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Literary analysis of the metamorphosis
Literary analysis of the metamorphosis
Position of women in societal literature
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Morphing Into a Feminist; Feminist aspects in Franz Kafka’s Story Although Franz Kafka’s reading are not known to be sexist, some of the characters in his book “The Metamorphosis” reflect the views of the time in 1917. The female characters of the book present the stereotypical view of women as weak caregivers whose only value to their family lies in their ability to marry wealthy men. There is evidence to prove these statements throughout, such as Gregor being the only means of income for his sister’s future, how he is the only one who works, and how he gets cast aside by his parents and sister when he cannot work. During the beginning of the story, Gregor, the main character wakes up to find himself as a bug. He is the sole supporter of his family, so he worries about getting to work. Because he woke up late, the chief clerk and his family show up to see what is wrong. When his mother first sees him she gets very scared and runs away. “This set his mother screaming anew, she fled from the table and into the arms of his father” (Kafka 10). This shows how weak and scared his ...
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.
Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is so strikingly absurd that it has engendered countless essays dissecting every possible rational and irrational aspect of the book. One such essay is entitled "Kafka's Obscurity" by Ralph Freedman in which he delves down into the pages of The Metamorphosis and ferrets out the esoteric aspects of Kafka's writing. Freedman postulates that Gregor Samsa progresses through several transformations: a transformation of spatial relations, a transformation of time, and a transformation of self consciousness, with his conscious mutation having an antithetical effect on the family opposite to that of Gregor. His conjectures are, for the most part, fairly accurate; Gregor devolves in both his spatial awareness and his consciousness. However, Freedman also asserts that after Gregor's father throws the wounding apple, Gregor loses his sense of time. While his hypothesis certainly appears erudite and insightful, there really is no evidence within the book itself to determine whether if Gregor has a deteriorating sense of time. If Freedman had only written about Gregor's spatial and conscious degradation, then his entire thesis would be accurate.
One morning, Gregor wakes up from his dream to realize he has completely mutated into a bug. Due to this physical change in his life, he phases out different experiences with each of his family members. In which he alienates himself and his family because of his new appearance. In fact, he has a lot of care towards his family. He actually works hard to support them, pay off their debt, and tries to keep them as comfortable as possible.
Gregor Samsa’s mother, whose name is never revealed, is a physically and constitutionally weak woman. She cares dearly for Gregor which is first shown by her distress as Gregor does not wake up at his usual time. It is evident that Gregor’s mother has the hardest time coping with his transformation. She can not bear to lay eyes upon Gregor. Though she has trouble adjusting, she doesn’t stop loving her only son. As Gregor’s mother and sister begin to move furniture out of his room, his mother stops to contemplate whether this is the right course of action. As Sheldon Goldfarb states in his critical essay, “When his mother and sister start removing his furniture, his mother's second thoughts provoke him to resist: he does not want to give up his human past and the possibility of returning to it” (Goldfarb). On the outside, Gregor’s mother reacts with repulsion at the sight of the bug, but on the inside still cares deeply about her son underneath. Gregor is able to see this and it gives him new hope.
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.
There is a theory that dream and myth are related which is conveyed through the writing of Douglas Angus’ Kafka's Metamorphosis and "The Beauty and the Beast" Tale and supported by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. The stories are very symbolic when conveying the metamorphosis of a human being. Unlike Beauty and the Beast, in the Metamorphosis some suggest love is received through acts of cruelty yet in actuality it appears that cruelty results in heartache. Due to being a beast, the repulsiveness requires genuine love which can achieve the “magical transformation.” This “magical transformation” is not achieved and creates a twist in the plot derived from the concepts in the “Beauty and the Beast.”
Kafka’s The Metamorphosis takes on an wide variety of main themes. One of the most important of these is the collapse of morality and mercy, even among those people who are expected to be most fair and compassionate. Gregor’s metamorphosis is indeed terrible, but more terrible still is the psychological corruption of Gregor’s family. Their inability to adapt to the changes that have occurred signal a total breakdown in the family structure, and offer a cautionary tale about the fragility of notions of justice and mercy and how a certain change can change a persons perception of them.
When first reading a story about a family, the reader typically thinks of the perfect usually family that is portrayed in many movies and television shows to come. The father works and loves his family, the mother is a stay-at-home mom and takes care of the whole family, the son goes to college to make a life for himself, and the daughter goes to school and excels in everything she does. In the short novel The Metamorphosis written by Franz Kafka, the family is not portrayed in this way. The father stays at home and is abusive not only physically but emotionally as well, the mother does stay home but only to take care of the father, their son Gregor is the breadwinner of the family but he has no say in anything, and the daughter Grette stays in her room to avoid trouble. Kafka wrote all of his stories to express his emotions, but The Metamorphosis expressed it on a whole new level by
One of the saddest aspects of Franz Kafka's novella, The Metamorphosis, concerns the fact that young Gregor Samsa genuinely cares about this family, working hard to support them, even though they do little for themselves. On the surface, Kafka's 1916 novella, seems to be just a tale of Gregor morphing into a cockroach, but a closer reading with Marx and Engels' economic theories , unveils an impressive metaphor that gives the improbable story a great deal of relevance to the structure of Marxist society. Gregor, the protagonist, denotes the proletariat, or the working class, and his unnamed manager represents the bourgeoisie. The conflict, that arises between the two after Gregor's metamorphosis, contributes to his inability to work. This expresses the impersonal and dehumanizing structure of class relations. Kafka's prose emphasizes the economic effects on human relationships, therefore, by analyzing the images of Gregor, we can gain insight into many of the ideas the writer is trying to convey.
After Gregor wakes up and realizes that he has been transformed into a bug, he starts to worry about how he will go to work in order to provide for his family. He debates about calling in sick as he thinks ”The chief himself would be sure
In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, the author seeks to reveal experiences that all living creatures confront, from the complexity of a human being to the simplicity of a cockroach. Kafka uses his protagonist to represent primal instincts that relate to masculinity, which is shown most significantly through Gregor’s obsession with a photograph of a woman dressed in fur. The photograph reflects certain elements of life that all masculine organisms desire, regardless of their species type or specific habitat.
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...
house. This way of narrating it is very opened to us, and makes us feel like we
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.
On the surface, Franz Kafka's 1916 novella, The Metamorphosis, seems to be just a tale of a man who woke up one morning to find himself transformed into an insect. But, a closer reading with Marx and Engel's economic theories in mind reveals an overarching metaphor that gives the improbable story a great deal of relevance to the structure of society. Gregor Samsa, the protagonist, signifies the proletariat, or the working class, and his unnamed manager represents the bourgeoisie. The conflict that arises between the two after Gregor's metamorphosis renders him unable to work represents the impersonal and dehumanizing structure of class relations. The metaphor of the story can be divided into three main parts (although they overlap within the story.) First, Kafka establishes the characters and the economic classes which they represent. Then, he details Gregor's metamorphosis and the way in which it impedes his labor. Finally, he describes the final results of the worker's inability to work: abandonment by his family and death. Although a man cannot literally be transformed into an insect, he can, for one reason or another, become unable to work. Kafka's novella, therefore, is a fantastic portrayal of a realistic scenario and provides us with a valuable insight into the struggles between economic classes.