From The Wild, And Gregor Samsa

Many times throughout our life, we wake up and do the same monotonous tasks every day and our lives rarely see change. We do not add any flavor or interest to our lives and consequently our expectations rarely change. But, how would you react if one morning you woke up and had somehow turned into a giant bug? Welcome to Gregor Samsa’s life. The Metamorphosis shines light on Franz Kafka’s own bitter life as his experiences are relived and reimagined through the timeline of Gregor Samsa. If the characters in this story were a representation of Kafka’s own life it reveals how truly awful it was. Indirect characterization intensifies the overall text by developing the characters and tying together Gregor’s fictitious world with Franz Kafka’s own reality.

“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 The Metamorphosis is a metaphor laden, symbolism heavy social commentary with a vast amount of interpretations. At its core, the short story is a study of a traveling salesman who has lost touch with the world, but it includes many universal themes and events suffered today in capitalistic societies. As Gregor Samsa transforms into his bug-like form, he becomes utterly useless. His sole purpose in the Samsa family is to generate income and once he fails to do so he is isolated and forgotten. While Gregor’s family symbolizes the superfluous nature of human beings, they also represent society as a whole and the unforgiving nature of economics. Kafka uses this strife as the basis for a seemingly personal tale as a man-turned-bug who must live with that fact.

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.

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915) is a novella about protagonist Gregor, a hard-working traveling salesman transforms into some a vermin overnight and struggles to adjust to his startling change. Kafka characterizes Gregor as a selfless individual whose profound love for his family misleads him about their genuine disposition. As he adjusts to his new change, he undergoes great difficulty to determine his identity and humanity. Gregor has deceived himself into believing that his family will love him despite his repulsive appearance. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka uses characterization and third-person narrative to demonstrate Gregor’s self-deception and self-awareness regarding his family and circumstances to establish the theme of identity.

Kafka once remarked regarding his upbringing that “I have hardly anything in common with myself and should stand very quietly in a corner, content that I can breathe.” In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, a philosophical novella, the author has created a thought-provoking narrative concerning a man alienated in a capitalist society using a miscellany of literary devices including understatement and symbolism.

As the American playwright Williams Tennessee once said, “We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.” Similarly, “The Metamorphosis” and the short stories created by Allan Poe deal with trapped characters who have no other choice but to accept their reality, while experiencing a sort of feelings that are just a reflection of the various pressures they experience through their life. The first pressure that is experience through life is the family, because it emerges an important role not only in society but also in a person’s life as it is the case of Gregor. Also, work and society which is the second role that influences a person’s development through the long way of life. In addition, the mental state, which determines the person’s attitude towards an event being experienced as it is the case of all of the characters in Poe works and also in “The Metamorphosis”. as a result, the unwanted events and changes that are dramatically experienced through life create a stage in which the characters in Poe stories and Gregor in “The Metamorphosis” find themselves dealing with trapped feelings that lead them to isolation, and make their living experience a nightmare.

In Frank Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, the main character, Gregor, wakes up to find that he has transformed into a bug-like creature. He tries to maneuver in his new body, finding difficulty making his way off the bed, but his most pressing concern is keeping his job, as he is the sole breadwinner in his family. He seems almost indifferent to the transformation, and moves methodically to try to keep his job so he can pay off his father’s debt to the company and provide for his family.

As time rolls by, the feeling of alienation increases and people begin to feel as if they aren’t themselves, as if they are someone else. To begin with, the short story written by Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis”, demonstrates this kafaesque theory in which one's who struggle to fit in begin to not feel as if they were themselves. This short story tells about the terrifying experience of Gregor Samsa, a work-obsessed young man, one day waking up strangely transforming into some verminous bug who struggles fitting in and being accepted. Throughout Franz Kafka’s

Franz Kafta’s short story “The Metamorphosis” is a complex view of the human psyche with a profound level of irony. Gregor, our main character has been turned into a giant insect, however he is actually more human in his thoughts and feelings then any of his family in the story. It is a clever look at the nature of what makes us human and how that humanity can change on a dime. The reader begins that Gregor had to take his job as a traveling salesman because he needed to support his parents and sister.

One of the important attributes of leading a significant and valuable life are the very own choices that you make for yourself. In Franz Kafka’s novella, “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor Samsa leads quite an absurd and meaningless life. Kafka gives his readers an insight to the painfully dole life that Gregor leads through characterization, alienation, and through his relationship he has with his dependent family.

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.

Franz Kafka’s ”The Metamorphosis” is acknowledged as a literary masterpiece to be read by any literary aficionado. “The Metamorphosis” has been referenced in many industries far exceeding the English scholarly genre and has crept its way into such studies as the medical and psychology field. Recounted in Psychology journal articles, a portrayal of the agony and sense of loss of self is portrayed so consistently throughout the novel and these feelings are often associated with a number of psychological illnesses. For this reason, “The Metamorphosis” can be found in psychology articles. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1910630/ The psychology articles take a detailed look at the psychological torment experienced by Gregor and present the literature such that you could almost imagine that Gregor Samsa is a psychiatric case study rather than a fictional character. However, opinions among scholars and literary enthusiasts have contemplated what it was Kafka was trying to convey when he wrote this piece. Indeed, Kafka suffered from mental issues and the point is often brought to light that Kafka could have been projecting his internal feelings and experiences about growing up onto Gregor Samsa. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2639911/ Franz Kafka also held a strained relationship with his family, particularly his father, and died at a young age from tuberculosis. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2639911/ “The Metamorphosis” can, and has, been

“The Metamorphosis,” by Franz Kafka is a written expression of a man’s struggle with a life of unsatisfactory expectations. He is so disgusted with his current prospects of his dreary existence, his only hope of dealing is to reach deep into his mind and see something other than himself, “he, Gregor, found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Damrosch, 2009). How did he get here? How did life, his useless life suck the very humanity out of him? The family that he made this life altering sacrifice for is changing as well, losing their humanity, “things can’t go on like this,” “we have to try to get rid of it” (Damrosch, 2009). A character analysis of “Gregor” noted this regarding the family “but their metamorphosis are the most profound because they demonstrate how easily one’s beliefs, values, and basic treatment of others can be compromised because of a failure to adapt psychologically” (Article Myriad, 2015). His family was, but changed mentally and lovingly, but not physically, they could not escape as Gregor had. Gregor the responsible man must cope with failure or perceived failure of life unrealized. Is this “monstrous vermin” (Damrosch, 2009) a depiction of a man who has accepted what his life is and has given up all hope for change, is death the realization of peace in life?

Moshin Hamid's “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” draws some parallels to Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis with its two leading characters Changez and Erica. In Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa finds himself in the same life-altering situations as Moshin Hamid's characters. The primary being both Gregor & Changez quitting lucrative jobs that offered them little satisfaction aside