The Character of the Bachelor in the Literature of Franz Kafka

• Grant number: 25/10620-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: July 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Lucianno Ferreira Gatti
• Grantee: Guilherme Pereira da Silva
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research project proposes an analysis of the literary figure of the bachelor in the works of Franz Kafka, with particular emphasis on the fragmentary novella Blumfeld, an Elderly Bachelor. Although this figure appeared in a secondary role in texts prior to 1915, from that point onward one observes its rise to protagonism, indicating a significant shift in the configuration of the author's fictional work. This transformation is linked to the transition from a perspective shaped by the figure of the son - a subject marked by tension with paternal authority - to a new mode of experience, mediated by emerging modern institutions that replace or coexist with the patriarchal family model. The bachelor thus emerges as a representation of a subjectivity shaped by new historical conditions. The research assumes that this shift is formally reflected in Kafka's prose, whose structure and style move away from nineteenth-century realism, thus demanding new interpretative tools. (AU)