Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka Literary Analysis

Although work is immediately presented as the exterior factor pushing Gregor into the system, the majority of the book is characterized by Gregor’s relationship with his family-- and their individual role in forcing Gregor to stay within the norms of society. Even in the context of Gregor’s employment, his work itself can be seen as an extension of his familial pressure to operate within his societal role. The necessity of money, and it’s direct relation to his family was described

     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

Now homebound Gregor is now able to be apart of family conversations. Metamorphosis shows Gregor yearning for human contact from his family, but it also shows his family eagerly alienating him from their life. With continuous alienation, Gregor loss interest in his family and no longer desires to have contact with them. Kafka shows families that are experiencing a financial crisis; a loss, unemployment, abuse or an illness can cause a breakdown in communication as a whole. Once Gregor is unable to communicate, he becomes an observer of the world around him. His insect form symbolizes the emptiness, insignificant and an outcast, which he was at work and at home.

“The Metamorphosis”, by Franz Kafka, is a mystical tale about a young businessman who awakes one morning to find his physical appearance transformed. His family and business associates fear his transformation and take immediate action by locking him in his room. For the following months, his young sister cares for his wellbeing and survival by tending to his needs. However, as time passes by, the inconveniences of caring for Gregor create tension and irritability that ultimately leads to drastic measures in some circumstances. As the tale comes to an end, he passes away due to severe neglect. Moreover, despite all the hardships he faces; he dies with fond memories of their love. By analyzing Kafka’s use of literary elements, Gregor’s ambiguous transformation can be concluded as the direct result of the superior authorities he encounters throughout his life and his negligence and passiveness towards those leads to the loss of his individuality.

When Gregor inexplicably becomes an insect his family is primarily worried about how this will affect them, and their financial security. The morning Gregor awakes as a ‘monstrous vermin' is the first day he has missed work in five years; his family's immediate concern is for Gregor's job. His father begins to admonish him before he can even drag himself out of bed. When Gregor hears his sister crying at his door he thinks, "Why was she crying?? Because he was in danger of losing his job and then his boss would dun their parents for his old claims?" This is very significant to their relationship; he considers himself close to his sister, but feels her emotion spent on him is related to money. Gregor has been the sole breadwinner for years; working at a job he abhors only to pay his fathers debts. The family leads an extremely comfortable life of leisure; the father sits at the kitchen table and reads all day, the sister wears the best clothes and amuses herself by playing the violin, and all even take a mid-day nap. Gregor is extremely pleased and proud to provide them with this lifestyle; however, his generosity is met with resentment by his father and indifference by his sister and mother. Once the family grew accustomed to this lifestyle they no longer felt the need to be grateful, "they had grown used to it, they accepted the money, but no particularly warm feelings were generated any longer." At one point Gregor is deeply

Absences of Unconditional Love Family is supposed to be permanent. That’s what many children are taught. Family members, be it brothers, sisters, mother, or fathers, are supposed to love one another no matter the circumstances. However, unconditional love is not always the situation in some families. Throughout The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka displays his disbelief in the notion of unconditional love through the characters he creates.

Although in the novel Gregor’s body physically changes, his concerns and admiration for his family does not. In my opinion his personality changes day by day as he becomes more vermin like, and has whims due to the physical changes his body goes through.“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make

By locking him in his bedroom, the family isolates Gregor even more in which Kafka uses to tell the audience that social isolation is not just self-imposed, other people are also a factor in enhancing an individual’s state of isolation. The psychologically realistic aspect of this event is that when a person is exposed to being disgusted by others, they tend to hide which is a common reaction in modern society. Sometimes extreme social isolation can lead to severe negative effects on an individual’s well-being, such as depression. In the final section of The Metamorphosis, Gregor ”thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister’s” (Kafka #). This statement causes the audience to empathize and sympathize for Gregor because Gregor is expressing what can be taken as suicidal thoughts. The audience sees that the isolation and loneliness of Gregor which resulted in him becoming depressed and suicidal. All he wanted was love, affection and attention from his beloved family, but they want to get rid of his troublesome bug-like self. Depressed people tend to feel worthless, lonely and unloved , just like Gregor, and sometimes can often indulge in suicidal thoughts. Suicidal thoughts are often romanticized

Kafka’s Metamorphosis presents an elaborate tale of a man’s transformation into an unlikely creature. The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, awakes one morning in a body mutated into a pest. Without a presentable source of this metamorphosis or a reason for which such misfortune has befallen him, doubt takes root in the audience at the plausibility of Gregor’s situation. However, Kafka’s method in Metamorphosis prevents the storyline from becoming some trivial, light tales. The audience is instead able to grasp the direness or solemnity of Gregor’s circumstances.

