Franz Kafka, in his novella “The Metamorphosis”, and Harry Mulisch, in his novel The Assault, uses dark, lonely diction and imagery to create the isolation within the protagonists. The setting symbolizes how the protagonist’s isolation continues to enlarge throughout the book. At the beginning of both the novels, the setting is more open and light, which is compared to the characters’ isolation that is less bordered and complex. As the settings grow smaller and the characters become lonelier, Anton and Gregor’s isolation become more pronounced. Gregor is gradually becoming isolated by his family causing his transformation to progress rapidly, while Anton’s family is growing, but his isolation is conflicted upon himself, causing the setting to continue to encase them, emphasizing the effects that their isolation takes on them.
The beginning of “The Metamorphosis”, started with Gregor’s transformation and the reason behind it. Gregor shows his first signs of isolation while he was still a human, as a traveling salesman. Gregor isolated himself as he was always alone and away from his home and family when he was working “a grueling job [where he’s] in day, day out, on the road, [having] the torture of traveling… no relationships that last or get intimate” (Kafka 4). The setting at this point was symbolizing the freedom of being a human, but trapped within the city, as he must leave his family to work to provide for them. As the book progresses the setting changes along side with the protagonist. In the middle of the story, the setting symbolizes the progression of the protagonist’s isolation. Such as, Gregor has transformed into a roach and has been completely isolated from the outside world and his family, besides his sister. Aft...
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.... The setting causes Anton to shield himself from the ones he loves and to keep his feelings to himself, by slowly closing in on himself inch by inch, as he is afraid to love anyone and lose them as he did when he was younger.
Although Gregor differs from Anton, as he is being isolated by his own family and Anton isolates him from his own past, the both end up being alone and encased in their physical surroundings along with their mental thoughts. The setting plays a key role in the novels by connecting the surroundings in which showing how the protagonists isolate themselves from their own thoughts and memories from the people around them.
Works Cited
Kafka, Franz. “The Metamorphosis.” The Metamorphosis. Trans. And Ed. Stanley Corngold. New York: Bantam Books, 1972.
Mulisch, Harry. The Assault. Trans. Claire Nicolas White. New York: Pantheon Books, 1985.
Franz Kafka’s clear isolation of Gregor underlines the families’ separation from society. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka emphasizes Gregor’s seclusion from his family. However, Gregor’s separation is involuntary unlike the family who isolates themselves by the choices they make. Each family member has characteristics separating them from society. These characteristics become more unraveling than Gregor, displaying the true isolation contained in The Metamorphosis.
Thirdly, he suffers isolation from the physical world, which he is no longer able to participate in due to his presence and lack of mobility. Lastly, he suffers isolation from other people around him, especially his family. By the end even his sister, Grete, the most compassionate member of the family, explanations that they should stop thoughtful of the creature as the person they knew. She says that “the fact that we’ve believed it so long is the root of our trouble” (Kafka 48), which can be taken to mean that at some point Gregor stopped being a person not only because of his entrance but since of his non-conformist actions. The beating he receives from his father shows the extent of the cruelty he endures, though his father knows that “family duty compulsory the conquest of disgust and the use of endurance, nothing but patience” (Kafka 36). The tragedy is that this alienation ends up killing Gregor, who “dies not as a vermin, but as a human being thinking of his family”. The transformation is an indication of the breakdown of Gregor’s psyche and alienation within his self. The reader is not told how the transformation
The first and most evident example of alienation and isolation in the novel is Len...
into three Roman-numbered parts, with each section having its own climax. A number of themes run through the story, but at the center are the family relationships affected by the great change in the story's protagonist, Gregor Samsa. Grete,Gregor’s sister, undergoes a transformation parallel to her brother’s.
When comparing Franz Kafka and his personal life to The Metamorphosis it is obvious in more ways than one that he was writing a twisted story of his life. The emotional and physical abuse Gregor goes through are similar to what Kafka went through in real life. They were both abused and neglected by their fathers when they were disappointed with them. Kafka uses Gregor transforming into a bug as a way of exaggerating himself, trying to express his feelings and point of view. When writing, Kafka felt as if he was trapped in his room which he referred to as "the noise headquarters of the apartment". Gregor was an exaggeration of this because he could not leave the house to escape the noises and abuse.
Angus, Douglas. Kafka's Metamorphosis and "The Beauty and the Beast" Tale. The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, Vol. 53, No. 1. Jan., 1954, pp. 69-71. Print.
Gregor Samsa and Ivan Ilyich cast a light on the intolerable conditions they experience, which originate from the inability to fit in and have a connection with their surroundings. The incessant search for a place of belonging by both characters stems from what society and family thinks is standard; Ilyich and Gregor think they will find belonging if they follow society’s rules. Kafka must utilize Gregor’s metamorphosis or dehumanization to separate Gregor from the rest of the world. Likewise, Tolstoy utilizes Ivan Ilyich’s torment and suffering to separate himself from society, and thereby criticizes society for imposing conventional rules. Only through these comparisons and referrals to dehumanization suffering can the reader truly understand and empathize with the drastic alienation and agony experienced by both characters.
