Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis

“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.

Franz Kafka’s novella, The Metamorphosis, takes place in the Post-World War I era. In a world dominated by cold machinery and irrational fears, Kafka constructs a criticism of humanity through the transmutation of Gregor from a human to a monstrous vermin. Kafka’s symbolism of Gregor’s bug form primarily serves to indicate how humanity underappreciates themselves and keep value within materialistic ideals. Gregor’s character development from almost drone-like to individualistic ultimately implies that the metamorphosis is not just a physical mutation, but rather a mental transformation in which Gregor grows as an individual.

Franz Kafka wrote one of his most popular books, The Metamorphosis, during the literary period and movement of existentialism. His novella stresses many existential ideals. The most predominant ideal that is seen through Gregor Samsa and his father in The Metamorphosis is that choice is the opportune of the individual. One’s ultimate goal in life is to successfully find a balance between work and leisure. It is through the juxtaposition of Gregor Samsa and his father, the conceding tone of the author, and the choice of diction that we see the acquisition of the homeostasis between work and leisure and in turn this exemplifies the father of Gregor as an existential ideal.

In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the straightforward style adds to the stressful nightmare that the story revolves around. “But when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry on pushing himself forward the same way”. (Metamorphosis, paragraph 11). The style is very direct and to the point, and that adds a stressful quality to the tone. The author uses very negative language such as “it would be a miracle if” and he became afraid” in this quote. This makes the writing sound worrisome, and is almost foreshadowing that something bad will happen. Another example of this is “What about if he

In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the straightforward style enhances the the nightmarish quality of the work. You can see that here, “He remembered that he had often felt a slight pain in bed, perhaps caused by lying awkwardly, but that had always turned out to be pure imagination and he wondered how his imaginings would slowly resolve themselves today. He did not have the slightest doubt that the change in his voice was nothing more than the first sign of a serious cold, which was an occupational hazard for travelling salesmen.” (The Metamorphosis.) Gregor, in The Metamorphosis has woken up transformed into a bug-like creature, but instead of the story having a horror, stressed style, it is very straightforward. Gregor, instead of worrying

In a family setting, it is normal to become attached to our surroundings and become accustomed to our day to day lives. The ill effects that change can have on a family, however, can cause them to act erratically. In Franz Kafka’s signature story, The Metamorphosis, the main character Gregor finds that during a bad dream, he has awoken transformed into a bug-like creature; his family reacts to his transformation not with compassion and a search for resolution, but rather with shame and neglect, leaving Gregor helpless in his situation. Because of his family’s reluctance to change, Gregor perished. Changes can be destructive and lead to chronic problems if not properly addressed; only when changes are dealt with can life resume as normal.

In this day and age family does not seem much important to people due to their busy life styles and exorbitant amount of work. It is not shocking that one’s state of mind alongside their feelings change while satisfying the everyday obligations which has pushed them far from investing quality energy with their friends and family. In Kafka 's The Metamorphosis it is seen that Gregor 's transformation in to a bug renders him helpless to communicate and part take his job as the earner of the family. Gregor’s family is not seen to have empathized with him after his sudden life changing transformation. Despite some good family members who support the individual when one 's family turns against them it leaves the individual feeling dead on the inside and out.

The metamorphosis advances the existentialism view that choice is the opportune of the individual. It is the responsibility of the individual to maintain a balance between work and leisure. The story gives a sense, that if one chooses to devote their life to work will just make them droning incest, and if they devote their life to only leisure they will still not maintain a stable life. A balance in life needs to be maintained. Gregor doesn’t seem to know that his choice of working was making him very unhappy. Even though, Gregor was not maintaining his job very well and failing it, whereas he ignores the basic needs for social interaction by working hard and long hours. For a long time of reaping in the unwanted started to effect him. In spite of, one day Gregor awakens to find himself with the body of monstrous vermin. However, it is never explained in the book how he was morphed into a vermin. “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams "What's happened to me?" he thought. It was no dream”. (Kafka) Kafka never mentioned the reason of Gregor weird transformation, but he gives reader a sense that Gregor’s life was always a misery and when he woke up in the morning he didn’t doubted the miserable things happening to him, In fact he

Many believe the purpose of life should be to carry out certain responsibilities. Success of these duties creates good feelings and a reason for living, but failure triggers deep remorse. In “The Metamorphosis“, Franz Kafka depicts an absurd tale featuring a central character so used to dwelling similar to an insect and burdened with guilt that these qualities of his life take over and cause his downfall.

In Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor Samsa deals with the alienation from his family stemming from both absurd and mundane circumstances. While Gregor’s transformation into a bug is the catalyst to his physical alienation, Gregor had for years been becoming more and more isolated mentally and emotionally from his family due to his displeasure at his having to work a job he hated due to his father’s failings and the lack of gratitude he received from his family for his hard work. It was not just his family who Gregor was becoming isolated from, but it was humanity in general that Gregor had been drifting apart from, as he had not mentioned having any friends or work colleagues which leads the readers to believe he had no social life

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is an early twentieth century masterpiece in which the author tries to convey a certain theme to readers. To really understand this theme, readers have to be informed on who Kafka is and why he wants to convey a theme. They should be informed on him because they can better understand the protagonist, Gregor, and get a glimpse of why he feels a certain way about something. In this scenario, the theme is trying to display mankind’s descent into something sub-human. Mankind’s descent into something sub-human can be represented through Kafka’s depiction of Gregor’s tragic literal and metaphorical transformations.

Gregor very much loves his parents and has committed to almost 20 years of labor to pay of their debts. “If I didn’t hold back for my parents’ sake, I would’ve quit ages ago.” -Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis pg 5

The straightforward style of “The Metamorphosis” enhances its nightmarish quality. The style is straightforward and emotionless as shown in Chapter 1 where it says “But when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry on pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock himself out now at any price; better to stay in bed than lose consciousness.” This is very robotic and factual, lacking all emotion. It’s as if he has no sympathy of compassion at all, Kafka is just stating what is going on and nothing more. He uses this style to add to the nightmarish quality of the novel like when

There is no meaning to life, man is as insignificant as the ants littering his streets. There is no purpose for man, he is able to survive and communicate this very beliefs for unknown reasons to him. Franz Kafka, one such believer of this reality, wrote a novel, The Metamorphosis, which captured the existential dilemma perfectly. Franz Kafka was a man trapped within his own skin, a castaway, a nobody. Kafka wrote many stories, often nightmarish and reflective of his own reality. The Metamorphosis is no different, the main character Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into the most disgusting of vermin. Gregor is not only representative of Kafka, he is the embodiment of reality. Life is a short, depressed journey through missed

On the surface, Franz Kafka's novel, The Metamorphosis, appears to be just a story of a man who woke up one morning to find himself transformed into an insect. However, if you analyze this book with Marx’s theories in mind, you will find that the story uses metaphors to describe the effects of capitalism and alienation. First, Kafka personifies Marx’s theories on alienation through Gregor’s life, even before he became an insect. Then, he explores the relationship of production and social class in a capitalistic society by establishing the characters and the economic classes that they represent. Finally, he describes the results of the worker's inability to work: abandonment by his employer and family, which leads to his death.