Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis is a Reflection about Himself

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Have you ever experience a time when you just wanted to vent out your problems, your thought and opinion about your life but succumb to the fact that even the act of venting will not do you justice or help resolve the issues? Or have you ever felt a time when you wanted to express how you feel but instead, you bit your tongue to stop your comments from portraying you in a negative light, or that your truth will cause the people, the ones that matters, to be in a whole lot of hurt? This was the case of Franz Kafka; his inability to physically express his opinions to his family in reality, lead him to intellectually pursue his thoughts and relationship into the imaginary, his writings, as displayed in his short novella, “Metamorphosis.” Due to Kafka's life background and the nature of his society in the beginning of twentieth century in Prague, his only and main outlet in expressing his thoughts were to put them down onto paper. As a result, Kafka utilizes these two elements to satirize his internal thoughts into fiction. Although his stories are label as fiction, beyond its contextual interpretation, his stories are a reflection of his life. Needless to say, the most apparent factors that bleed through “Metamorphosis” are Kafka’s life relationship with his family and how he saw himself within that dynamic. Therefore, we can imply that the protagonist Gregor Samsa in “Metamorphosis” can well be the embodiment of Kafka himself. However, because the novella was written in fictional form, where taking the impossible of reality and making it possible, it can be hard to relate the interaction among characters to Kafka real life relation to his family. None the less, through the lens of biographical criticism in the analysis of “Metam... ... middle of paper ... ...e it heard. In addition, allowing us, the readers, to better comprehend the extraordinary element of Gregor’s transformation as the personification of his rejected creative mind by his family. Works Cited 1. Eikhenbaum, Boris. “The Theory of the Forma Method.” Literature:Craft and Voice. 2nd eds. Nicholas Delbanco and Alan Cheuse. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2012. 1568-1569. Print 2. Friedländer, Saul. Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt. New Haven: Yale UP, 2013. Print. 3. Guerin, Wilfred L., Earle G. Labor, Lee Morgan, and John R. Willingham. A Handbook of Critical Approaches to Literature. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. 5-6. Print. 4. Kafka, Franz. Franz Kafka: The Writings and Diaries. London: Heinemann Octopus, 1976. Print. 5. Kafka, Franz. Metamorphosis. Trans. David Wyllie. Unknown publication, 2002.10 March 2014 < http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5200. >

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