ABSTRACT
Kafka's shorter fiction, with its tightness and sameness of mood, its dream atmosphere and its absence of precise characterization, bears the impress of his strange personality as thoroughly as do his novels. The opposition and balance of emotional forces, a characteristic of Kafka's work, lends it that valuable quality of impartiality. Kafka's portrayal of the father as ill and decrepit is symptomatic of both his aggression and his guilt toward him. The more immediate autobiographical references are clearer still. The Great Wall of China, published posthumously, contains some of Kafka's most interesting short fiction. Kafka's novellas generally excel in invention and imaginative fantasy. Their defect is their too-close adherence to allegory, at the expense of symbolism. Kafka rarely speaks of Jews or Judaism in his fiction. Generally he uses religious symbols drawn from Christianity—as if he wishes to forget he is a member of a minority group.
