"A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die."

Franz Kafka was born on July third, 1882 to Hermann and Julie Kafka. They were a middle-class Jewish family living in Prague. His first language was German, but he was also almost fluent in Czech and later on in life he became adequate in French. He attended the Deutsche Knabenschule, a boys' primary school, from the years 1889 to 1893. He was admitted to Altstädter Deutsches Gymnasium, an academic secondary school, and attended there for the full eight years until 1901. He completed his Matura exams in 1901 following his graduation from Altstädter, and was admitted to the Charles University of Prague, where he studied chemistry to begin He switched quickly (after two weeks) to law, a move to appease his father. He obtained his law degree on June 18, 1906 at the age of 23. 

After his graduation, he worked an obligatory year of unpaid service as a law clerk for the civil and criminal courts. On November 1, 1907, he was hired by the  Assicurazioni Generali, an aggressive Italian insurance company. He worked there nearly a year, and according to his correspondences to family, resigned because the hours did not allow him time to work on his writing. He found other work two weeks later at the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. From 1912 to 1923, he had three notable love interests, with the third of which he moved into a house in Berlin in order to distance himself from his family's influence to focus on his writing. 

Many of his works, including The Judgement, stemmed directly from his relationship with his overbearing father. He was also influenced from a very young age by one of his high school science teachers, Herr Gotwald. Gottwald was a Darwinist, a Positivist, and an Atheist, as well as being a major player and supporter of the modernist movement in Prague. We see in many of Kafka's protagonists a preoccupation and egocentricity of the self, a staple of the modernist movement's individualistic viewpoint. 

Throughout his life, he suffered from insomnia, migraines, constipation, boils, and other stress related ailments, the most notable of which were severe social anxiety and depression, which he tried to counteract through several naturopathic treatments, the most obvious of which was a vegetarian diet though he was reportedly suicidal throughout his life. He contracted tuberculosis and returned to his hometown Prague, but as it continued to get worse he went to a sanatorium near Vienna for advanced treatment. He eventually subdued to the grip of his tuberculosis in Vienna on June 3, 1924. He was buried back in Prague in the New Jewish Cemetery on June 11, 1924 alongside his parents.

                                                    

Works Cited

Chapman, Jeremy. "Franz Kafka as Modernist." Jeremy Chapman : Montreal Linux Computer                        Consultant. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.

"Franz Kafka Biography." A Short Biography of Franz Kafka. Franz Kafka Online, n.d. Web. 17 Mar.           2014.

Merriman, C. D. "Franz Kafka." The Literature Network Online. Jalic Inc., 2005. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.

Nervi, Mauro. "Kafka's Life (1883-1924)." The Kafka Project. Mauro Nervi, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.