Despite the dark themes of Kafka's stories, he found humor in the absurd situations his characters faced. Friends recall him laughing to the point of tears while reading drafts of his stories, which he considered to be full of irony and absurdity, even when others didn’t perceive them as comedic. Kafka left instructions for his close friend, Max Brod, to destroy all his unpublished manuscripts after his death. However, Brod defied these instructions and published works like The Trial and The Castle, which solidified Kafka’s posthumous reputation as one of the greatest modernist writers.