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Literary Theories in the Metamorphosis
Literary Theories in the Metamorphosis
Literary Theories in the Metamorphosis
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The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is the story of Gregor Samsa, his turning into a bug, and his ultimate death. In the beginning of the novel Gregor wakes up as a bug and struggles to become used to his new body. Gregor is locked in his room and late for work; he is the only one who works in his family, so it is important that he shows up and earns money to pay off his parents debts. His office manager shows up wondering where he has been and everyone is shocked to see Gregor’s transformation when he finally makes his way out of his room. Upon seeing him, his father shoves him forcefully back into the room, scraping Gregor’s back. Grete, Gregor’s sister, is his primary caretaker throughout the book and she makes certain he is receiving the food he wants and is the only one to clean his room for him. Gregor’s mother and father do not pay much attention to him at all throughout the book. The mother occasionally checks on him, but can barely stand the sight of him. Eventually, Grete starts working and stops taking care of him too, leaving Gregor all by himself. Betrayal is evident in The Metamorphosis and contributes to …show more content…
Gregor’s life slowly ends due to the betrayal of his his loved ones. He feels bad once his parents betray him and he feels he is an inconvenience. Then his sister is too busy and exhausted for him and he has nobody to help him or bring him food. Lastly, with nobody left Gregor betrays himself by simply allowing himself to die. Betrayal contributes a lot to this book as it is evident in every part of Gregor’s downfall. If Gregor’s family did not betray him, maybe they could have found him help to get better and back to normal. He also could have learned how to cope with his metamorphosis and lived with it everyday, however; Gregor’s family did betray him, and it slowly led him to end his life by starving
Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to discover that he has been transformed into a repugnant vermin. One may never know what initiated this makeover, but the simple truth is that Gregor is now a bug, and everyone must learn to live and move on in this strenuous situation. In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, the characters that interact with Gregor, including his mother, his father, and his sister Grete, must come to terms with his unfortunate metamorphosis, and each does so by reacting in a unique way. Gregor’s family members are constantly strained by this unusual event, and all three of them are pressed to their breaking point.
In this story the "deaths" of Gregor serve to make obvious where he really stands in the family, and what the real situation is. If he had not turned into a bug and ultimately died, neither he nor the family would have ever known that what he was doing for them wasn't really helping them. Gregor's deaths also showed that the family didn't really care that much about him, and weren't that grateful for his sacrifices. It brings out the contrast between what Gregor was willing to do for his family (die) and what his family was willing to do for him (not very much). They wanted to get rid of him once his condition started demanding too much from them.
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.”
Similar to the woman in Gilman's story, Gregor, in "The Metamorphosis," watches as his life slowly deteriorates. He woke up one morning to find himself to have taken the shape of a bug. But early on he tried to continue in his normal activities; he focused on how he was going to make it to the train station so he did not miss his train, and how his employer would be upset with his absence from work. Then he begins to realize that he is a bug, and he cannot live his life the same way he used to. His sister begins to take care of him, and he loses touch with everything human that he used to know. His mother and father take away all of his furniture and other possessions. Gregor's family come to the agreement that the bug must be eliminated, it...
“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.
Gregor’s relationship with his father shows resemblance to the relationship between Kafka and his father. Kafka, as a child, suffered abuse from his father. Kafka viewed his father as a forceful monster, which resembles Gregor’s father. Gregor wanted nothing more than the love of his family, especially his father, just as Kafka had wanted. His reason for writing “The Metamorphosis” could also relate to the situation which he lived in. He was a Jew raised in Austro-Hungarian Empire, modern day Czech Republic. He was a Jew in an area of the world which Jews were not well accepted. Gregor was described as cockroach, something that Jew were often equated to during this time period. Jews were treated like vermin, they were thought of a creature that was to be rid of. Gregor experienced similar treatment from his family. They discussed leaving or getting rid of Gregor during the story. Experiences of Gregor are similar to those that Jews would have experienced during Kafka’s life. “The Metamorphosis” could also demonstrate the issues that normal people face every day. People face trials and tribulations every day that change their lives dramatically, nobody has ever been transformed into a bug, but it does represent the extreme circumstances that may
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.
As people, we are needy creatures. We are needy to things like our environment, our social position, finanical problems, and new challenges we have to face. When our surroundings change, we must change too. We are compelled to develop and to adjust to our new surroundings. We must figure out how to live with our new conditions. These challenges are faced within Franz Kafka short story “Metamorphosis”. Metamorphosis is a significant change in the presence or character of somebody or something. Gregor Samsa is the protagonist who undergoes this metamorphosis by transforming into an insect. Gregors change also impacts his family as they change towards him being an insect. In Nina Pelikan Straus critic essay “Transforming Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis” shows a feminist reading of “Metamorphosis” that shows the importance of Gregor's sister, Grete Samsa, in this essay. She has stand with Grete is the character who undergoes a transformation of becoming a better person in exchange of Gregor who losses everything in his life. She agrees that “For Kafka there can be no change without an exchange, no blooming of Grete without Gregor’s withering; nor can the meaning of transformation entail final closure that prevents furthur transformations” (658) The points that validates Straus point is that feminism plays a major role in how Grete transformation overrides Gregors transformation. Straus point that Grete transformation is what assumes the significant part in Kafkas "Transformation", is not the real part. It is Gregor who is the one going through a major transformation. Kafkas point is to show that Gregor changed into one of the most minimal and scorned creatures, with the the goal to show how it impacts his surroundings.
