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, …show more content…
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
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
Although Gregor turned into a bug, the real Metamorphosis occurred before the change and with the whole family. Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis reflects the ideals about industrialization and existentialism during the turn of the century. In the novella, Gregor turns into a bug, and the whole family has to deal with it in different ways. Many characters go through a metamorphosis in the novella. Although the changes may not be physical the changes occurred greatly in Gregor, Mr. Samsa, and Grete.
Gregor maintains submissive personality and does not defend himself. Gregor’s physical change into a bug is the only aspect of him that changes. Gregor continuously allows himself to be abused. Upon Gregor’s transformation, he is unable to go to work. Therefore, the chief clerk visits Gregor to force him to come to work. Gregor remained locked in his room and would not leave for work. So, the clerk became extremely impatient. The frustrated clerk divulges into a cruel and demoralizing speech. He maliciously accuses Gregor of hiding because of unethical involvement in cash receipts. Later, Gregor’s family and the clerk become restless and want to see Gregor. The door to Gregor’s room is unlocked to open and reveal Gregor in his insect form. Gregor’s family and the clerk react with horror. The clerk and Gregor’s mother run away from him in fear. Gregor’s father grabs a stick and a newspaper and dashes toward Gregor, herding Gregor back into his bedroom with prods and fierce language. Gregor injures himself badly while trying to fit back through the doorway. Gregor’s door is slammed shut behind him and he his left alone, frightened and injured, in his room. The events subsequent to Gregor’s transformation exhibit his passive nature. Clearly such passivity was not useful to Gregor.
Through Gregor, Kafka demonstrates the dehumanization of individuals, Gregor works at a job that consumes his thoughts and passions. He illustrates how humans toil ceaselessly and give themselves up to boring routines that don’t bring any meaning to the individual’s life. Gregor flashback’s to a time before his metamorphosis, when he worked with a “special intensity” (Kafka 43) in order to provide for the family, all the while ignoring his own needs. Kafka knows the affect that doing something that one does not enjoy can have on every aspect of that person’s life. He was forced to work at jobs that he did not want to, his dissatisfaction with the direction his life was headed caused him to have suicidal thoughts (Franz Kafka-Biography). Kafka knows the dangers of not living to bring meaning into one’s life and uses Gregor to illustrate this to the audience. Without meaning in life there is no reason to live because life alone is meaningless.
Living a relatively monotonous life, Gregor Samsa has his world change one morning when he discovers his transformation into an oversized insect. In Franz Kafka’s short story, “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor struggles with not only his physical devolution into a vulgar organism, but also the condemnation and revulsion from his family. Gregor’s metamorphosis ultimately illustrates a disturbing fact: once Gregor is no longer the provider for the family, he loses all significance to his family. This in turn raises the question of who the real parasite is in the family, which the reader soon sees is anyone but Gregor, despite his physical, superficial metamorphosis.
“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.” (Kafka 3) That right there is the famous opening line to The Metamorphosis, that line drags people in and make them want to read more of the novel. Franz Kafka gave vivid details of the morning Gregor had woke up realizing that he had changed into a monstrous verminous bug. What people don’t realize is that Gregor is Franz Kafka, it all started during 1912. “The aftermath of the war (raging as Kafka composed The Metamorphosis) was the “Balkan slaughterhouse,” as it widely called at the time with well over 200,000 soldiers killed in a few weeks” (Stach 227). Franz Kafka started writing about the dejection, which led him to envisioning himself as a large insect which is what gave him the idea to write The Metamorphosis. “The protagonist of The Metamorphosis,Gregor Samsa, has declined from a respected army lieutenant into his present status as giant house pest” (Whitlark 3).
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.
Franz Kafka was an author born to a Jewish family in Prague. Critics claim that Kafka had a difficult childhood. Critic Walter H. Sokel observes that Kafka felt “deserted and betrayed” growing up (Sokel). After finishing school, Kafka went on to law school and found a friend, Max Brod, who greatly impacted his life. Kafka made more friends and traveled the world with them. His journey of writing began there. He went on to live a very interesting life involving many women and adventures. Most of his work was published after he was deceased. Critic Micah Sadigh claims that “Franz Kafka is often viewed as one of the Fathers of the literature of the absurd, the type of literature that reveals the irrational, acausal aspect of the human experience in a universe that is impervious to the fate of humanity” (Sadigh). Franz Kafka is an author who writes about the very nature of existence in its most revealing form. Sokel also mentions that there is a “peculiar relationship of Kafka's narratives to metaphors,” (Sokel). “The Metamorphosis” shows how Kafka brings metaphors to life in order to define identity and reality.
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
Kafka was critical in bringing the new outlook on modern culture and particularly on modern man. Franz Kafka studied the modern man in the face of contemporary culture, and how he was steadfast in retaining his spirituality and identity, and gravitate towards authenticity and happiness. However, Kafka saw how the dehumanizing forces of industrialization and capitalism in the post- the WWI Europe posed a challenge to the modern man. Modern culture can be viewed tolerating and open to all. To Franz Kafka, modern culture coupled with technology is fast changing, and man has to maintain his self-consciousness in order not lose his spirituality and identity amidst these changes (Wintle pp. 708-710). Hence, as modern culture changes with the changing technology, religions are poised to change too, which presents fears to a man about losing his spirituality and identity upon embracing the modern culture. Interestingly, Kafka was mystical in his writings, with a keen interest in themes such as metamorphosis, existential and identity. If we look at “The Metamorphosis,” we can view the idea of how the dehumanizing effects of capitalism and industrialism are indicated within the writings. Kafka contends we become dehumanized with buying power and working too much. The transformation of Gregor seems to indicate a denial of responsibility to the changing forms of society’s conventions and values.
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).
Throughout literary history, certain authors are so unique and fresh in their approach to the written word that they come to embody a genre. Franz Kafka is one such author; “Die Verwandlung” or “The Metamorphosis” is one of his works that helped coin the term “Kafkaesque.” Through this novella, Kafka addresses the timeless theme of people exploit-ing others as a means to an end. He demonstrates this point through showing that a family’s unhealthy dependence on the main character results in that character’s dependence on the family.
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.
Kafka’s Metamorphosis suggests to his readers to take a glimpse inside a dysfunctional atmosphere triggered from a painful childhood, to see how influential each member of the family contributes to the dynamics, but also to learn how to make light of the situation with acceptance. Kafka is reflecting on his own relationship with his family in Metamorphosis. He sees himself in Gregor, or is he him.