Metamorphosis is a novella written by Franz Kafka and published in 1915. It is considered one of the most absurd novellas of the 20th Century dealing with a wildly irrational event. Metamorphosis illustrates the struggles and the state of mind of Gregor, a young salesman who has just transformed into a giant cockroach. The novella, entitled Die Verwandlung in German translating into “The Transformation”, recounts how society and Gregor’s family deal with and treat him after his transformation. The ways in which Kafka portrays social alienation will be explored throughout this essay by analyzing the symbolism in Metamorphosis.

He begins to realize how his family hasn't noticed him until he became late for work, his father bursts on the door yelling "Gregor, Gregor, he called, whats going on? Is something a matter with you?” the feeling of disappointment overwhelms Gregor knowing how he's let his family down and his main priority in life is to impress his family, by not getting up for work he feels that he's a failure, which shows how he has suffered a mental break finding it hard to differentiate between reality and his own mind (Kafa_6). As his metal state decreases and he becomes more and more depressed that his family wants nothing to do with his transformed self knowing what he is they choose just not to deal with him and they become discussed with the sight of him “She did not see him right away, but when she caught sight if them under the couch-god, he had to be somewhere, he couldn't just fly away-she became so frightened that she lost control of her self and slammed the door shut again.” (Kafa”_22) showing that he thinks so lowly of him self that he's not only changed how he views himself but how the perception of his whole family changes based on his incapability to differentiate between reality.

In respect to the narrative, the title of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is significant. A metamorphosis could be defined as “[an] [...] alteration in appearance, character, or circumstances” (Metamorphosis 2018) In Kafka’s novella the main character, Gregor, undergoes physical and mental alterations. For example, Gregor physically “. . .transformed in his bed into an enormous bug” (Kafka pg.1). Also, his thoughts and actions hint to him being hard-working and relied on at the beginning of the story, while towards the end he provides less and is abandoned by his family. He isn’t the only one to go through a transformation. Other characters, such as Grete, Mr. Samsa, and Mrs. Samsa, each go through their own metamorphosis as well.

The use of magic is demonstrated right at the beginning of the text. The first line “When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from his troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed” (Franz Kafka Metamorphosis, 1) includes a literalized metaphor, where Gregor is not like an insect but has become an insect. The transformation from a human to an insect is the magical element and also one of the themes in the story. Although it is something that is unlikely to happen in reality, the randomness and absurdity is applicable to the real world. The lack of explanation for Gregor’s transformation suggests that the world is full of the unexpected and can be absurd sometimes.

1. Gregor’s initial reaction to his transformation, more specifically his worrying about missing the train and dwelling on the hardships of his job, reveals the extent to which Gregor’s own self-identity and way of life is dependent on his work. While most people would probably be horrified to find themselves transformed into a bug, Gregor instantly thinks of his job because that is what comprises Gregor’s identify and without his job he has no purpose or worth in his society. As Gregor contemplates his future, he thinks to himself, “Well, there’s still some hope; once I’ve got the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to him [his boss] – another five or six years I suppose – that’s definitely what I’ll do. That’s when I’ll make the big change” (Kafka 8).

Gregor’s obligations to his family result in his inextricable role as a provider for the Samsas. Because of the large debt accrued by his father, Gregor has been working for the past five years, and must work an estimated six or seven more years in order to repay it. During this decade of work, he must give up his own aspirations and individuality in order to provide for the family. Gregor became a traveling salesman because he felt obligated, or was forced to reverse the debt, however, he is unaware that his job is a trap from which he will never escape. Moreover, instead of acknowledging this hidden trap, he feels “great pride in the fact that he had been able to provide such a life for his parents and sister” (72). Gregor is too distracted by the fact that he’s