itself. The last sentence, the last revelation of the Doorkeeper that the gate was intended only for the countryman unlocks, as it were, the mystery of the parable and hence of the novel itself. In Henel’s interpretation which is close to the real meaning or logic of this novel, the validity of the Law is not its universality but the unquestioned, unconditional claim on the self which allows no rest but drives him forth a lifelong to achieve the impossible.

Furthermore the fact that the entrance is reserved for one person only proves in this view that it does not lead to a universal generally valid Law comprehensible by reason and accessible to any rational person of good will. It is not only that no one else comes to the gate except the countryman, but even the doorkeeper has no access to the Law, he cannot close the door till the countryman dies. All the components to really understand the logic of The Trial are summed up, but most critics and Henel go astray by arguing that to blame the Doorkeeper for barring the entry to the countryman is to side with Josef K. and not with Kafka. In this view the protagonist and author should not be confused but kept apart, which is the crucial and fundamental mistake and error in the understanding of this parable and the novel The Trial.

Another interesting interpretation is discussed in Thomas Kavanagh’s ‘The semiotics of the Absurd’ (Kavanagh 1972). By examining the way language operates right from the opening sentences of the novel and the narrative mode, Kavanagh shows that the universe of The Trial is split by doubt and uncertainty. To move up the ladder of hierarchy in the story is to become more confused to be told less and less, to become more and more painfully aware of the epistemological gap on which the chain of events is based. Simply put there is a crisis of knowledge in understanding the universe of The Trial. The narrative mode and the use of language show the universe of The Trial to be a subversive one. The language does retain its mimetic or representational character, that is, the inspector is an inspector, the warders are warders, but at the same time the representation itself is marred or undermined from within. The main problem with a text like The Trial according to Kavanagh is to choose a way of talking about it, to pick up a metaphor that is adequate to the term. The problem is one of perspective which is an unintended profound statement to understand the real meaning and logic of The Trial.

The knowledge crisis that is said to pervade the universe of The Trial is nothing other than the absence of a code adequate to the various messages being emitted. That is why the universe of The Trial appears to be absurd. The messages in the story not only call into question the code Josef K. is accustomed to but in subverting their validity, they point to, yet refuse to reveal, a more extensive code to which Josef K. is completely alien. This onslaught of an unfamiliar code completely destroys his comfort and feeling of security and confidence of being able to any situation. Josef K.’s problem is no longer that of expression and manipulation but that of simple comprehension. The Law is not just another code but the governing code of the universe of The Trial. It is a code through which the ‘message’ of crime and arrest comes to Josef K. and he is supposed to defend himself. For the proper functioning of any code it has to have one property and that is clarity, the ability to eliminate ambiguities and internal contradictions. And that precisely is the quality the governing penal code lacks in The Trial.

Both above mentioned interpretations are excellent summaries of the motifs and symbolisms presented in The Trial. Once the autistic frame of reference of the author Franz Kafka is revealed and incorporated in explaining this novel, the logic behind Kafka’s TheTrial will be immediately apparent and the reader will be able to decipher the real meaning of this novel and actually all of Kafka’s work.

The Autistic Perspective of the Parable ‘Before the Law’

Understanding the parable of the doorkeeper and the countryman looking for entrance to The Law in his novel The Trial is the key to understand Franz Kafka’s work and to understand the fact Kafka was a person with autism.

In this parable in the novel the Trial, The Law is the unintended metaphor of the neural frame of reference of people in the world around him. In this parable both the doorkeeper and countryman are alter egos of the author Kafka. The countryman in this tale must be regarded as Kafka’s autistic self-consciousness which cannot figure out what is going on and why just he is single out to endure such misery. The countryman asks the questions Josef K. is asking to understand what is going on and in reality it is the self-consciousness of the author Franz Kafka who is asking these questions. The doorkeeper resembles the chaplain in the novel by putting up objections and alternative explanations why entrance to the Law is prohibited. Thus narrator and author cannot be separated in this novel. In this tale Franz Kafka shows via the remark by the doorkeeper that only he is refused entrance to The Law which shows that Kafka is unaware of his autistic frame of reference because he cannot recognize other persons with a similar point of view. He is all alone with his point of view, both in his story and in daily reality. Even waiting till his death won’t resolve this enigma (refusal of entrance to the law and why nobody else has asked for entrance) for the countryman in this tale. The Law is an extrapolation of the code or the neural frame of reference of neurotypical persons since they all automatically adhere and acknowledge the logic of The Law. What Kafka unknowingly describes with The Law is their shared neural frame of reference because of their similarly configured brains which in daily life is expressed in arbitrarily spoken and unspoken sociocultural rules and codes.

