Existentialism in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis and The Hunger Artist

     Throughout the story there is a metamorphosis that is taking place in his home. He has traded places with the family and is now living the life they had previously embelished in. His father begins to work along with his sister and his mother must now work and do the cooking and cleaning. Gregor on the other hand does nothing but daydream, crawl, and nap through his days. One ironic statement from his sister “He must go, if this were Gregor he would have realized long ago human beings can’t live with such a creature, he’d have gone away one his own accord. This creature persecutes us, drives away our lodgers, obviously wants the whole apartment to himself, and would have us all sleep in the gutter.” How selfish of her, had he not taken care of them and he was not the only one working

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.

Existentialism is a philosophy that puts emphasis on the existence of a person’s freedom or life. In a human point of view, it means to believe in oneself, not a group or religion. (33)

Characterization of Gregor: Kafka depicts Gregor’s thoughts as depressed and hopeless in order to show that he does not believe his situation will get better. This is done in order to show that Gregor no longer has any humanity left because he repeats the same tasks every day which has numbed him.

In his novel The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka describes his own life through the life of his protagonist Gregor Samsa.  Careful study of Franz Kafka's life shows that Kafka's family, workplace, and reaction to the adversity in his family and workplace are just like those of Gregor.  So we might ask why Gregor was transformed into a bug since Kafka obviously never turned into a bug.  The absurd image illustrates how Gregor lacks self-respect and feels like he's a bug in the eyes of his family and society.  Franz Kafka was unhappy and never found his place in life, either.  Therefore, he might have felt just like Gregor, like a bug.  Furthermore the novel describes Kafka's expectations of his own future and he was partially

"A picture of my existence... would show a useless wooden stake covered in snow... stuck loosely at a slant in the ground in a ploughed field on the edge of a vast open plain on a dark winter night”. — Franz Kafka

In Franz Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist”, he describes the horrifying story of a man who imprisons himself in a cage for forty days without eating because of an inner desire to receive attention from others. The whole town flocks to watch the man accomplish his great feat, and he would “let them feel how skinny he was” to show off his great accomplishment (Kafka 322). However, the man finds it difficult to complete his fast when the watchmen, who were left outside his cage to ensure he kept true to his fast, leave him to “give the hunger artist the chance to take a little refreshment, which they assumed he could produce from some secret stash” (Kafka 323). But, if the guarding

Many views of existentialism are exposed in Kafka's Metamorphosis. One of these main views is alienation or estrangement which is demonstrated by Gregor's relationship with his family, his social life, and the way he lives his life after the metamorphosis. Namely, it suggests that man is reduced to an insect by the modern world and his family; human nature is completely self absorbed. Kafka reflects a belief that the more generous and selfless one is, the worse one is treated. This view is in direct conflict with the way things should be; man, specifically Gregor should be treated in accordance to his actions. Gregor should be greatly beloved by his family regardless of his state. This idea is displayed in three separate themes. First,

In The Metamorphosis, Kafka establishes, through his religious imagery and gospel-esque episodic narration, the character of Gregor Samsa simultaneously as a kind of inverse Messianic figure and a god-like artist, relating the two and thus turning the conventional concept of the literary hero on its ear. The structure of the novel reflects that of the Gospel of Mark in that it is narrated in individual events, and in this it is something of a Künstlerroman - that is, the real metamorphosis is over the course of the novel, rather than just at the beginning, and that change is a heightened sensitivity to the world in an artistic sense. The motif of change is a rather theological one as well: we see it in a religious sense, in the form of

“The Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka, is about a man who self mutilated by starvation in attempt to be recognized, honored, and accepted while gaining fame. As noted on The National Center for Biotechnology Information, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ self mutilation by starvation was a common form of suicide in concentration camps for prisoners who wished to remove themselves from the severely harsh environment. The irony of “The Hunger Artist” is that Kafka wrote the story in the year of 1922. However, the Holocaust did not begun until the year of 1933 and ended in 1945. Decades later, the message from “The Hunger Artist” is continuously being retold with the existence of vanity and peer pressure included.

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is a masterfully written novella about Gregor Samsa, a man who devotes his life to his family and work, for nothing in return. Only when he is transformed into a helpless beetle does he begin to develop a self-identity and understand the relationships around him. The underlying theme of The Metamorphosis is an existential one that says that any given choice will govern the later course of a person’s life and that a person has ultimate will over making choices. In this case, Gregor’s choices of his part in society cause him to have a lack of identity that has made him to be numb to everything around him.

It is debated amongst philosophers whether existentialism can be considered a distinct philosophical position, or a cultural movement that has culminated in numerous literary phenomena (Crowell pars. 1-2). The general consensus amongst philosophers establishes that existentialism is marked by a focus on the individual, its struggles and freedom that is endured––or often embraced; it is a subjective contemplation on the human condition in regard to the self that is often focused on suffering (pars. 3-4). Though not considered a philosopher, Franz Kafka’s literary contributions are often regarded as existentialist in nature due to his portrayal of the absurd, bizarre, and unpleasant aspects of modern life––defined as Kafkaesque (Hollier; Puchner 207). In juxtaposing

Hunger is a term that is often defined as the physical feeling for the need to eat. However, the Hunger Artist in Kafka's A Hunger Artist places a different, more complex meaning to this word, making the Hunger Artist's name rather ironic. The hunger of the Hunger Artist is not for food. As described at the end of the essay, the Hunger Artist states that he was in fact never hungry, he just never found anything that he liked. So then, what does this man's hunger truly mean? What drives the Hunger Artist to fast for so long, if he is truly not hungry? The Hunger Artist salivates not for the food which he is teased with, nor does he even sneak food when he alone. The Hunger Artist has a

Existentialism is a movement in philosophy and literature that began in the mid to late 19th and reach its peak in mid-20th century, and was largely spread through the works of French existentialist like Jean Paul Sartre, Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir (Mastin L, 2008). There is no agreed definition of existentialism, as those who are considered as “existentialist” do not share the same exact thought on the subject though the starting point may be fairly linked. Jean Paul Sartre, defines existentialism as a school of thought where one’s existence comes before his essence. Being an atheist existentialist, he argues that there is no God and that man existed first and defines himself afterwards. Thus “there is no human nature, because there is no God to have a conception of it. Man simply is” (Jean Paul Sartre,

The story ‘A Hunger Artist’ is an imaginary story. Kafka’s imaginations are difficult to understand by an average reader, the reader himself needs to have a high level of imagination to understand what Kafka is trying to explain. That said, a few things are important about ‘A Hunger Artist’: it concerns itself with art, suffering and the artist’s relation to his audience. One of Kafka’s major topics in his other work is of the negative effect industrialization and capitalism has on art. Kafka paints a unique portrait of the hunger artist as the passionate starving artist who ignores his poverty and the necessity of a regular job. His cage is his cramped apartment from where his artistic inspiration springs and he never looks at his cage’s clock.