Clothes

by Franz Kafka

Genres: Classics

Unknown Binding

About the author

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.

Reviews

[Atlas · Rating 5 out of 5]

okay
I haven't read much of Kafka's works but I can say this..... knowing him.... this short thing has nothing to do with clothes
I get the feeling that he means to say something a lot more deeper that that...it's in my head and heart but for some why I can't describe it in mere letters.
All I can say is....this Kafka lad is not easy....not easy at all...and he's not just anybody...a very special and gifted lad.

[Farhana Lüba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, I believe everyone has their own interpretation of a Kafka story...because he's somewhat unpredictable by himself. He leaves something for you to think about at the end of every story, and I find that amusing.
So here goes my interpretation of the short story.
Kafka here describes how beautiful and diverse clothes are, and how even the prettiest dresses get old and lose their beauty. And that's why, we don't usually wear a pretty dress everyday.
But there is a cloth that we have to wear every single day. We face the world with a smiling face, being polite, abiding by the rules, communicating with the ones around us, smiling and happy and everything courageous, and beautiful. Everyone else thinks they know who we are, and we let them believe they do.
But sometimes, only sometimes, a part of us breaks. We see our real reflections in the mirror, all worn out from being who we aren't, not knowing who we are, exhausted, clueless. That face that we put on everyday is now unwearable, worn out, recognized by too many people who never recognized it for real.
Kafka didn't say what happens next. He keeps you hanging with that awful feeling of a night when you're too tired to be who you've been all these times. And the feeling crushes you, you know it does.

[Rebekah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this despite how short and seemingly nonsensical it is. So much is said with so little. A bit of writing worth pondering and rereading regularly.

[Pari shaikh · Rating 3 out of 5]

an appearance of things may be temporary and worn out eventually but as human the mask one has to wear in society to be accepted, to be loved and to fit it, never wears off completely- one can only hope to find that peace of living and accepting oneself and being happy

[Radhika Gupta · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just started reading Kafka, I am just starting to know what all his story can mean.

[CH0MSKY H0NK · Rating 4 out of 5]

Better on a reread