In the end Josef K. who instead of acknowledging his innate guilt and thus ‘understanding’ the law of his life, dies ‘like a dog’. Furthermore, dying in this manner, oblivious of the fact how the other, for him, unknown human frame of reference works, is an exaggeration of his anger, frustrations and anxiety about living within an autistic frame of reference of which he is unaware.

The Use and Function of Parables

A very good description or metaphor for Kafka’s art and reality is stated by Burkhard Müller (2010): “Kafka’s art may be compared (if you don’t consider this metaphor debasing) with a hornet that, trying to break free, bumps against the window pane time and again, and this buzzing and bumping in its modified repetition gives a rhythm to the process. Although the hornet does not succeed in passing through the glass (which is impossible, and impossible to grasp for the insect, for the very reason that the pane is transparent), somebody watching will not fail to notice how blue the sky is beyond the obstacle.”

This metaphor of Kafka’s art and life is the best description I have found which captures both the struggle and search by Kafka in disclosing the invisible reality of the social world around him which always eluded him and he was not able to put a finger on it. This notion of a pursuit which Kafka understood in metaphorical terms was in itself the search for metaphor in the form of parables.

The use of parables by Kafka and the function of parables are perfectly explained by Matthew Powell (2006): “In parable, Kafka located a narrative structure that appeared to represent the relationship between his internal and external worlds. In the relationship between what a parable states and what a parable means, Kafka recognized the struggle between his understanding of the truth and his ability to express the truth. In parables Kafka found a mode to express his unconscious need to describe his intuition about reality he missed and could sense but yet could not understand. In this process the qualities of language are important restrictions to express what is beyond one’s understanding. Kafka’s compulsion to write was tied to an understanding of language as that which traps us within this world while simultaneously alluding to a world beyond. For Kafka, language is both problematic and transcendent. It is in the tension between the literal and the figurative that Kafka chose to locate his narratives.”

It is important to emphasize that Kafka as an autistic person was not always consciously aware his interpretations and writings were literal, thus the line between literal and figurative were not consciously clear for Kafka. This blurring stems from the specific focus of autistic persons who look at external predictable behavior of people and situations rather than at internal mental states of individuals. Kafka wrote from his autistic perspective in which the literal form is a default state of understanding the external world. For Kafka to move beyond the literal is not only to express that which cannot be said literally, but to express that which is not literal. The figurative is not simply not the literal, it is more than the literal. It is beyond the literal. The gap between the literal and the figurative, across which the reader is compelled by language to traverse, is for Kafka also the space which language cannot adequately express. The use of parable by Kafka marks his most concentrated effort to examine the space between language and that which is beyond language.

From the functions of parables it is clear that in order to crack the secret of Kafka and his work it is necessary to provide the parable ‘Before the Law’ with a context or metatext which can reveal the true meaning of this parable and Kafka’s work in general (Powell 2006). The metatext of the novel The Trial does not provide any insight in the deeper meaning of Kafka’s parable ‘Before the Law’, which was first published separately, but is rather more confusing because of the interpretations in the novel. In sum the present autism hypothesis provides for a context and metatext in which the parable ‘Before the Law’ can be set and reveals its deeper meaning and in fact discloses the secret of Franz Kafka as a person and the logic behind his work. Thus autism is the integral explanation of the phenomenon Kafka in all its expressions, and autism can explain the mystery of Kafka like no other of the interpretations proposed by literary scholars and critics in the history of Kafka research.

Sources of the Absurd in Kafka’s Work

Discussing the collision between the autistic and neurotypical perspectives which is the source of Kafka’s anxiety and misery, can also explain his style of writing including what is referred to as “The Absurd” or “Grotesque”. Usually the absurd refers to a belief held by some twentieth century writers and philosophers, in and out the existentialist movement, that human life cannot be understood by any set of general rules. It is utterly devoid of meaning, and therefore ‘absurd’, until it is invested with meaning for an individual by his or her own actions. The definition of the absurd shows that it is not adequate to describe Kafka’s work because there is meaning in his work which can be discerned although one has to look and analyze it from the right (autistic) perspective.

