Araby & Metamorphosis
In today's time rather than knowing if an action is right, individuals act upon circumstances that they think is right. In short stories, James Joyce writes about a young boy in "Araby" and Franz Kafka writes about Gregor Samsa in "Metamorphosis". Both characters face internal and external problems throughout these stories, also sharing similarities and differences throughout. The young boy falls for his friends sister Mangan, who makes his life an illusion by her being the person he is caught up with. Gregor Samsa transforms into an enormous insect, which makes it difficult for him to cope with his normal family. Unfortunately things these characters consider that will take place next, took the opposite direction. This results to their downfall, by both characters failing by suffering isolation and alienation. The young boy is isolated with reality and is alienated with his home town. Gregor Samsa is isolated from himself by not knowing what to do as he is an insect, and creates him to be alienated from his family. The young boy and Gregor Samsa are both trying to find there way out of the isolation and alienation they face, by trying to find who they really are before all of these changes took place to them.
“Araby" by James Joyce, doesn’t identify the protagonist with a name. This shows that the young boy has no sense of who he is and causes him isolation to find out who he is. This story beings with a description of the setting with a mood of loneliness and darkness. “An uninhabited house of two storeys stood at the blind end…the other houses of the street, conscious of decent lives within them, gazed at one another with brown imperturbable faces” (107). This shows that the young boy lives on a ...
... middle of paper ...
...rth" (Kafka 147). Gregor’s death depicts his failure of him dying alone in his room. He was isolated with his normal life and aliented with his family which created him to have no one to be with where as he died with nothing to live for anymore. In conclusion, the young boy and Gregor Samsa wanted happiness within their lives but ended up as the opposite. The paths that these characters wanted to go in only lasted them for a certain time. The young boy was able to talk to Mangans sister but then at the end it was just a lesson learnt for him by going to Araby. Gregor Samsa was able to cooperate with his family as an insect but that only lasted a while until he became a burden to his family. It shows that these characters were isolated from who they were in the mind and then alienated by who they wanted to please the most, as in Mangns sister and Gregor’s family.
Society also has expectations of Gregor that he cannot escape even when he is locked up in the room that eventually becomes his grave. On one of his agonizing sleepless nights he is still thinking of his workday and of people he mingles with on a daily basis. He realizes that instead of helping him and his family, they were all inaccessible and he was glad when they faded away(Kafka 43). Gregor receives no help from the society that he is so loyal to.
I read “the metamorphosis” by Kafka about 10 years ago, and really did not enjoy the book at that time. I have never considered that a book about a bug could be so appealing and full of deep meaning and thoughts. But I changed my viewpoint after reading the book again, I felt a strong connection with the main character in the book. Right away I noticed how extremely similar in many aspects, Gregor Samsa story sound like what my uncle went through when he became ill, but, yet also have unique differences.
“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.
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.
... treated wrong, he becomes “filled with anger over the wretched care that he was getting” (Kafka 71). Gregor realizes that he can’t rely on anyone but himself. Everything that one does in his or her lifetime is should be to achieve self-fulfillment. An individual fulfilling his or her own needs is essential for them to live a satisfied life and meaningful life. No one else can bring meaning into a person’s life
Gregor constantly made serious efforts to be a part of his family mentally, even when he could not be physically. Kafka describes the image of Gregor “press[ing] his whole body against [the door]” in hopes of “hear[ing] any news....
Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is a masterfully written short story about Gregor Samsa, a man who devotes his life to his family and work, for nothing in return. Only when he is transformed into a helpless beetle does he begin to develop a self-identity and understanding of the relationships around him. The underlying theme of The Metamorphosis is an existential view that says any given choice will govern the later course of a person's life, and that the person has ultimate will over making choices. In this case, Gregor?s lack of identity has caused him to be numb to everything around him.
