DFW on Kafka Article Response

    Wallace's message is that short stories and jokes have much in common: they both elicit strong, explosive reactions from the reader because he/she can connect to it. Wallace continues to argue that Kafka's stories are inherently funny because of how literal and tragic they are. Wallace also thinks that non-Americans are inherently better than Americans at understanding Kafka's humor and themes. Wallace believes the point of Kafka's humor/themes is to "not get it" and the process of getting angry over "not getting it" has inherent value.

    I disagree. A man walks into a bar and turns into an insect. Get it guys? If you don't get the joke, it is clearly because you are all thinking from a brainwashed, American point of view. I'm actually half Anunnaki, and all of the teenagers from my planet are rolling on the floor laughing at my joke. I disagree with Kafka's logic that something can be humorous if it is purposefully made to be dry. In that case, what would distinguish between a literal statement and a joke? I also disagree with him when he extends that logic into themes. Something does not have inherent value simply because it is impossible to discern meaning from. Value is a scale: for something to be valuable, it has to be compared with something that doesn't have value. Wallace is an English teacher's nightmare because all the slackers in the class would turn in poorly written, indecipherable, convoluted short stories. If the teacher asked, "What is the message you are trying to convey?", the student would simply respond "Exactly" and expect an A. I also found his hasty generalizations pretty offensive. Wallace stereotyped American humor and culture by calling it everything short of "vulgar" and "simplistic". Even though he claims that he is not saying that American students do not have a knack for subtlety, the rest of his essay implies otherwise. He seems to imply that students from different countries would find "The Metamorphosis" more humorous. I have a hard time picturing German students rolling on the floor laughing while flipping through the pages. Wallace also claims that "trying to get a few hours escape from the stuff that any decent college has forced them to think about all week" is distinctively the American way.

    David Wallace, I'll have you know that students in Asia party just as hard after a week of cramming at university! I am offended! (Not really, but I am actually making a joke. However, my cultural education has limited me to choosing between "verbal parody" and "slapstick"). Personally, I loved "The Metamorphosis". I thought it was very meaningful and poignant. I did not need Wallace to tell me that the whole point of the story was to not make any sense, when it did for me.

I can agree with a lot of what DFW said about humor in Kafka's work. The problem arises when people think that he means that tragedy is funny, and then you get edgy kids talking about how cool they are because they worship demons and care about NOTHING. The humor comes from the literal showing of idioms, like "STARVED for attention," like he pointed out. In that sense, a story with none of the shock value could be humorous, but it wouldn't have the impact and lasting value that Kafka's stories do. 

Like I said earlier, it is hard to explain this, because someone who likes the story because they look at it as a crude joke meant to shock, and someone who wants to look emo, might have the same reaction. It's similar to those who sympathize with the Misfit in AGMIHTF. Although I personally like Bailey and the grandkids, I view the Misfit as an antihero. I disagree with everything he does, but I semi-root for him, in that I can sense his pain and his struggles to rationalize his actions (not to mention his existence).

Even if Kafka wrote his stories with a tinge of humor, they were not written for the audience to laugh out loud, however, just as O'Conner didn't want her audience to vocalize support for the Misfit. With that said, it IS nice to look back on the text and look at Gregor's indifference as a joke rather than depressing ignorance.

What I found interesting is that Wallace highlights how much the context (from experience and teachings) we are given for a piece of literature can really affect our perception of the work. Wallace assumes that there are similarities in everyone’s background. He says, “We all know that there is no quicker way to empty a joke of its peculiar magic than to try to explain it…” He uses the phrase “we all know” to suggest that there are universal qualities that all humans share. In this case, these qualities relate to how we approach literature. I think this is an interesting way to think about the relationship between the reader and the text. I feel that Wallace is correct in his supposition. Kafka’s story, when I read it, didn’t present itself as being humorous. Wallace would argue that that is because it doesn’t fit into the norm of what people in general consider funny. As much I would like to be able to read without any pre-conceived notions, it is not possible to do so. Kafka’s writing is supposed to seem peculiar because it breaks the “norms” of writing. Wallace says, “…that makes Kafka's wit inaccessible to children whom our culture has trained to see jokes as entertainment and entertainment as reassurance.” Society trains us a certain way, and it is not easy to rid yourself from the shackles of society.

In my reading of "Metamorphosis," I definitely missed the humorous side. Sure, I found his descriptions shocking and gross in detail, and that his choices in character thought and actions make profound statements in regard to our reality and the way we treat one another. But, I missed the joke. As I look back at the story I still can't find what's supposed to be funny, besides how surprising it is that Kafka chose to make Gregor see himself as an insect over anything else. Maybe this is, as DFW describes, the fault of my American humor. But I don't think it is. I don't think the reason I am struggling to see the humor in "Metamorphosis" is because of my reliance on humor as an escape, but rather, because "Metamorphosis" is not Kafka's best example of his european humor. I think the example of Kafka's story about Poseidon that DFW discuses is a much more accurate sample of Kafka's style and captures that bittersweet emotion that follows Kafka's work as well as the almost cartoon-like ridiculousness that makes the reader laugh. "Metamorphosis" has the cartoon style, the bittersweet emotion, but for me, it lacks the twist that is necessary for the reader to say, "oh...that's terrible...but haha." So I agree with DFW that Kafka's writing is about that odd, sick humor, but I disagree that Americans cannot grasp it. It may be stylistically different from the American norm, but like Gregor does when he wakes up as a cockroach, we can adapt to the challenge set before us and figure out the message and appreciate the experience of reading a European work.

In his excerpt, David Foster Wallace creates a pretty hefty distinction between American and European humor. I’ll agree that this division exists- and that this division is perhaps a byproduct of some tarnishing “cultural failure” on behalf of our society- but I disagree with the notion that this is somehow bad.


According to DFW’s assertions, the typical American comedian is the wise-guy who holds himself above the idiots around him. Contrarily, a European comedian (like Kafka) is subtler and can glory in the failures of society and of himself. This seems like a [somewhat] fair assessment. However, Wallace goes on to claim that our inability to see Kafka's funniness is because of our misconstrued understanding of humor. We, as American students, must “get” the joke in order for it to be funny. Our American mindset is a tragedy to Wallace, who believes that we must appreciate humor rather than look for obvious wit... And this is where his argument grows a little fuzzy for me. I’m not sure that the act of appreciation  upholds the integrity of what humor should be...which is humorous. If we as the inept United Statesians cannot understand what’s funny, then that thing is by definition not funny to us. It doesn’t matter if our culture tailors people to react this way, because humor is elicited at an emotional level, not at an analytic level.



**This is just a side note, but I really did enjoy Kafka’s work in Metamorphosis. However, I did not find the story to be funny. A more appropriate word to describe my appreciation of the text would probably be that it was cleverly crafted in a way that could be  humorous to some, but was not humorous to me.