Dreams of Guilt and Judgement: an Analysis of Kafka’s Symbolic Narratives

Dream sequences in "The Judgment," "Description of a Struggle," and "Dream" help underscore some of the major recurrent themes in Franz Kafka's work: guilt, judgment, and authority. His stories come to blur lines separating reality from the surreal in a literary landscape within which fears and anxieties buried deep in the subconscious of the protagonists finally take the form of living reality. The characters' inner life mirrors complex modes of experience that the author projects through symbols and allegories. Through the comparison of narrative techniques and thematic concerns across these stories, this paper shows the literary significance and relevance of Kafka to the present.