The Metamorphosis By Frank Kafka

Alienation is a feeling of emotional isolation or exclusion from others and can be in the form of physical and mental and it is most often a combination of these forms. Throughout history and to the present day, hostility and prejudice continue to divide the human race because of the indifferences of people. Alienation can be a driving force that pushes human conscience to extremes as humans feel painfully alienated from social institutions that surround them. Friends, family, and society can all be suspects of alienation, and for victims, drastic changes consequently occur. In the literary works of “First Ice”, First Day, and Shinny Game Melted the Ice, the main characters experience such hostility and exclusion from friends, family, and society.

Topic: One of the essential elements to Marx’s alienation concept is that of people or workers being alienated from each other under capitalism, it is still relevant in explaining the problems of the modern world.

What does alienation mean? "Alienation (or "estrangement" means, for Marx, that man does not experience himself as the acting agent in his grasp of the world, but that the world (nature, others and he himself) remain alien to him. They stand above and against him as objects, even though they may be objects of his own creation. Alienation is essentially experiencing the world and oneself passively, receptively, as the subject separated from the object." 1.(ch5, Marx's Concept of Man, by Erich Fromm)

The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung 1912), Franz Kafka’s best known short story, is a master work of incredible psychological, sociological and existential malaise. Although his points are simple and straightforward, this richly layered and textured story is open to many interpreta-tions, making it complex, yet critical to decipher. There is an incredible amount of theories based off of what this story could possibly symbolize or represent, but it is of the autobiographical in-terpretation that is undeniably the most enlightening. This interpretation allows the reader to gen-uinely understand the tale on an intense level that would not be able to be reached, otherwise. In order to gain true insight on the autobiographical approach to The Metamorphosis, a brief examination of his life is required; his thoughts, his beliefs, the acknowledgment of the cruel circumstances of his life, especially his home life, must be made clear that the anguish of his own world is the model for the themes in his stories.

he is estranged from himself. To help expand on this theme it is useful to look

So concerned with ensuring his parents and sister were taken care of, he forgot his own needs. It was apparent to everyone that he was no longer thought of as a son or an extension of the family, but merely as a "support system." The tragic fact is that "everyone had grown accustomed to it, his family as much as himself; they took the money gratefully, he gave it willingly but the act was accompanied by no remarkable effusiveness" (Kafka 48). It appears that in the course of his hectic work schedule, he overlooks that in return for dedication to his family, he remains unloved and unappreciated. Yet Gregor still "believed he had to provide his family with a pleasant, contented, secure life" (Emrich 149), regardless of how they treated him.

Marx’s theory of alienation is concerned primarily with social interaction and production; he believes that we are able to overcome our alienation through human emancipation.

Alienation, a term used to describe the feeling of no connection with others or the separation from former attachment. When it comes to sociologist aspect, especially on Marxism, this term describes the stage of losing one’s identity. To Karl Marx’s belief, Alienation means the loss of control over the process and product of work (Bell, 1959). Thus, under the capitalism, workers are alienated by the production system.

     Kafka’s unorthodox beginning of “The Metamorphosis” reads as what would seem to be a climactic moment: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he

The concept of alienation plays a significant role in Marx's early political writing, especially in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1848, but it is rarely mentioned in his later works. This implies that while Marx found alienation useful in investigating certain basic aspects of the development of capitalist society, it is less useful in putting forward the predictions of the collapse of capitalism. The aim of this essay is to explain alienation, and show how it fits into the pattern of Marx's thought. It will be concluded that alienation is a useful tool in explaining the affect of capitalism on human existence. In Marx's thought, however, the usefulness of alienation it is limited to explanation. It does not help in

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

Gregor had accepted the fact that he would forever provide everything for his family, working himself to death to make sure that they ate and that they had everything that they needed. He fights his new destiny tooth-and-nail; he doesn’t want to accept

THE TERM "alienation" in normal usage refers to a feeling of separateness, of being alone and apart from others. For Marx, alienation was not a feeling or a mental condition, but an economic and social condition of class society--in particular, capitalist society.

The theory of alienation developed by Karl Marx depicts the estrangement of people due to living in a capitalist system of production. Through the manuscript “Estranged Labor” from his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Marx describes his theory of alienation and specifies on the four types of ways in which the worker is alienated. A vivid example of Marx’s theory of alienation can be seen through Charlie Chaplin’s comedy film Modern Times. In his film, the central idea of the theory of labor alienation and how the worker is affected by the alienation are depicted. The notion of alienation depicted in Marx’s “Estranged Labor” is also depicted in Chaplin’s Modern Times.

Throughout both Gregor Samsa’s brief life after his metamorphosis and Franz Kafka's entire adolescence, they are plagued by the imposed alienation of their family. Gregor’s alienation stems from the effects of his appearance on the people around him. Kafkas alienation derives from the erosion of his self image due to his work and family life. Gregor’s repulsive appearance acts as a response to his reality, of being forced to work a job he detests for a family who does not appreciate him. After years of constantly being told he is inadequate, Kafka begins to take on the same mentality as Gregor, by allowing himself to be alienated by the people around him and himself. Both Kafka and Gregor’s suffering continues by accepting and allowing the alienation of their families and society.