Franz Kafka’s Mirror Avoidance
Franz Kafka, the existentialist author behindThe Metamorphosis, was so deeply uncomfortable with his own reflection that he avoided mirrors whenever possible. He believed that seeing himself disrupted his creative process and fed his inner self-loathing. Friends recalled that even in well-lit rooms, Kafka would tilt his head to avoid glimpses of himself.
His letters often reflect this self-erasure, claiming that the “I” in his writing was too unbearable to be real. Kafka’s fear of the mirror wasn’t about vanity—it was philosophical. He saw identity as a fragile mask, and reflections as dangerous truths. His avoidance wasn’t just neurotic; it was almost symbolic of the fractured self he captured so hauntingly in his fiction.
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