The Meaning Of ‘Kafkaesque’ Is About More Than Just Pointless Bureaucracy And Giant Insects

Logic goes out the window in Kafka's writing. Or rather, the logic seems to be governed by some kind of snake-eats-tail, circular thinking.

Kafka's "due process" is always serpentine. Legal systems do not exist to serve justice, but to perpetuate themselves. In every circumstance, though, Kafka points out that we, the cogs in those machines, can be just as absurd and illogical as the machines themselves. Especially when we keep trying to fight the system with the system, following rules that make no sense to achieve goals we don't necessarily want.

Kafka laments and lambastes absurd bureaucracy in all his work. But he also invites us to notice the absurd part of everyday life and to laugh at it—lest we keep perpetuating the absurdity ourselves

"Kafkaesque" means a system that has no vested interest in doing anything but keeping itself going, alienating everyone in the process.