The Two Fundamental Surrealist Characteristics: Dreamy Quality and Absurdity

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Introduction
The surrealist themes in Franz Kafka's "A Country Doctor" are the primary topic of this essay. Franz Kafka is often considered as one of the twentieth century's most influential figures. He produced several excellent novels and short tales, some of which were later published by his buddy Max Brod after his death. Kafka's stories and novels can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Some pertain to existentialism, authoritarianism, and surrealism traditions. One of his most renowned short tales, "A Country Doctor," is a work in the surrealist tradition, a prominent and avant-garde movement in the twentieth century pioneered by André Breton. The essay will display two fundamental Surrealist characteristics: dreamy quality and absurdity.
Kafka's short tale "A Country Doctor" illustrates two important features of Surrealism: a dreamy quality and absurdity. As a surrealist work, the narrative places a greater focus on the dream world, which allows the subconscious mind to be investigated, than on the exterior world's reality: "Kafka's work belongs to a tradition of storytelling that strives to glimpse the truth beyond the immediate, material world" (Manson 297). The protagonist's inner issues are revealed throughout the dream, forcing him to confront life's cruel absurdity. According to Mirmobin and Shabanirad, Kafka's stories include psychological implications: "Psychology is one of the most important things to examine in any analysis of Kafka's work. Some of his key topics in his works include the absurdity of existence, physical and psychological brutality, and child-parent conflicts" (1). "What Kafka has done is to take an intuition of the world, a feeling of experience, which is peripheral to the perception of most of us most of the time, and make it essential to his work," writes McElroy. Kafka did have creative access to a strange, skewed image of the world, which he used as the foundation for his work" (217-218). Kafka's pessimistic attitude toward the world had a huge impact on how he presented his characters and developed his stories. "Kafka's spectacle of accusation occupies the first position among the recent European prophets of doom," writes Hubben. He depicted the dread of existence in such vivid imagery for a long time before the First World War and again in the years immediately following that parallels to classical writers are inevitable (138).
In "A Country Doctor," Kafka tells the narrative from the first-person perspective, which gives the story a sense of immediacy and intimacy. The protagonist, a village doctor who is facing his inner difficulties, unites the situations in the novel. As a result, the readers will feel extremely near to the I-Narrator and will be able to experience the events as if they were present. The locations are strange and unfamiliar. "Kafka's 'A Nation Doctor' is set in a nightmare land; the readers are never told the year or the name of the country directly or indirectly." This is a surreal depiction of a location where time passes in a way that is neither natural nor palpable" (Mirmobin and Shabanirad 3).
In Franz Kafka's "A Country Doctor," the doctor's sublimation is questioned to th...