INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL FOR INNOVATIVE RESEARCH IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY FIELD ISSN – 2455-0620 Volume - 3, Issue - 7, July - 2017 Available online on – WWW.IJIRMF.COM Page 274 The Confluence of European Ideology in Franz Kafka’s Fiction Dr. Ajoy Batta Associate Professor and Head, Department of English, School of Arts and Languages Lovely Professional University, Phagwara (Punjab) Email - ajoy.20229@lpu.co.in Franz Kafka a Prague born writer belonged to a middle-class Jewish family that was financially secure. He grew up during the period when Prague was a provincial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Kafka’ s father sought acceptance for his family from the German speaking elite of the city and thus admitted Franz to German rather than Czech schools. Nevertheless, the dichotomous relations between the Czech and the German communities were the earliest encounters of Franz with the feelings of alienation. Since Franz was the eldest child and the only surviving son of his parents, he was expected to follow a rigorous schedule in life and rise to success, most of all in material terms. His paths always diverged from the decrees, desires and wishes of his father. It was against the wishes of his father that Franz studied law at German University and earned his doctorate in the subject in 1906, but he could never chart a linear vocational path. He disliked the prospect of a legal career and joined an insurance organization in Prague and worked there from 1908 to 1922. It was at this stage of his life that he suffered from tuberculosis, which debilitated him to the extent that he had to retire from the insurance job in 1922, and spent most the remaining years of his life in various sanatoriums, while writing fictional stories and novellas until his death in Kierling, Austria on June 3 rd in 1924. It was in his last will and testament that Kafka requested his friend Max Brod, whom he had selected as his literary facilitator to destroy the manuscripts of his writings, but his request was ignored by Brod, and instead he organized posthumous publication of several of his writings. It is surprising to note that publications of his lifetime were relatively numerous. Between 1907 and 1924, approximately seventy texts appeared in print, excluding obituaries, reviews and non-literary material. They range from newspaper items and stories of varying length in journals to self-contained collections of prose passages and chapters from his novels. The earliest Kafka writing, Description of a Struggle was written in 1904-1905, whose extracts were published in 1909 . It was in 1906, while working in uncle advocate ’ s office in Prague that he wrote Wedding Preparations in the Country . The next year and a half he spent working on the “ Assicurazioni Generali, ” which also saw his friendship growing closer with Max Brod. “Conversation with a Beggar ” and “Conversation with a Drunkard ” were published in 1909. The years 1912-1913 were productive and he wrote “The Sentence ” (later as “The Judgment ”), published in 1913. He also wrote the first chapter of America, entitled “The Stroker. ” “The Metamorphosis ” was completed, but published in 1915. Reflections was completed and published in 1913. “ In the Penal Settlement ” was written in 1914, but printed in 1919. Franz Kafka began the writing of The Trial in 1914. Next year he decided to live alone, away from his parents and devoted more time to his writing. The stories of A Country Doctor belong to 1916-1917 and it was in 1917 that he was diagnosed a patient of tuberculosis, but he continued his work and made considerable progress with The Great Wall of China in 1918. Franz published A Country Doctor and In the Penal Settlement in 1919. His famous “ Letter to his Father ” also belongs to this year. Next Abstract: Franz Kafka one of the major German language novelist and short story writer was born on July 3, 1883 at Prague. His posthumous works brought him fame not only in Germany, but in Europe as well. By 1946 Kafka’s works had a great effect abroad, and especially in translation. Apart from Max Brod who was the first commentator and publisher of the first Franz Kafka biography, we have Edwin and Willa Muir, principle English translators of Kafka’s works. Majority studies of Franz Kafka’s fictions generally present his works as an engagement with absurdity, a criticism of society, element of metaphysical, or the resultant of his legal profession, in the course failing to record the European influences that form an important factor of his fictions. In order to achieve a newer perspective in Kafka’s art, and to understand his fictions in a better way, the present paper endeavors to trace the European influences in the fictions of Kafka. It is true that Kafka’s legal profession dominated his writings, but the fact that we cannot ignore is the European influence, particularly the influence of various European literary masters of his time on the intellect of Kafka. Key Words: Ideology, posthumous, psychosomatic, metaphysical, existentialism, disillusionment, protestations.