In Franz Kafka’s novel The Metamorphosis, the reader is told the story of a hard working business man, by the name of Gregor Samsa, who one day wakes up to a problem that changes his life. The readers are automatically hooked with the first line where Gregor is waking up from restless dreams to find that he has turned into a “monstrous verminous bug” overnight. As he struggles to move around and go back to sleep, to try and forget the situation, he starts to think of his job and how it has taken over his life but he cannot leave it because of his parent’s debt that he is trying to pay off. With the repetitive motifs of money and food, the story goes around the themes of alienation and the absurdity of life. The reader sees these themes being used when Gregor’s change happens. He isolates himself in his room without being able to speak to anyone if need be and when his sister, Grete, does go into his room to change his food and tidy the place up, he hides under the couch, with a blanket over him, so that his sister does not get …show more content…
The family tries to keep them from finding out the secret so that they don’t get scared and leave. Once the lodgers see Gregor they immediately grab their stuff and leave, causing Gregor’s family to lose the chance at getting money. Relative to this conflict is the one of John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Proctor has committed adultery and has been keeping it a secret from everyone. When he finally tells the truth about the affair he is too late and ends up being called a liar and then accused of witchcraft by the court. His attempt at honesty backfires and destroys him. The way both Proctor and Gregor’s family try to keep a secret for their own benefit and when the truth comes out it backfires on them shows an example of external
Thesis: The similarities between Gregor Samsa's physical transformation and my chronically ill uncle, how both experienced the inability to communicate with family members, all of the changes that occur in their lives, with their family, jobs and physical appearance after the transformation. Gregor Samsa and my uncle Carlos, went to bed and woke up different physically and mentally without a clear explanation of why this happened.
First and foremost Gregor was betrayed by his own parents who failed to care for him after his transformation. The initial reaction of the parents, especially his father, set the tone for the whole novel. Instead of trying to resolve the issue with a reasonable solution, his father physically abuses him, “when from behind, his father gave him a hard
In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the style enhances the nightmarish quality of the work. Kafka's detached tone makes the phrase “from the burning pain he felt that the lower part of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive.” seem uncaring. The story contains a lack of empathy or remorse and, in a sense, it makes the reader feel isolated from the story as if what is happening to Gregor is a strange dream. Additionally, Gregor is obviously struggling physically to maneuver in his new transformation “But it became difficult after that, especially as he was so exceptionally broad.” Kafka makes no attempt to soften this sentence in any way, he states everything literally. The fact that nothing is 'cushioned' or 'sugar coated' as
As one reads The Metamorphosis, Grete's change and development in character is evident throughout each part of the story. Through several of her actions, as well as information given by both Gregor and the author, Grete undergoes her own metamorphosis from a seemingly young, light, fragile child, to a beautiful, mature, strong woman.
The idea that “Humankind is disconnected from reality,” is set in stone by Kafka when he writes about the transformation of Gregor’s families’ lives, and his own. The Samsa’s treated Gregor simply as a means to get out of debt, although the reader comes to realize later that the family was not as bad off as Gregor had believed. Also, the father returns back to work after Gregor cannot, which proves that his disability not nearly as severe as he had Gregor believed. Although Gregor is the family member that turns into a bug, he remains the only one of them to retain humanity. The family cannot grasp that the bug in the bedroom is Gregor, their son and brother. They disconnect themselves from him, forgetting that they have known him his entire life, and once perhaps loved him. After his metamorphosis, Gregor became the member of the family in need, yet instead of helping him, as he helped them, Gregor became a burden to the family. The family, especially the father and mother do not make an attempt...
In Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, the character Gregor transforms from a man into a bug, specifically a cockroach. Although Gregor physically changes, he does not change as a person. Gregor merely accepts his new condition as a bug and his family’s continuous abuse and hostility. Gregor’s acceptance of his new bug form is representative of his passive personality before and after his transformation. Gregor’s passivity, in response to the hostile world around him, causes his eventual downfall. Therefore, Kafka uses the character Gregor to exemplify how a passive attitude can cause one’s demise.
Franz Kafka, in his novel The Metamorphosis, explores two conflicting ideas through his protagonist Gregor: unity and isolation. Gregor’s transformation created a whole life of distress for him, but on the other hand also formed a deeper and better relationship for the rest of the family.
Kafka used the constant setting of the Samsa household to show the true repercussions of the metamorphosis. It is here that Gregor is truly dehumanized. No longer can he stand the taste of what used to be his favorite dish. He is reduced to a vermin who feeds on rotted, decaying food and who finds the presence of fresh food repulsing. The very means by which he sustained himself is not fit for a human, but rather for a dependent beast.
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.
Franz Kafka was not Jewish; Franz Kafka was not Czech, Franz Kafka only identified himself by his own perception of life, and a reality of his own creation. Kafka's family, a prosperous middle class home of economic strivers, embraced the German Jewish circles of Prague, seeking to assimilate with language and Jewish culture. Kafka, in the traditional manner he is remembered, was born into a middle class Czech family in Prague however; he most memorably reflects his personal alienation from cultural and famial identity throughout his literary works. Kafka also strove to identify away from the bonds of economic status and ethnic representation, as he rejected his Jewish heritage, even though his three sisters would die in a German concentration camp.
In general, Gregor has little influence in the lives of others. Being a commercial traveler, he doesn’t get the opportunity to develop meaningful relationships with people outside of his family. As Gregor describes it, he has “…casual acquaintances that are always new and never become intimate friends” (90). He also does little not pertaining to his work or family, and makes no attempts to reach out to others. His mother even says, “The boy thinks about nothing but his work. It makes me almost cross the way he never goes out in the evenings…” (95). Without additional interaction, Gregor is not important in the lives of people outside of work and family, making his effect on other negligible, like an insect’s. Furthermore, despite how vital work is in Gregor’s life, he holds a very inconsequential position in the office. As Gregor appeals with the chief clerk to give him the benefit of the doubt, he admits that “travelers are not popular” because they are “never seen in the office almost the whole year around” (101). Gregor desperately tries to plead with the clerk to let him keep his job because he is aware that he is replaceable. This shows that Gregor lacks significance even when he is working towards his all-consuming goal of supporting his family. It is possible to say that the only place Gregor has influence is in his own home, with
The Metamorphosis is said to be one of Franz Kafka's best works of literature. It shows the difficulties of living in a modern society and the struggle for acceptance of others when in a time of need. In this novel Kafka directly reflects upon many of the negative aspects of his personal life, both mentally and physically. The relationship between Gregor and his father is in many ways similar to Franz and his father Herrman. The Metamorphosis also shows resemblance to some of Kafka's diary entries that depict him imagining his own extinction by dozens of elaborated methods. This paper will look into the text to show how this is a story about the author's personal life portrayed through his dream-like fantasies.
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.”
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...
Analysis of the story “The Metamorphosis”, by Franz Kafka was written back in the early 1900’s, but reflected a more modern way of thinking and lifestyle of today. Gregor felt that he was a slave to his job, isolated from his co-workers, and misunderstood by his family. Although that is the norm in today’s society, it was not the norm back then. In the story Gregor finds himself transformed into a cockroach and his internal struggles become a permanent reality. Kafka’s choice of the family member to play the role of the cockroach was necessary in portraying the curse of the working man only living each day in hurried lifestyle with no freedom.