How a century-old writer captures today’s anxieties
DR SAQIB ASAD SHAH
It is sometimes said that every age finds its own writer of truth. For our times, few authors feel as uncannily relevant as Franz Kafka, a man who died more than a hundred years ago, before television, the internet, or artificial intelligence. And yet, when we look around at the world we inhabit today, a world of endless paperwork, faceless institutions, and a constant sense of unease it is difficult to escape the feeling that we are living inside Kafka’s pages.
Kafka wrote in early 20th-century Europe, in an empire that no longer exists, using a language many in our part of the world do not speak. Still, the emotions that run through his work feel instantly familiar: anxiety in front of power, guilt without clear cause, fear of being judged by standards we do not understand, and a crushing sense of being reduced to a number in a file. His imagination can still describe our condition in the 21st century tells us something uncomfortable perhaps the “modern” in modern times is less about technology and more about the way power presses down on the individual.
The ordinary man versus invisible power
One of the most striking features of Kafka’s fiction is its ordinariness. His heroes are not warriors, saints, or revolutionaries. They are clerks, salesmen, sons trying to please their fathers, and office workers trying to understand a rule. They are, in other words, people like us.
In ‘The Trial’, Josef K. is arrested without being told what crime he has committed. A court he cannot see and a law he cannot read judge him. He runs from office to office, lawyer to lawyer, searching for a process that will bring clarity. But the more he seeks explanation, the more he is entangled in confusion. This feeling is not far from what citizens experience today when dealing with heavy bureaucracies, whether it is a government office, a bank, a visa application centre, or even an online platform deciding silently what we can see or say.
In our own societies, common people find themselves moving from one window to another, from one portal to another, carrying certificates and documents, searching for a name, a signature, a stamp. Often, they are told that some system in some distant office has rejected their application or flagged their identity. No human face is visible behind the decision. The reasons are hidden in some digital file. The individual is made to feel guilty without being told why a thoroughly Kafkaesque situation.
Kafka grasped something essential about modern power: it does not always shout. Often, it whispers in legal language, in official letters, and in polite refusals. It does not always torture; it delays, confuses, and exhausts. It pushes people to give up their search for justice simply because the process is too draining. The terror here lies not only in violence but in the slow erosion of dignity.
The age of algorithms and digital trials
If Kafka’s world was ruled by obscure offices and dusty files, our world is ruled by algorithms and endless streams of data. But the deeper structure has changed less than we like to think.
Today, financial scores determine who can buy a house, unseen software decides whose CV will be shortlisted, and invisible rules decide what news appears on our screens. If your social media post disappears, if your account is blocked, if your loan application is rejected, you may receive a short message, but rarely a thorough explanation. “This decision was taken by our system,” we are told. Which system? Who designed it? On what principles? The answers are often hidden.
Here, too, Kafka feels like a guide. Josef K. does not know which law he has broken because the law exists but is not accessible to him. In a similar way, the rules that shape our online lives exist in code and corporate policy documents but remain beyond the understanding of the average citizen. There is law, but it is not transparent. There is judgment, but it is not accountable.
This should worry us, not because technology is evil in itself, but because the combination of technology with unaccountable power can multiply the sense of helplessness. When a machine decides our fate, we look for a human to appeal to, and when we find none, the experience is strangely similar to what Kafka’s characters feel: abandoned in a maze built by others.
Alienation in the crowd
Kafka also speaks powerfully to another aspect of modern life: loneliness in the middle of crowds. His characters are often surrounded by people colleagues, family members, officers yet they remain fundamentally isolated. They cannot communicate their deepest fear, nor can others fully understand their suffering.
We live in an age that promises constant connection. Our phones vibrate with messages, our feeds are full of updates, and our schedules leave little time for silence. Yet mental health experts across the world warn of rising levels of anxiety, depression, and a deep sense of alienation, especially among the young.
Kafka’s famous story ‘The Metamorphosis’ begins with a simple but devastating sentence: Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a giant insect. His family, who once depended on him, now see him as a burden and an embarrassment. He is physically present in the house, but emotionally expelled from the human circle. He can hear his family, but he cannot converse with them in any meaningful way.
