Essay Isolation in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

The main character of Kafka’s book, The Metamorphosis, is a normal, everyday salesman named Gregor Samsa who happens to wake up one day only to find that he had suddenly become a hideous insect overnight. Throughout the book, Gregor experiences neglect, disgust, and eventually complete isolation

It appears that the people who care the most end up getting hurt by the ones they love. The more time, energy, love, and money that a person sometimes invests get thrown back in their face once something drastic happens. In turn, this causes feelings of worthlessness and isolation and can eventually lead to death. Franz Kafka understands this better than anyone else and can portray this in his novella, the Metamorphosis. In his novella, The Metamorphosis, the protagonist, Gregor Samsa is one who undergoes a physical and mental transformation due to the unrelenting pressures that his father placed upon him which eventually cause him to die. At the heart of the father-son relationship lies Gregor and his father whose relationship is explored

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.

The deeper meaning of “The Metamorphosis”, by Frank Kafka, can be interpreted in many ways depending on critical theory is used to examine it. From a feminist criticism, one can observe how Gregor’s dominance as a male diminishes after he becomes a bug as his sister’s strength and role in the family grows stronger. From a biographical criticism, one can compare and contrast the traits of Gregor and the people around him with that of Kafka’s own life and his relationships. However, the focus of this essay will be applying a psychoanalytical criticism to the characters in “The Metamorphosis”, using the studies of Sigmund Freud to approach

In the Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka bring out the character of a hardworking man, Gregor, who faces an incident where he soon is driven into complications to remain his once isolated life. Gregor’s alienation causes no gain for help from anyone even after the tragedy of transforming into a roach. Isolation removes all social interactions affecting the character of the persona by which can no longer seek help or gain itself being. Isolation in life, results in the expulsion of humankind partying from all social interactions, preventing contact with the world.

In the story “Metamorphosis by Kafka.” Gregor Samsa was a hardworking man and always showed up for work on time and provided for his family. One morning he woke up and he knew right away that something was wrong, but didn’t know what it was. After multiply times of people knocking

Growing up, Franz Kafka questioned his father’s use of power not only at home but also in the workplace. Kafka’s father referred to his employees as “paid enemies.” Upon noticing “the submissiveness expected of [workers] toward their superiors” in his own asbestos factory, Kafka found this true for not only his father but also most of the upper class (Speirs and Sandberg 7). Disappointed by this class hierarchy, Kafka attended anarchist meetings and referenced communist writers in his diaries (Cohn). These meetings led him to develop a similar ideology to Karl Marx, who attributed “all… [of] history [to] class struggles.” In The Metamorphosis, Kafka channels a Marxist viewpoint through Gregor Samsa’s life before his metamorphosis and his family’s life after the metamorphosis.

In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka conveys the series of emotional and psychological repercussions of a physical transformation that befalls the protagonist, a young salesman called Gregor Samsa. As the story progresses, Gregor finds himself unfairly stigmatized, cruelly rejected because of his clear inability to financially support his family, and consequently increasingly isolated. Through extensive use of symbolism, Kafka is able to relate the surreal and absurd, seemingly arbitrary events of this short story to a general critique of society-particularly on the alienating effects that conformity generates. On a broader level, the combined themes-which include the themes of conformity, freedom, and alienation--found throughout The

Throughout The Metamorphosis, Kafka demonstrates the broken relationship between father and son through the father’s inability to identify with his son after the transformation into a bug. In turn, the father becomes the breadwinner, and loses some respect for his son. Because of this rejection, their relationship becomes frayed. The loss of respect comes from Samsa no longer being able to work and provide for the family. Now that the father has to provide for the family, Samsa feels not only like an outcast, but like a failure, and guilt falls upon him. The father blames Samsa for the misfortune brought on to the family, and shuns him. Not only does the father shun his son, but he can barely look at his son, which differs from a typical father and son relationship. Because of the rejection from his father, Samsa isolates himself from everybody.

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,

Kafka reveals very little about Gregor's life prior to this incident: all we know of him is that he had been a traveling salesman who was constantly "busying himself with his fretsaw" and who "never (went) out in the evenings," instead spending his time "sitting . . . at the table quietly reading the paper or studying" (Kafka 12-13). This imagery of Samsa as a studious carpenter characterizes him as humble and, in this, somewhat unlikable to the toughest audiences. Even imagery as simplistic as this conjures the image of Gregor as a bookish, studious milquetoast. At the same time, the carpenter characterization connotes Christ, and thus immediately hints at Samsa's eventual heroism, even before anything significant has happened. So when the book's first "metamorphosis" occurs in the first sentence, Gregor's prior circumstances make him fertile ground in which a change in spirit can occur. Samsa even acknowledges the metaphysical change enacted in himself: when he tries to explain to his family and the head clerk why he cannot leave his room, his audience can "no longer (understand) his words, even though they (are) clear enough to him, clearer than before even" (15). It is as if he is in another dimension from them completely and therefore a sort of "immortal" at heart, before the knowledge is even imparted upon him in the form

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

He works as a travelling salesman, though he receives no joy from his work. Gregor has pushed himself away from society to sacrifice himself for his parents’ sake. He feels the need to remain in the workplace until he pays off the debt his parents owe to the chief (Taylor 273). His labor degrades him and causes him fatigue, and as a consequence of the constant commute to work, he is unable to have any legitimate associations with others (Greenberg 274). Samsa views himself as more than simply a person stuck inside of a capitalistic system; he sees himself in a very human relationship with his workplace. “Nobody can deny that he is a slave…if his animal shape were but a dream, then he would have paradoxically sacrificed his humanity in an attempt to escape slavery by his change into an insect.” As a result of his occupation, Gregor has created such a strong hatred that he would rather mutate himself into something subhuman (Politzer 276). Kafka offers a surreal depiction of the symbolic alteration, in which, Gregor begins his transformation process into vermin, something society views as

Franz Kafka, in his novel The Metamorphosis, explores two conflicting ideas through his protagonist Gregor: unity and isolation. Gregor’s transformation created a whole life of distress for him, but on the other hand also formed a deeper and better relationship for the rest of the family.

From an outsider’s perspective, someone may appear a frivolous bird or a wretched cockroach. Like a thumbnail, first impressions of a character rarely depict the complex human with ambition and emotions lurking beneath the surface. While inconvenient to societies that prefer to chain people into one image and station in life, the struggles people face can transform them for better or for worse, depending on their internal strength. In A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Nora and Gregor used to live comfortably with their middle-class families in a way that audience goers and readers could relate to. The Helmers’ marriage is traditional for the nineteenth century; Torvald works at a bank and manages the family’s finances while Nora cares for the house affairs and plays with her young children. For the Samsa family, Gregor the traveling salesman was the breadwinner of the family, and while he disliked his job, he supported his elderly parents and younger sister. Once their physical and mental states change, Nora and Gregor are forced to accept truth about their real place in the houses’ hierarchies.