Franz Kafka and Ismail Kadare

Thirdly, he suffers isolation from the physical world, which he is no longer able to participate in due to his presence and lack of mobility. Lastly, he suffers isolation from other people around him, especially his family. By the end even his sister, Grete, the most compassionate member of the family, explanations that they should stop thoughtful of the creature as the person they knew. She says that “the fact that we’ve believed it so long is the root of our trouble” (Kafka 48), which can be taken to mean that at some point Gregor stopped being a person not only because of his entrance but since of his non-conformist actions. The beating he receives from his father shows the extent of the cruelty he endures, though his father knows that “family duty compulsory the conquest of disgust and the use of endurance, nothing but patience” (Kafka 36). The tragedy is that this alienation ends up killing Gregor, who “dies not as a vermin, but as a human being thinking of his family”. The transformation is an indication of the breakdown of Gregor’s psyche and alienation within his self. The reader is not told how the transformation

Although Gregor turned into a bug, the real Metamorphosis occurred before the change and with the whole family. Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis reflects the ideals about industrialization and existentialism during the turn of the century. In the novella, Gregor turns into a bug, and the whole family has to deal with it in different ways. Many characters go through a metamorphosis in the novella. Although the changes may not be physical the changes occurred greatly in Gregor, Mr. Samsa, and Grete.

“The Metamorphosis” is a surreal story by Franz Kafka surrounding the transformation and betrayal of Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one day, reborn into a large insect. Along with the bizarre and nightmarish appearance of his new hard back, brown segmented belly, and many legs, Gregor only desire is to live a normal life, unfortunately, this is impossible because he struggles to even get out of bed. Gregor transformation into an insect is a vivid metaphor for the alienation of humans from around the world. After losing human form, Gregor is automatically deprived of the right to be a part of society. Franz Kafka could relate to Gregor because he too was mistreated/neglected by his father and worked a job that he was unhappy doing. Franz and Gregor both were providers for their families. Alienation, isolation, and loneliness were not hard to recognize during the Modernity and Modernism time period.

Isolation not only changes the personalities of Gregor and his family, but also it changes the role and duties Gregor plays in his family. Before the metamorphosis, Gregor worked alone to provide for the entire family. For example, in the beginning, before the transformation, he says, “But besides that, the money Gregor had brought home every month he had kept only a few dollars for himself” (4). This shows Gregor’s selfishness and his family’s heavy dependency on his income. It establishes the fact that Gregor’s family’s loyalty to Gregor was strong because the family depended on Gregor for their own survival, and shows how they betrayed him by disregarding him after he became an insect. The isolation of Gregor caused by the transformation not only affects Gregor’s role in the family, but also changes the role of Mr. Samsa. Mr. Samsa originally told by Gregor: ”Now his father was still healthy, certainly. But he was an old man who had not worked for the past five years and who in any case could not be expected to undertake that much” (17). This shows how irresponsible Mr. Samsa acted for his family in the beginning. Mr. Samsa, a man in his 50s, blamed his unemployment on anxiety and depression from a past failed business. Mr. Samsa changes his role as the useless drag to the provider of the family, and even obtains a new job as a bank manager.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is a reflection on how alienation and isolation begin and develop in a society by employing the characters in his novella as a representation of society as a whole. Using Gregor’s manager to demonstrate the initiation of isolation and alienation of a person, Gregor as the person being isolated and the inhabitants of the Samsa household as the other members of society, Kafka creates an effective model to represent the hierarchically structured effect of isolationism and alienation in society on a larger scale.

In The Metamorphosis, Gregor is completely isolated throughout his whole life with his lonely job and later on due to his condition. When he was a human, a traveling salesman, he did not have a life outside of his job. Gregor focuses so much of his time on work, that his mother often worries that, “All that boy thinks about is work” (12). He isolates himself by not leaving the house when he is off the clock. He reads the paper, studies the train schedules and spends his time carving small frames all by himself. By doing this, he pushes himself away from a chance to socialize with others and create relationships. Gregor describes his traveling job as extremely lonely. He enlightens the readers on page 7 and 8 with a description that, “the steady stream of faces who never become anything closer than acquaintances”. Human beings need to have communal interactions with others. If not, well, it might bug you to death. When Gregor realizes that he is now a monstrous vermin, the alienation he experiences becomes even worse. He locks himself away in his room for days at a time. At first, his sister Grete, was understanding of his current condition. She often made meals for him to eat and left the living room of the house unattended, so Gregor could walk around. As Gregor

People have a high amount of pressure on them in their daily lives with social, mental, and physical appearances. Kafka represents this pressure he has on himself through Gregor. This allows Kafka to vent many emotions and feelings through this novella Everyone is there own person but some take others opinions to heart to often and need to see things are not as bad as they seem. Throughout The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, Kafka displays himself through Gregor, and shows his true feelings about people and society he lives in.

The transformation that Gregor underwent was not an extreme change in his usual way of how he acted. Gregor was noted, by his parents, to have always been locked up in his room buried in his work showing that Gregor isolated himself from the rest of society along with his family. The transformation only furthered his isolation as he was further pushed away from his family, as no one would care for him as well as his boss running away

Franz Kafka’s clear isolation of Gregor underlines the families’ separation from society. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka emphasizes Gregor’s seclusion from his family. However, Gregor’s separation is involuntary unlike the family who isolates themselves by the choices they make. Each family member has characteristics separating them from society. These characteristics become more unraveling than Gregor, displaying the true isolation contained in The Metamorphosis.

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

His boss, sister, mother, and even father refused to accept him in their own home. Feeling rejected by everything surrounding Gregor made him want to starve himself, lock himself in his room, not want to talk

Gregor feels isolated because not even his own boss will listen to him and Gregor feels like nobody will listen to him, so why bother speaking and hanging out with his family. Physically, we can also see how Gregor's isolation as a bug is mirrored to his life before. In one instance, Gregor's mother had passed out at the realization that this gigantic bug really was Gregor, and right as that happened, his father had walked in: “It was clear to Gregor that his father had badly misunderstood Grete’s short message and was assuming that Gregor had committed some violent crime or other”(Kafka 18). Gregor's father had walked in to see his wife on the floor with Greta by her side and Gregor standing across the room, and without any words said, Gregor's father assumed it was something that Gregor had done out of violence. This could mean that Gregor, before his transformation, was violent and had a bad reputation with people, so his father walked in and just immediately assumed that Gregor had done something to cause

Ever since the metamorphosis, Gregor’s perception of himself begins to change as his family sees a bug more than their own son. Gregor does nothing but lock himself in his room.

In the story, The Metamorphosis, author Franz Kafka describes the Main character, Gregor, as a traveling salesman who is very hard working. Gregor, as much as he hates his job, keeps it because he feels obligated to pay off his father’s debt. Right from the start of the story, Gregor transforms into a large bug and spends the rest of his life in this form.

Gregor’s transformation to a Vermin created a new life of separation and isolation for him. Before Gregor’s transformation he already felt isolated and stressed out because he was the only one working and he didn’t have that good of a relationship within his family. Kafka states “Constantly seeing new faces, no relationships that last or get more intimate.” Gregor is a traveling salesman who sees new people