Kafka's Metamorphosis

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In the novel, The Metamorphosis, the author, Franz Kafka, reflects the opinions and experiences of his life into the story by using Gregor Samsa, a traveling businessman, and other characters like Samsa’s father and mother to show the struggles he had throughout his existence. Kafka shows his beliefs about work and jobs in society by making Gregor share his thoughts on this topic. Another aspect of Gregor’s life that is similar to Kafka’s is their relationships with their families, and especially their fathers. The two character’s strangeness and their health are also two other issues that affect both of their lives.
Kafka dislikes his work and jobs and he reflects that into Gregor Samsa in his novel. Samsa is a hardworking man who works …show more content…

With Kafka, he had several diseases and illnesses that plagued his life and made it miserable. Kafka also suffered from several mental issues. One author from Biography.com writes, “Constantly strained and stressed, he suffered from migraines, boils, depression, anxiety and insomnia”. When writing The Metamorphosis Kafka decided to reflect this into Gregor, giving him many health issues that trouble him. For instance, Gregor hurts himself, or gets hurt many times. Some of the times Gregor gets injured are when he is getting out of bed, trying to get under the couch, and when his father throws apples at him.These health issues combined with other lead to Gregor’s death. Kafka writes, “He didn’t eat anything for such a long time... As a matter of a fact, Gregor’s body was completely dry and flat” (Kafka 52). Starvation and dehydration were other key health factors that led ruining Gregor’s life, or in other words, kill him. Kafka made these health injuries a special point to reflect his life into the story. By using Gregor Samsa and other characters in The Metamorphosis, the author, Franz Kafka, incorporates his life and his opinions and beliefs into the novel. He does this with several different views of his including his opinions about work and family. He also shows his opinions about the health of people and how it can affect a person and also about how people’s lives are affected by how unusual they are. While Kafka may not have been trying to put himself into the story, he made a very similar character who has the same thoughts and beliefs as

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