Kafka, overbearing authority, and stuttering

Kafka, overbearing authority, and stuttering From [Kafka's Letter](http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/03/05/franz-kafka-letter-father/) to his (Overbearing) Father: > I lost the capacity to talk. I dare say I would not have become a very eloquent person in any case, but I would, after all, have acquired the usual fluency of human language. But at a very early stage you forbade me to speak. Your threat, “Not a word of contradiction!” and the raised hand that accompanied it have been with me ever since. What I got from you — and you are, whenever it is a matter of your own affairs, an excellent talker — was a hesitant, stammering mode of speech, and even that was still too much for you, and finally I kept silent, at first perhaps out of defiance, and then because I could neither think nor speak in your presence. This is reminiscent of [John Harrison's](https://www.mnsu.edu/comdis/kuster/Infostuttering/Harrison/john.htm) remarks that stuttering is about fear of self-expression. This also reminds me of my own upbringing, with a mother with good intentions but unrelenting standards for achievement, and teachers who made conflicting demands on me that I did not understand. This suggests a fix for stuttering is to become comfortable angering other people. edit: I'm not saying this is a solution...I should have said "...a way to improve stuttering in some cases might be to find ways not to feel an instinctual "freeze" response when risking angering other people, because there seems to be some strange connection between stuttering and a subconscious attempt to "freeze" to escape from speaking unpleasantness."