Summary Of Franz Kafka's 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.

To fully understand the depths of Gregor’s family’s betrayal, it must be mentioned how much he does for his family. His father had once owned a very unsuccessful small business, and when the business went under the family’s financial woes were unimaginable. Gregor saw this and wanted to bring joy to his family again. Kafka states, “At that time Gregor’s sole desire was to do his utmost to help the family to forget as soon as possible the catastrophe that had overwhelmed the business and thrown them all into a state of complete despair” (Kafka 25) He found a job so that

The story, “The Metamorphosis”, by Franz Kafka, is a piece of literature that introduces the idea of being an outsider, and falling out of the social order you have spent so long trying to prosper in. As a reference for some background, the story features the main character, named Gregor, waking up one morning as a beetle. This is the source of many problems to come, such as not being able to go to work, leave his room, eat normal food, or succeed in a public setting. One could easily understand how Gregor would become an outsider. This proposed this question to the reader- Are outsiders merely those who are misjudged or misunderstood? The simple answer to this is no. Outsiders are not born into their life of loneliness and solitude. They either consciously or unconsciously stray from people that love and care for them, such as friends, family, and peers. They could effortlessly re-include themselves into any social group, but instead they wallow in self pity, yearning for sympathy. Of course, there are exceptions, but they amount to few.

Because Gregor’s job merely serves as a means to an end, he represents the proletariats who bear the burden of the bourgeoisie. Although Gregor “would have given notice long ago” if not for his parents, he must continue working to pay off their debt (Kafka 946). Once he earns enough money to fully pay off his parents’ debt, Gregor “[wi]ll definitely [quit]” (Kafka 946). This affects Gregor not only materially but also emotionally, as he fails to build any relationships. Therefore, Gregor’s need to support his parents inhibits many aspects of his life. Similarly, Marx writes that, due to exploitation of production from the bourgeoisie, “proletariats have nothing to lose but their chains.” Connecting the means of production to the proletariats, Friedrich Engels, Marx’s editor, explains that “human power may be exchanged and utilized by converting man into a slave” (Straus). Through this exchange, the worker not only loses his autonomy but also becomes subservient to the bourgeoisie. Because Gregor experiences this phenomenon, many find the book’s setting “as more plausible in a petit bourgeois[ie] family than in any other setting” (Stach 202).

In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, Gregor’s life dramatically changes with the event of his transformation to a bug. His family is not in full acceptance of what has become of him and Gregor begins to lose himself. He had once been the provider for his family and now it is as if his family reproaches him for his inability to take care of them. Gregor wants to again have a role in his family yet recognizes that his family would be better off without him and dies. There are several situations that Gregor experiences that makes him lose all hope. From Maslow’s hierarchy of needs it can be be seen that Gregor loses his humanity including the essential needs to humans such as his safety, his desire to be successful, and his desire for affection from others. The desire to feel love from his family and their rejection is the final event that leads to his depression and at the end to his death.

In The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka tells the story of a young man named Gregor who observes the radical changes in his life after transforming into an insect. Gregor’s life was centered on his job as a traveling salesperson and his family. One morning Gregor woke up transformed into an insect. Afraid of the transformation Gregor stays in his room and ignores calls from his family. When Gregor realized that his new body did not allow him to have a normal life, he tried to adapt. After his metamorphosis, Gregor is abandoned by his family and only maintains a small relationship with his sister Grete, who is in charge of serving and provide him with food, but always leaving some distance because of his ugly appearance.

The very first line of one of the most famous novellas of the 20th century, Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis, is puzzling. It tells us that the main character awakes one day and finds himself turned into “ungeheueren Ungeziefer” (Gooderham par. 4). It has proven difficult to translate the line into English, as there is no precise translation. Meaning some “enormous or monstrous kind of unclean vermin” (Gooderham par. 7), it denotes “something nasty, but not specific” (Robertson 2:31). The meaning of the whole story remains similarly uncertain, and numerous readings of it have emerged in literary criticism. In our paper, we will make an attempt to give a possible interpretation of the novella, supporting it with some arguments, and then we will discuss the story’s ambiguity further.

Much of Franz Kafka's story “The Metamorphosis” spends it's time talking about Gregor as he struggles to live his new life as a bug. Gregor tries to find a analytical reason as to why he has taken upon this form but later on finds on that he has to accept the truth. From being an ordinary travel salesman and provider for his family to a abomination, Gregor becomes hopeless as he can't work or provide for his family. His new life as an insect causes a hardship as he is faced with isolation from his family, transformation, and guilt. Gregor discovers himself when he sees how the world looks at him from his transition from a human to an insect. Gregor's death illustrates the cruelty of society and denial of his family when they can't obtain the things they want in life anymore because of his new form.

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.

Language forms the basis of civilization. Without language there can be no memory, culture, social structure and definitely no humanity. Throughout the novella, Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, Humanity plays as an important theme, as Gregor’s sacrifice grows more than already, after waking up as a bug, leaving himself to self-disgust, anger, and suddenly inhuman thoughts. At first his family is shuttered in denial. Humanity, is mostly affected by Gregor, as being disgusted from his own body and thoughts, but not only is Gregor disgusted from appearance, he can’t figure how to return as human and escape his inhuman body.

In the Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the style of his writing enhances the nightmarish feeling the work portrays. “But then he said to himself: "Before it strikes quarter past seven I'll definitely have to have got properly out of bed. And by then somebody will have come round from work to ask what's happened to me as well, as they open up at work before seven o'clock." And so he set himself to the task of swinging the entire length of his body out of the bed all at the same time” (Paragraph 13, Lines 1 and 2). Gregor is immediately turned into an unidentified bug at the very beginning of the story. Instead of him focusing on his own person problem of being transformed, he is more worried about getting out of bed to go to work. This gives the reader an uneasy feeling right at the start.

Also, in his writings, Kafka pointed out the dehumanizing forces of industrialization and capitalism in post-WWI Europe. Kafka saw bureaucracy establishments as being something that deprives the mere existence of real human standards of industrialization that will oppress a person in a workplace. “Work like this is far more unsettling than business conducted at home, and then I have the agony of traveling itself to contend with” worrying about train connections, the irregular, unpalatable meals, and human intercourse that is constantly changing, never developing the least constancy or warmth” (Puchner, P1881). Before the protagonist Gregor’s transformation, he views his life as a working insect being trapped in a society where alienation and decay are rampant because the workers are not happy. Gregor is stuck in prison

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.

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.

In the opening lines of German author Franz Kafkas’ short story narrative “The Metamorphosis”, the protagonist Gregor Samsa a disgruntled traveling salesman who lives with and supports his parents and little sister, awakens from a night of unpleasant dreams to find that he has been metamorphosed into a cockroach he calls a “monstrous vermin” (Kafka, page 89). This particularly strange opening sets the stage for in my opinion, a very strange and very vague play. I say this because throughout the whole story we never find out much less are given any clue of how or why he managed to be metamorphosed into this insect. Not to mention what the moral of the story is or the fact that this whole book reads like one big