This image of a person becoming an insect is often read as a symbol of dehumanisation under industrial capitalism. But we might also see in it a picture of what happens when individuals no longer feel recognised by those around them. Many people today, even while living in crowded cities and busy households, carry the silent feeling of having become invisible, or of being valued only for their productivity, not their humanity.
Kafka does not offer easy solutions for this condition. He does, however, force us to acknowledge it honestly. In that sense, his work is a mirror that our age still needs, especially as we talk about mental health but often struggle to listen with depth.
Between hope and hopelessness
One reason Kafka’s writing continues to attract readers is the peculiar mix of despair and dark humour it carries. His worlds appear hopeless, yet his characters keep moving, searching, asking. He once wrote, “There is infinite hope, but not for us.” The line sounds cruel at first hearing, but it points to a larger philosophical problem: how to live with hope in a world that constantly disappoints.
Our own times are full of grand promises. Technology will fix everything. Economic growth will lift all boats. Democracy will inevitably advance. Yet, from climate disasters to wars, from widening inequality to social tensions, reality often falls short. Many people, especially the youth, find themselves torn between official optimism and personal disillusionment.
Kafka’s gift is that he does not demand that we choose between blind hope and complete despair. Instead, he invites us to see clearly the structures that trap us, and to recognise the small, stubborn dignity of those who refuse to surrender their inner life. Even when his characters fail outwardly, their inner struggle remains significant.
In the context of societies struggling with occupation, conflict, or marginalisation, Kafka’s world of blocked doors and unreachable authorities may feel painfully familiar. Yet, reading him can also strengthen our sensitivity to injustice. Once we recognise the Kafkaesque nature of a situation, we are less likely to accept it as normal. Naming the absurdity becomes the first step to challenging it.
Why reading Kafka still matters
It is easy to dismiss Kafka as a writer for distant European debates, irrelevant to the daily concerns of people facing economic hardship, political turbulence, or social tensions. But such a view misunderstands the function of literature.
Kafka does not offer policy recipes or political slogans. What he gives us is a way of seeing a lens through which the hidden violence of routine procedures and “normal” systems becomes visible. He forces us to ask whether our institutions treat human beings as subjects with rights or as files to be moved around.
In an age where we are invited to scroll quickly and react instantly, Kafka slows us down. His stories resist simple interpretation. They demand patience, attention, and reflection. Such reading is itself a form of resistance against the speed and superficiality of contemporary life.
Moreover, engaging with Kafka can deepen our empathy. When we follow Josef K. from office to office, when we sit with Gregor Samsa in his lonely room, we are reminded that behind every case file, every rejected application, every “system error”, there is a human story. That reminder is crucial at a time when our conversations about people are increasingly expressed in numbers, categories, and statistics.
Towards a more human modernity
The lasting relevance of Franz Kafka should prompt a difficult question: must modernity always be Kafkaesque? Are the confusion, alienation, and silent cruelty that he describes a permanent feature of modern life, or can we imagine and build something different?
There may be no simple answers, but there are clear starting points. Institutions, whether state or private, must strive for transparency and accountability. Citizens must be able to understand the rules that govern them and have real avenues for appeal. Technology must serve human dignity, not replace it; algorithms should be tools under human oversight, not invisible judges beyond question.
On a more personal level, we might take from Kafka the importance of listening, truly listening to the anxieties of those around us. When a neighbour speaks of feeling invisible in front of authorities, when a young person describes being reduced to test scores and forms, when a worker fears being replaced by a machine, we are hearing echoes of Kafka’s characters. To dismiss them as exaggerations is to miss the depth of their experience.
Franz Kafka never visited our lands, never saw our cities, never read our newspapers. Yet, as we navigate the tangled paths of modern life, with its promises of progress and its quiet humiliations, his voice continues to reach us. He reminds us that behind the smooth language of systems, there are fragile human beings trying to make sense of their fate.
If we take his warning seriously, perhaps we can work towards a version of modernity that does not crush the individual, but protects and enlarges their humanity. That, more than any technological breakthrough, would be a true sign that our times have moved beyond the shadow of the Kafkaesque.
(The Author is a researcher in English literature, lecturer and columnist)