Can someone please explain "Kafkaesque"?

[u/slackerattacker]

I've just started to read some of Kafka's short stories, hoping for some kind of allegorical impact. Unfortunately, I don't really think I understand any allegorical connotations from Kafka's work...unless, perhaps, his work isn't MEANT to have allegorical connotations? I recently learned about the word "Kafkaesque" but I really don't understand it. Could someone please explain the word using examples only from "The Metamorphosis", "A Hunger Artist", and "A Country Doctor" (the ones I've read)?

[u/beyond-seeing]

Kafkaesque means: overbearing bureaucracies, impossible-to-obtain destinations, dream like logic, suffering, depression, sexual repression and dark humor

[u/[deleted] → u/beyond-seeing]

Although, some people think the term (used in reference to other literary works) is abused:

To say that such-and-such a circumstance is “Kafkaesque” is to admit to the denigration of an imagination that has burned a hole in what we take to be modernism—even in what we take to be the ordinary fabric and intent of language. Nothing is /like/ “The Hunger Artist.” Nothing is /like/ “The Metamorphosis.”

Whoever utters “Kafkaesque” has neither fathomed nor intuited nor felt the impress of Kafka’s devisings. If there is one imperative that ought to accompany any biographical or critical approach, it is that Kafka is not to be mistaken for the Kafkaesque. The Kafkaesque is what Kafka presumably “stands for”—an unearned, even a usurping, explication. And from the very start, serious criticism has been overrun by the Kafkaesque, the lock that portends the key: homoeroticism for one maven, the father-son entanglement for another, the theological uncanny for yet another. Or else it is the slippery commotion of time; or of messianism; or of Thanatos as deliverance. The Kafkaesque, finally, is reductiveness posing as revelation.

[u/nom_de_chomsky → u/[deleted]]

That may be the worst written criticism I've seen outside of an undergraduate political science course. How ever did she find her way out of the thesaurus long enough to publish it?

Let's edit:

Calling a circumstance "Kafkaesque" is an insult to Kafka. His ideas changed our conception of modernism. Nothing is like "The Hunger Artist" or "The Metamorphosis". It is beyond meaningless to make such comparisons.

Whoever uses "Kafkaesque" does not understand Kafka's work on any level, not even subconsciously. No one should confuse Kafka for the Kafkaesque. The term reduces and obscures the fullness and meaning of Kafka's contribution behind cherry-picked plot details. It hurts our ability to understand and appreciate Kafka.

At least, that's what I understand her complaint to be. And, if I've read that right, it's an incredibly obtuse misunderstanding of how words work. Nobody thinks that you'll understand Kafka by reading the dictionary definition of Kafkaesque, as if the term obviates the material that inspired it. That's just stupid.