The search by Kafka in his writing was for the unknown perspective in his fellow human beings which could put him at ease but he never managed to find it. He intuited this other state of mind and his writing is a testament of his search for this alien state of mind or self-consciousness which he tried to describe via parables, animal stories, aphorisms and images. His problem was that he could not get to grips with reality, more specifically his own reality, because he could not live with it. Moreover every thinkable alternative: a better life, a more authentic existence, a more ‘real’ reality was not attainable for him, it remained forever out of reach. It is this despair and his complicated view and approach of reality in his writing which many have deemed Kafka’s work to be absurd.

Kafka’s life is viewed from many perspectives; however they were not the correct ones. “His work is analyzed from contradictory assumptions by many and interpreted by countless critics and scholars. Their views have inspired many artistic and philosophical traditions but never has a dominant evaluation of Kafka appeared. For surrealist the dream reality was more important and more real than the genuine reality of the daytime. They were the ones who imposed upon Kafka his reputation as an absurd and mysterious writer. The existentialists on the other hand who implicated Kafka with a fundamental human feeling of alienation thought in earnest that the world was to blame, rather than the individual. While the psychoanalysts who studied Kafka did not want to talk about the human as such but nothing more than the sick human being. However Kafka is never satisfactorily incorporated in one or another trend or tradition. Expressionism, marxism, surrealism, magic realism, realism, mysticism even: on the surface his work seems to have something in common with all of them, but not enough with any of them. What is evident that the uniqueness of Kafka’s work thoroughly depends on how his work is interpreted. And the history of Kafka interpretations has shown that the views and traditions tell more about the interpreters than something fundamental or objective about Kafka or his work by itself.” (Verhaar 1975)

Animal Stories

Kafka wrote many stories in which solely animals appear while he had severe aversion to dogs, cats, rats, mice and all sorts of vermin. His fear in Zürau for field mice is of a phobic nature.

“My reaction toward the mice is one of sheer terror. To analyze its source would be the task of a psychoanalyst, which I am not. Certainly this fear, like an insect phobia, is connected with the unexpected, uninvited, inescapable, more or less silent, persistent, secret aim of these creatures” (Kafka 1977)

On Kafka’s animal stories Verbeek (1984) wrote: “Why then write stories about animals? Like everything Kafka ever wrote dealing with himself, his feelings, his images, his misery, his vainly attempts, so are the animals in The Burrow, Investigation of a Dog, Josephine, and Metamorphosis alter egos of himself. His choice to use animals as the protagonist stems from the need to express self-loathing, condemnation, low sense of worth and feelings of inferiority” (Verbeek 1984). The word dog had very depreciatory meaning. One can notice in Kafka’s work that every time the word dog is mentioned something contemptuous, reprehensible or self-denial is indicated. Overall animals in Kafka’s work refer to problematic aspects of himself and have no allegoric meaning but are determined associative. The use of animals is more a creative device rather than an intrinsic one because by using animals, which are seen as categories rather than individuals, in this way represent a collective whereas humans are often interpreted as individuals. Thus animals are in most cases used as a literary device to represent a collective feeling although there are exceptions such as the story The Burrow.

The Writer Kafka

By reading Kafka’s work the reader must be cautious not to easily assume allegories, analogies, symbolisms, paradoxes and parables by Kafka. Kafka’s work deals with images, a procession of images he presents of which the connections are difficult to retrieve, partly because Kafka himself did not see the connections and that is one of the reasons it is very difficult to interpret his inherent motivation. This is also the reason why Kafka’s work is subjected to all kinds of interpretations because of the absence of a clear discernable explanation. However as proposed in this paper the origins of the logic of his writing can be assigned to his autistic frame of reference whereby this logic is alien to neurotypical readers and requires additional information regarding Kafka’s daily events, preoccupations and his special topics of interest. Kafka’s writing was also very subjective and self-referential prose whereby he distilled from myths a method to express human strengths and impotence, to express fate and domination. In essence these motifs were literary reflections of his personal issues for which he could not find solutions.

Whereas critics and literary scholars study the psychological motivations of the characters in terms of, in Kafka’s case, observed lovelessness, egocentricity, arrogance, egotism, limited awareness of others, lack of compassion, lack of pity and friendships, and naivety of his protagonists, which are evident in most of his novels. It is however important to contemplate that Kafka wrote his characters based on external behavioral motivations from what is known in consciousness studies as the intentional stance. (Dennet 1987) His focus on external intentional behavior explains the dynamics of Kafka’s protagonists in which they focus on finding solutions for difficult situations within the available frame of possibilities, adjusted to the mentality of the ‘judges’ in the stories, ready for the defense of opponents, to express in these situations what in essence are autistic frustrations, and to be ready to exploit the ‘law’ or situation.