In the novella “The Metamorphosis”, Franz Kafka focuses on the topic of alienation and considers its underlying effect on the human consciousness and self-identity. The alienation Kafka instigates is propagated towards the main character Gregor Samsa, who inevitably transforms into a giant cockroach. The alienation by family relations affects him to the extent that he prioritizes his extensive need to be the family’s provider before his own well-being. This overwhelming need to provide inevitably diminishes Gregor’s ability to be human-like. Kafka also enforces the idea of the ability to resurrect one’s self-identity following psychologically demanding events. In this essay, I utilize Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis to address that alienation, in its various forms, is instrumental in the dehumanization process and can also oppositely induce a restoration of self-identity. The metamorphosis acts as a metaphor to express the inhumane change of state that occurs to a victim of alienation; it also formulates Gregor’s epiphany. He suffers through three forms of alienation: exploitation, violence, and neglect. The joint presence of these three external forces deprives him of a human distinctiveness, but in turn, influences a final realization that enforces the restoration of his self-identity, and therefore human identity.
The story of The Metamorphosis starts out simply, with a human waking up no longer human, but rather like a giant bug. This existential novella is filled with absurdity, as well as betrayal. When Gregor Samsa, the main character, wakes up one day as a bug, his first priority is getting to his job, in order to make money to support his family. But as the story goes on, he is betrayed by the family he loves so much, but worse, he betrays who he is as a person. Betrayal in the novella The Metamorphosis contributes to the overall message of the story that anyone will betray you, regardless of whether they are family, enemies, or even yourself, through showing the actions of Gregor’s father towards Gregor, Grete’s actions against Gregor, and Gregor’s own actions against himself and his family.
The story, Metamorphosis, is an unusual story to say the least. The very first sentence one meets the main character, Gregor Samsa. This sentence really shows how different this story is when compared to other books in this class. Throughout the story the author, Franz Kafka, wants the reader to sympathize with Gregor. ‘When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed’ (87), is the first sentence, and already the author wants the reader to feel sympathy for Gregor. This is no dream either, he is really a bug, and Kafka makes sure there is no confusion. This is just one of many examples that I will discuss where Kafka wants the reader to sympathize with Gregor.
Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is a short story written during the nineteenth century that took place during the Modernist Era. The novella was not meant to be published because Franz Kafka specifically told his close friend that he wants his work to be burned. When Kafka suffered from tuberculosis and passed away, his close friend, Max Brod reviewed his work. He thought Kafka's work was brilliant and decided to published his work. Gregor Samsa’s transformation into a vermin has shown the lost of humanity in which it will show the similarity between the main character and the narrator as well as the impact Gregor Samsa’s loved ones have on him.
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 in a time of need. From this story, one is able to infer that suffering is a necessary component of life. Gregor Samsa, the protagonist, was plagued with the metamorphosis that occurred one morning while he was awaking to prepare himself for work, as a traveling salesman. It is his metamorphosis that’ll set the ball rolling for post events that take place throughout the novel. In modern societies, one who usually feels an obligation to an unpleasant task and one who has others dependant on them often translate into the concept of them being those who have a sense of purpose. Hard work and self-sacrifice are two examples of what often enable us to have reverence and respect for people. It is almost as if it is a human need that makes one feel venerable. Part of Gregor’s reason for this need was because he needed to pay off his parent's debt; Kafka lets the readers understand this very quickly from the starting of the book. It is this need which was Gregor's motivation for pulling through a job which he despised so much. The metamorphosis has disabled him from fulfilling this particular need, and when he later hears of his family's decision that he is in no way a human being and must be gotten rid of, he realizes that this need will be unattainable forever, he then completely gives up on hope and dies. Kafka was able to portray these societal constructs of normality and venerability through his usages of motifs and centralized themes in order to dehumanize Gregor and force the rest of his family to undergo metamorphoses as well.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is a gloomy tale about a young man, Gregor Samsa, who transformed into a bug. He is endowed with human pathos among heartless characters that continue to alienate him, even after his physical transformation that left him unrecognizable by the people closest to him. His metamorphosis is an extension of the alienation he already felt as a person by his family. Gregor soon realizes that the very people you help, often leave you helpless.