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Franz Kafka: Coffee Achiever?Page 1 | Page 2 A Literary Coffee Aroma At the very least, coffee plays a cameo role in several of Kafka’s more prominent works. A faint coffee aroma wafts through The Trial, and indeed, coffee is one of the first things that protagonist Joseph K. loses during the course of his trial. Two warders surprise K. at his home one morning, inform him that he is under arrest, and intercept K.’s breakfast from the maid. "‘That’s so, you can believe that,'" said [warder] Franz, not raising to his lips the coffee-cup he held in his hand, but instead giving K. a long, apparently significant, yet incomprehensible look. Without wishing it K. found himself decoyed into an exchange of speaking looks with Franz, none the less he tapped his papers and repeated: ‘Here are my identification papers.’" When Joseph K. finally does get to drink coffee, his lot is no better that it was during his early exchange with the warders. He is entirely preoccupied with his trial and the mysterious charges against him, and when talking to his maid, inadvertently makes her cry. "He contented himself with drinking his coffee and leaving Frau Grubach to feel that her presence was burdensome," wrote Kafka. Hot coffee is now cold comfort to K., who is able to eat his breakfast, but is being further drawn into the ominous mechanism of his judgment. In Kafka’s novel Amerika, the main character Karl meets a student who works at a store through the day and goes to school through the night. "Oh sleep!" said the student. "I’ll get some sleep when I’m finished with my studies. I keep myself going on black coffee. A fine thing black coffee." "I don’t like black coffee," said Karl. "I don’t either," said the student laughing. "But what could I do without it? If it weren’t for black coffee Montly wouldn’t keep me for a minute. I simply don’t know how I would get on in the shop if I didn’t have a big bottle like this under the counter, for I’ve never dared to risk stopping the coffee-drinking[.]" Kafka never visited the United States, but from this scene in Amerika, it is clear that Kafka foresaw an All-American type of student, a workaholic and caffeine-driven busybody. The student drinks the coffee not for the love of it, but as a drug to keep himself fueled in a 24/7 cycle of activity. A 21st century U.S. university campus, with a top-notch coffee vendor and students caffeinated into the wee hours of the morning, would probably not surprise Kafka.
Conclusion Kafka was neither achiever nor slacker during his lifetime; rather, he was somehow both rolled into one. He embodies the idea of the coffeehouse literary giant, because so much of his social world and his writing inspiration grounded in the cafes of Prague. His characters could, on occasion, show a taste for coffee that foreshadowed the traits of real-world coffee drinkers decades later. And even though I am unable to ascertain whether coffee actually touched his lips, INeedCoffee salutes Franz Kafka as a coffee achiever. Page 1 | Page 2 |