Verhaar (1975) stated: “Kafka’s protagonists hardly possess something like a personal character. Not their psychology is on the forefront but they are determined in the stories by their actions. Kafka’s protagonists don’t know what they’re doing well or what felonies they commit, but the reader also doesn’t know. Their predicament is at the end still not clear as it was at the beginning. Kafka’s stories don’t present a prehistory of the characters; neither do they begin into a narrative, the stories just start in a totally new situation. When the story is finished, nothing is clarified and in reality nothing has happened what already was stated in the opening sentence.”

When Kafka’s novels are analyzed with the autistic frame of reference in mind the behavior of his protagonists make more sense and will reveal that Kafka’s protagonists focus on external behavioral cues which are guided by Kafka’s education and mindset of a lawyer. As such Kafka’s protagonists are a reflection of the thinking and behavior of Kafka the author. Critics and literary scholars misinterpret Kafka’s work by focusing on aspects such as the psychological and mental state of the characters, which are of limited actual concern for the externally intentional focus of the writer Kafka. This also explains the experienced sense of absurdism and alienation the neurotypical form of reading evokes in the general reader because of the difference in neural frames of reference which stands between the author and most readers.

In Kafka research it is sometimes suggested that Kafka was trying to mystify his work and of ‘semi-private games’ (Pasley 1972) but these claims can only be explained because these critics did not truly understand the logic of Kafka’s mind. They invoked explanations which seem plausible to them but have nothing to do with the writer Kafka himself who was not very different from his protagonists. For that matter it is very interesting to look at statements made by Max Brod which are very difficult to believe by critics and literary scholars since they are trying to interpret every detail of Kafka’s work for some special meaning. Max Brod claimed that Kafka obtained first names of characters in his novels simply from the literature and books which interested him (Brod 1979). Brod also noted that the names of ‘Barnabas’ or ‘Galater’ refered to the fact that in the days he was writing he was also eagerly reading the New Testament. ‘Bertuch’ refered to works of Goethe, and ‘Gerstäcker’ was found in the small library of his parents. This version of Max Brod seems more plausible than the overanalysis of Kafka’s work by critics and literary scholars in the decades after WW II. Max Brod’s version about how Kafka might have chosen character names concurs with the proposed diagnosis of autism because not all of Kafka’s special topics of interest were written down in his diaries and letters but were part of his unconscious frame of reference which guided his writing without any specific deeper meaning. This claim is also supported by the analysis of the short story: Silence of the Sirens and his unconscious use of fairy tale motifs in his other stories. Kafka was fond of fairytales based on his collections of fairytales books but hated the word fairytale (Kafka 1951).

The Trial and Unconscious Preoccupations

The novel The Trial knows an abrupt beginning and abrupt ending. What is written in between has because of its repetitive nature an atmosphere of hopelessness, gloominess and uselessness. The constituent parts resemble each other and are even exchangeable. The sequence of chapters can be switched without any problems. This circularity of this novel indicates that unconscious motives are at play, unresolved conflicts are because of repetition and compulsion time and again brought to the attention. The chapters of The Trial show coherence not because of rational chronological order but because of its atmosphere which stems from the unconscious origins that make them form a unit whereby the chapters have a large degree of independence but not in an absolute sense.

This tendency of repetitive behavior or compulsion is a trait that is well known in persons with autism (Atwood 2007). Because it is a part of the neural frame of reference of persons with autism, it is therefore evident that these cognitive preoccupations will be expressed by the individual in an unconscious manner. Topics of interest which are consciously learned and specific preoccupations will form parts of the unconscious repertoire in expressions of daily behavior and cognitive tasks such as writing and language. For this matter, writing can be a form of relaxation or stress release which seems to be the case in the phenomenon Franz Kafka.

Conclusion

In this paper the hypothesis is presented that Franz Kafka was a person with autism. Acknowledging this fact enables the unravelling of many mysteries and puzzles regarding Kafka’s life and work. In this paper his important works are discussed and explained to prove the point that Kafka was an person with autism. He therefore engaged the social world and his writing from a different neural frame of reference which made his work complex and difficult to understand for the non-autistic general public. With this information Kafka’s work will be more comprehensible because now it is possible to look at his work from a different perspective. Acknowledging that Kafka was writing from an autistic perspective is a fundamental revelation which is of interest for literary scholars, critics and for autism and psychiatry researchers. A more accessible Kafka without losing its appeal and originality will actually make it an even more interesting read for the general reader.