“Love is whatever you can still betray. Betrayal can only happen if you love.” John le Carr. The novel Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka is a story about the transformation of a man named Gregor who turned into a bug. The story takes place inside an apartment and describes the struggles Gregor goes through with his life and family. Throughout the entirety of the writing he is met with different challenges and obstacles. Grete, his sister and his parents have a unique bond that is not always the strongest. Gregor has not been close with his parents for awhile, but Grete especially at the beginning was the only person who truly cared about his predicament. This conflict results in the desertion of Gregor and the downfall of the family. These negatives compound, causing the his suicide. The Metamorphosis portrays how the betrayal of Gregor and Grete by their parents, and Gregor by his sister, leads to the demise of the family.
The story, Metamorphosis, is an unusual story to say the least. The very first sentence one meets the main character, Gregor Samsa. This sentence really shows how different this story is when compared to other books in this class. Throughout the story the author, Franz Kafka, wants the reader to sympathize with Gregor. ‘When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed’ (87), is the first sentence, and already the author wants the reader to feel sympathy for Gregor. This is no dream either, he is really a bug, and Kafka makes sure there is no confusion. This is just one of many examples that I will discuss where Kafka wants the reader to sympathize with Gregor.
The main existential themes/ideas in The Metamorphosis are absurdity and alienation/isolation as shown throughout Gregor and his life. The absurdity in life shows that anything strange can happen at any given time and “existing as a human is wholly absurd”. Isolation shows that one may have to conceal themselves from others due to several reasons. Throughout the novel, both absurdity and alienation are presented by Gregor Samsa when he turns into a bug and has to hide from his family when is occurs.
From the beginning of The Metamorphosis Kafka offers a comical depiction of Gregor’s “squirming legs” (Kafka 13) and a body in which “he could not control” (7). Gregor’s initial reaction to this situation was the fact he was late to his dissatisfying job as a salesman, but Gregor knows that he has to continue his job in order to keep the expectation his family holds upon him to pay of the family’s everlasting debt. When Gregor’s family eventually realizes that Gregor is still lying in his bed, they are confused because they have expectations on Gregor that he will hold the family together by working. They know if Gregor was to quit his job there would be a great catastrophe since he is the glue to keeping their family out of debt. The communication between his family is quickly identified as meager and by talking to each other from the adjacent walls shows their disconnection with each other. Kafka introduces the family as lacking social skills in order to offer the reader to criticize and sympathize for Gregor’s family dynamics. Gregor’s manager makes an appearance quickly after experiencing the dysfunction within the fami...
Conrad changes the environment to cause his protagonist struggles, and Kafka does the same but through internal contrasts. Kafka’s transformation of Gregor into a disgusting vermin causes doubt within him. These doubts place his family in a position where they lose any love and care they ever had in their son. On what should have been a normal morning, Gregor awoke and “found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 3). Gregor's surreal transformation forces him to doubt and deny anything happening around him.
Setting is an important part of any novel. It uses the surrounding of the world to move the plot forward by setting the boundaries by which the world lives. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka uses the setting to create a world that mirrors the perspective of Gregor’s new found form. By using this perspective to establish the boundaries of the world, Kafka sets up the world in which Gregor lives as one that is completely enveloped in Gregor’s transformation. To do this effectively, Kafka shrinks the world of Gregor from one in which he travels to one in which his entire world is a single apartment. This shrinking allows Kafka to make a microcosm of surreal reality. In creating the microcosm, Kafka uses the newfound smallness of Gregor’s world to create a claustrophobic and almost boring setting. This type of setting helps to express Gregor’s new self.
Using symbols, Kafka illustrates the story which is not just about Gregor’s transformation but it is more than that. The entire Metamorphosis is an allegory about Gregor changing into a vermin, symbolize that he wanted to free himself from his family obligation. “As Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 7). He thought his transformation was a dream but he soon realizes that it was reality. Gregor was the source of the income for his family and was employed in a job he did not like. “What a grueling profession I picked! Traveling day in, day out” (Kafka 7). This is ironic because Gregor was forced by his father to choose the alienated career. Mr. Samsa was indebted to his boss; working as a traveling salesman he would have pay off his father debt. Working as traveling salesman made Gregor alienated socially and mentally. The word transformation does not only app...
As Gregor peers out from his room, he looks at the opposite wall. There hung a photograph of Gregor from his time in the military service as a lieutenant. The picture of Gregor in the living room is a shell of what he used to be. Since the time of his service, Gregor has changed from a happy, carefree man, to a depressed, isolated man, to a monstrous bug that is even more of a misunderstood, lonely