Franz Kafka illustrates in his book the struggle that most humans have throughout their life: ‘Who am I?’ He demonstrates this through his radical and exaggerated formation of The Metamorphosis, a man becoming a bug; or a bug always thinking he was a man, then realizing that he is and always has been a bug. This bug, Gregor Samsa, goes through an immense psychological realization at the beginning of the book; he had been deceived by his own mind from the beginning of his life. Throughout Gregor’s Metamorphosis, Gregor experiences the loss of his self actualization, recognition, belonging, security, and physiological needs. His situation had taken away all the basic psychological needs of any human as illustrated by Maslow’s Hierarchy of
People want their family to love and support them during times of need, but if they are unable to develop this bond with their family members, they tend to feel alone and depressed. In the novel The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Kafka describes the theme of alienation and its negative effect on people and their relationships with the people around them. This theme can be shown through Gregor Samsa, the main character in The Metamorphosis. After Gregor’s metamorphosis, or transformation, he is turned from a human being into a giant bug which makes him more and more distant from the people in his life. The alienation that Gregor experiences results in his eventual downfall, which could and would happen to anyone else who becomes estranged from the people around them. Gregor’s alienation and its effect on his relationship with his family can be shown through his lack of willing interaction with his family members due to his inability to communicate to them, the huge burden he puts on the family after his metamorphosis, and his family’s hope to get rid of him because he is not who he was before.
Although “Araby” is a fairly short story, author James Joyce does a remarkable job of discussing some very deep issues within it. On the surface it appears to be a story of a boy's trip to the market to get a gift for the girl he has a crush on. Yet deeper down it is about a lonely boy who makes a pilgrimage to an eastern-styled bazaar in hopes that it will somehow alleviate his miserable life. James Joyce’s uses the boy in “Araby” to expose a story of isolation and lack of control. These themes of alienation and control are ultimately linked because it will be seen that the source of the boy's emotional distance is his lack of control over his life.
In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka manifests naïveté of Gregor Samsa by prolonging his realization of societal banishment due to underexposure. Revelations made by Samsa later prove his ignorance of his purpose in the eyes of his family. In addition to the many instances in which Gregor is trialed, Kafka’s continuous stream of distractions mimic Gregor’s persona.
In Franz Kafka’s short story, Metamorphosis, the idea of existentialism is brought out in a subtle, yet definite way. Existentialism is defined as a belief in which an individual is ultimately in charge of placing meaning into their life, and that life alone is meaningless. They do not believe in any sort of ultimate power and focus much of their attention on concepts such as dread, boredom, freedom and nothingness. This philosophical literary movement emerged in the twentieth-century, when Kafka was establishing his writing style in regards to alienation and distorted anxiety. A mirror to his own personal lifestyle, this story follows the short and sad life of a man unable to break out of the bonds society has placed on him. These bonds are not only evident in the work place, but at home too. Being constantly used and abused while in his human form, Gregor’s lifestyle becomes complicated once he becomes a giant insect and is deemed useless. Conflicts and confusion arise primarily between Gregor and his sister Grete, his parents, and his work. Each of these three relationships has different moral and ethical complications defining them. However, it is important for one to keep in mind that Gregor’s metamorphosis has placed him into a position of opposition, and that he has minimal control over the events to take place. Conflicts will also occur between family members as they struggle with the decision of what to do with Gregor. In the end they all come to the agreement that maintaining his uselessness is slowly draining them and they must get rid of him.
In The Metamorphosis Kafka illustrates a grotesque story of a working salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking up one day to discover that his body resembles a bug. Through jarring, almost unrealistic narration, Kafka opens up the readers to a view of Gregor’s futile and disappointing life as a human bug. By captivating the reader with this imaginary world Kafka is able to introduce the idea that Gregor’s bug body resembles his human life. From the use of improbable symbolism Kafka provokes the reader to believe that Gregor turning into a bug is realistic and more authentic compared to his unauthentic life as a human.
Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in The Metamorphosis, brought society against him when he questioned his life as a travelling salesperson. Social expectations had put him in his place, but he decided, that it was not the place for him. His wish to remove all social burdens from his shoulders, first show to him through his transformation into a `monstrous vermin. The Metamorphosis is narrated in third person where the reader receives an unbiased view of Gregor Samsa's attempts to become existentialist. Gregor Samsa wakes to a new set of ideas, and he sees himself torn of the external sign of a human with all the assumptions and presumptions of men. He must then choose some different assumptions, ultimately making his own choices and not being drawn down by the consequences of his actions. This way of thinking that Samsa resorts to leads to his feelings of existentialism,
In The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, Gregor’s evolution to an insect symbolizes the loss of thorough communication, representing the disconnection of the individual from his family and his surroundings. Through this metamorphosis, the once loving family begins to remove itself from any past interactions with Gregor. In addition, the setting and surroundings of Gregor completely overcome him and persuade him to lose hope. The family and surroundings, not the change to an insect, lead Gregor towards death. Not only do the uncontrollable surroundings change Gregor, but so does the family.