Essay On Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

With this in mind, Gregor, being an allegory for Kafka, portrays his feelings towards his family and his involvement with them. He portrays most of his feelings through his sister, and father, who are mainly static characters

In his novel The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka describes his own life through the life of his protagonist Gregor Samsa.  Careful study of Franz Kafka's life shows that Kafka's family, workplace, and reaction to the adversity in his family and workplace are just like those of Gregor.  So we might ask why Gregor was transformed into a bug since Kafka obviously never turned into a bug.  The absurd image illustrates how Gregor lacks self-respect and feels like he's a bug in the eyes of his family and society.  Franz Kafka was unhappy and never found his place in life, either.  Therefore, he might have felt just like Gregor, like a bug.  Furthermore the novel describes Kafka's expectations of his own future and he was partially

     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

In Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, the character Gregor transforms from a man into a bug, specifically a cockroach. Although Gregor physically changes, he does not change as a person. Gregor merely accepts his new condition as a bug and his family’s continuous abuse and hostility. Gregor’s acceptance of his new bug form is representative of his passive personality before and after his transformation. Gregor’s passivity, in response to the hostile world around him, causes his eventual downfall. Therefore, Kafka uses the character Gregor to exemplify how a passive attitude can cause one’s demise.

In the beginning of the novella, Gregor undergoes a transformation. Many readers view his transformation as he turns into a bug because of the way Kafka describes Gregor. Kafka may have been undergoing a transformation of his own. Kafka dealt with many issues growing up such as self doubt, issues with his father, and eventually, health issues. Like Kafka, Gregor deals with issues with his father and within himself and begins to feel less and less like himself as the novella continues. He awakes from his sleep to ask himself, “What’s happened to me (Kafka, 3)?” With the conflicts Gregor has with his family, especially his father, he begins to feel unwanted and unappreciated. Gregor also feels that he is becoming less sensitive when that used to be one of his main traits as a human (Kafka, 24). Seeing that Gregor is losing his sensitivity, that shows that he is truly losing himself since he is losing one of his main traits. Feeling less like himself, Gregor becomes more distant with his close

Gregor allowed his family to harass, bully and degrade him, in the same manner that Kafka had allowed his family to do. The similarity of Kafka’s relationship with his father was also portrayed with Gregor and his relationship with his father. Kafka intended to reflect and highlight the decisions that were made by Gregor being influenced by his family, by making them important protagonists within the novel. Gregor expresses from the beginning of the novel how his father intended on raising him, “from the first day of his new life that his father considered only the strictest treatment called for in dealing with him”38, much like Kafka’s father had. Gregor’s father was rather tough on him and his duties, and would take no clear- minded steps into understanding what Gregor, as a bug, did or tried to communicate through the actions he took. As he jumped to conclusions the second he saw Gregor out of his room, and would beat him with a cane trying to pressure him back to staying in his room as if he wasn’t even his son, or throwing apples at him. This provokes Gregor, allowing him to think more rationally, becoming more introverted, yet inside he was suffering with such sadness and crying desperately for some kind of recognition, much like Kafka did.

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,

In The Metamorphosis, Kafka establishes, through his religious imagery and gospel-esque episodic narration, the character of Gregor Samsa simultaneously as a kind of inverse Messianic figure and a god-like artist, relating the two and thus turning the conventional concept of the literary hero on its ear. The structure of the novel reflects that of the Gospel of Mark in that it is narrated in individual events, and in this it is something of a Künstlerroman - that is, the real metamorphosis is over the course of the novel, rather than just at the beginning, and that change is a heightened sensitivity to the world in an artistic sense. The motif of change is a rather theological one as well: we see it in a religious sense, in the form of

In this story, I fell that the writer does an excellent job of connecting the reader with Gregor. Right of the bat, the author almost forces the reader to identify with Gregor by showing the unfortunate details of his life. Throughout the story, the reader can’t help but sympathize with Gregor and will find themselves rooting for him. I’ve also found it interesting that by how the author has described Gregor as such a caring and considerate person, that he almost seems cute as a bug, like a family pet, but a giant, monstrous insect. This adds to the reader pitting Gregor for the reader understands that his family have both sympathy and revulsion toward him. Of the people in his family, his sister and mother most definitely find the most sympathy

He is not the sole provider therefore the family has no reason to really like him anymore. Gregor was turned to a bug that cannot communicate to humans and he could barely walk properly. He lacked the human characteristics that made him lovable. He was always not shown sympathy when it came to these human attributes. Grete, his sister was taking care of him, but did not treat him as her brother.

Throughout the novella, Gregor’s deeply rooted sense of guilt transitions from having the power to drive his actions to merely plaguing his thoughts. Immediately after his transformation, Gregor reveals that he has to “deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships…” (Kafka 4), in his daily work. Although he appears to hate his job, Gregor does not quit, as he has both intrinsic motivation to provide and extrinsic pressure from his family to keep them afloat. Rather than reflecting on his feelings and emotional baggage attached to his job, Gregor focuses on grievances set in reality, and allows this to occupy his conscious mind. After Gregor’s transformation, his

Gregor is not only isolated from his family but also neglected as well. First, As stated before Gregor was never really loved in his family his father was had a negative influence on him. “With a hostile expression his father clenched his fist, as if to drive Gregor back into his room” Mr. Samsa almost barely comes out a compassionate character here. His reaction to Gregor's condition is aggression, rather than patience or sympathy. Second, His father even attacks him multiple times. The second time he was attacked by his father it was a serious enough wound to be life threatening. Gregor is unable to prevent this injury and obtain any sort of remedy; the family doesn’t seem to care at all, and he is at their mercy. Next,

Gregor Samsa is a faithful son and brother, who only wishes to help his family. He works for a company that his father had managed to fall in debt with. So Gregor works hard trying to keep his family in a somewhat lavish life all while paying off his fathers debt with his boss/company. Until one day Gregor wakes up only to discover that he is no longer the man he was nor would see his life in the same way. Gregor begins to see his family in a new light, how greedy and selfish they are, along with how he was walked all over by both his family and boss, then Gregor discovers that now that he has become a burden and not a provider his family is no longer loving towards his.

Writing is seen as a way for the author to freely express his or her ideas to the public. In writing, the author has control of every aspect of their work and this allows for the writer, no matter the world state, to have a sense of freedom and control inside their work. The 20th century, battered by economic depression and two world wars, saw these writers take their creative control and emphasize the current state of the freedom and control of the individual. Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, various World War I poems, and Brecht’s Fear and Misery of the Third Reich show the lack of individual freedom and control that people had over their lives during the destruction that occurred in the 20th century.

In this section, we get to learn more about Gregor’s personal life. Through his mother’s indirect characterization of him, we see that Gregor is very lonely and isolated from the rest of the world. He doesn’t have any friends, and he spends his free time doing work and worrying about the family debt and such. We also learn about the other characters in the story. The rest of Gregor’s family seems awfully dependent on him. This can be seen by how worried they were, for instance, just because he didn’t get up on time. Gregor’s family knows it is of the utmost importance that he does his job. It also seems as if none of the other family members have jobs. Their lives