What Is The Theme Of The Metamorphosis By Granz Kafka

The Metamorphosis is one of seventeen works Kafka had published. The rest of his manuscripts he ordered to be destroyed when he died. The Metamorphosis published in 1915 is a popular work that is interesting to say the least and everything readers have come to expect from Franz Kafka. The story takes a look at humanity and the lack there of. Isolation also plays a role in the overall theme of the story. Analysis of Gregor’s character reveals an inner version of Kafka, his emotions and vulnerabilities in this twisted tale. Humans need and require other human contact constantly working does not allow a person to build any sort of lasting meaningful relationship or connection. Franz Kafka built post mortem relationships with the world on a

Many comparisons can be inferred between the main character of Gregor and the author himself, Franz Kafka. The Metamorphosis would represent a time in Kafka’s life where he had been through many similar situations as Gregor, but with a fictional spin. A description of Gregor’s mother is provided when the author states that, “She senselessly ran backwards forgetting that behind her stood the table with all the dishes on it; arriving at the table, she (as if she were absent –minded )” (28). The words “senseless”, “forgetting”, and “absent –minded” relate to the character description of Kafka’s own mother Julie who it is said that, “She lacked the intellectual depth to understand her son” (A&E). Kafka’s father Hermann is described as “a forceful tyrant with a temper, and little appreciation for his son’s creativity” (A&E). The father of Gregor is also shown with a terrible temper throughout the book, but especially in chapter two when the book says that “Gregor stood still in terror and further running was useless because the father had decided to bombard him” (48). The two fathers were also compared in the glossary at the back of the book where it says that “He, (Gregor’s father), is imposingly large, as was Kafka’s own father”

This is the first conflict that derails from the philosophical idea of existentialism where in an individual person is responsible for determining their own destiny through acts of free will. Since the determination of Gregor being an autobiographical form of Kafka can be assumed through character comparisons. It can also be assumed that Kafka was peeling away his own layer of humanity during the time he wrote this around the age of thirty. Kafka was quoted saying that “A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die” (Gregor). No one understands Gregor and no one understands Kafka. Gregor cannot communicate with human words, because he is no longer human and therefore his parents do not understand him. Kafka’s mind is not understood by his parents and therefore there is a block in the communication between what he wants to do with his life and what his parents want him to do with his life. Communications and the ability to choose our own path in life is a characteristic of being human. The inability to do this in the author’s own life shows in his portrayal of