Metamorphosis

__ ** The Metamorphosis ** __
 * ==Title of the Work==**

=Author= Franz Kafka

=Nationality/Ethnic Background= German/Austria-Hungarian.

=Pertinent Biographical Information= Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883 in Prague to a German-Jewish middle class family as the eldest of six children. He was engaged twice to Felice Bauer but never married though he had relationships with Milena Jesenska and Dora Diamant. With his friends Max Brod and Felix Weltsch he was called Der enge Prager Kreis and was part of a circle of German-Jewish writers and artists. He worked at ﻿[|Assicurazioni Generali] ﻿ and Worker’s Accident Insurance, as well as at an asbestos factory called Prager Asbestwerke Hermann and Co. He died on June 3, 1924 at the age of forty of starvation. He had contracted tuberculosis and despite treatment it worsened to the point where eating was too painful to endure. Kafka is similar to his main character, Gregor Samsa in several ways. Like Gregor he was born into a middle class family. His father was an overbearing man who worked as a traveling salesman. Kafka also held jobs at insurance companies and like Gregor, was dissatisfied and unhappy at his work. Kafka was afraid of being perceived as repulsive to others, just as Gregor is afraid of letting his family see his repulsive insect form.

=Literary Historical Period/Movement and Pertinent Background= · Existentialism—Existentialism, a philosophy formulated by the 19th century Danish philosopher Sǿren Kierkegaard, centers on the emphasis on the powers of the individual. The individual is responsible for giving his or her own life meaning. There is a focus on a concrete existence as well as on the present (as opposed to the past or future). However, existentialists also believe in free will and that every decision has a consequence. They also believe that society and the rules it places on us are unnatural.


 * Absurdism is very similar to existentialism but was separated from that philosophy by Albert Camus with the publication of //The Myth of Sisyphus.// Unlike existentialism, absurdism holds that there is no meaning to be found in the universe and any attempt to discover meaning (although the pursuit of meaning may be beneficial) will present a conflict with the universe and will ultimately fail. There is also the concept of acceptance without resignation and that the world is an irrational place.

=Genre and Sub-genres= Absurdist fiction

=Major Characters, Their Relationships, Their Conflicts= · Gregor Samsa (Protagonist. A traveling salesman who finds himself transformed into a beetle when he wakes up one morning.) · Grete Samsa (Gregor’s younger sister who cares for him after his transformation.) · Gregor’s Father (a weak man who begins to resent Gregor for his transformation and his inability to care for his parents any longer) · Gregor’s Mother (a weak woman who cannot physically stand the sight of Gregor’s bug form.)

=Brief Plot Summary= · Gregor awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect.

· He is worried he will be late to work as a traveling salesman but he cannot move out of his bed. · Gregor’s co-worker comes to his house and demands to see Gregor. He manages to roll out of bed and unlock the door, terrifying his family and his boss who runs out of the house. · Grete cares for her brother by providing him with milk and food that has gone bad. · Gregor knows his family cannot stand the sight of him so he hides under the couch whenever he hears someone approaching. · Gregor develops insect-like fears (Bright light, stamping feet, and loud voices) and activities (running along the walls and ceiling). · His family removes all the furniture from his room and Gregor’s mother faints when she finally catches sight of her son. · Gregor’s family begins to resent his presence especially because of the effect he has on his mother. When he emerges from his room one day his father pelts him with apples. One becomes lodged in his outer shell and causes an infection as it rots. Soon he is barely able to move. · The family takes in lodgers to make up for their lost income; they also get jobs (His father at a bank and Grete at a store.) They begin to ignore Gregor and forget to clean his room or look in on him. · To accommodate the lodgers all the family’s extra stuff is moved into Gregor’s room which Gregor dislikes. His room becomes a dumping ground for unwanted objects. · Grete is invited to play the violin for the lodgers. Gregor hears and ventures out of his room, profoundly moved by the music and dreaming of sending his sister to the conservatory. · The lodgers freak out at the sight of Gregor and say they will move out the next day without paying their rent. · The family decides that the insect can no longer be Gregor because Gregor would have died to save them the trouble of his presence. · Gregor agrees and sulks to his room covered in dust and debris. That night he dies and the cleaning woman discovers his corpse the next day. · Gregor’s father demands the lodgers leave. · The family weeps for a little bit together then take a trolley out into the country; they talk about their future and plan on finding a husband for Grete.

=Motifs (Recurring Images, Ideas, Figures of Speech, Symbols, Colors) & Their Thematic Significance= · The Window—represents Gregor’s separation from society. He is an outsider looking in through the window. · The Apple—represents how Gregor has been cast out from his family like Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden. · The Doors—Gregor has three doors in his door but all are locked, even when he sleeps. This represents his alienation and isolation from his family. · Personal Identity—Gregor is so out of touch with his own body and personal identity that he barely even notices his transformation at first. His identity was suffocated by his job, and his family, and only as a monster does he really understand who he is. · Guilt—it is guilt that drives Gregor to die, it is out of guilt that Grete cares for her brother.

**Other Significant Thematic Elements (Significant Character's Names, Significant Quotations, Significant Actions/Events)**  · “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from a troubled dream, he found himself changed in his bed to some monstrous kind of vermin.”—This should have been the climax of the novella but is the first sentence. We do not know what lead up to the transformation only how Gregor deals with it.  · "That was the voice of an animal."—The chief clerk exclaims this after seeing Gregor’s transformation; it is the beginning of his isolation from society. · "Just from each other's glance and almost without knowing it they agreed that it would soon be time to find a good man for her. And, as if in confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions, as soon as they reached their destination Grete was the first to get up and stretch out her young body.”—The family is going to move on with their lives without Gregor, almost more satisfied without him. It is Gregor’s final isolation. He is not even a part of society that deserves to be grieved.

=Major Themes= · Alienation can cause intense loneliness, and a loss of hope and the will to live. Even before his transformation into a giant insect, the reader is given the impression that Gregor Samsa has alienated himself from his family. His job as a traveling salesman keeps him away from home and he locks his doors at night. After his transformation into an insect the alienation he feels intensifies. Every attempt he makes to reach out or somehow communicate with his family ends in disaster and pain until they alienate him completely by refusing to acknowledge that he is even Gregor, their son, their family; they view his as a monster truly now. After hearing this Gregor dies, quietly, alone, and without hope. · Modern man is enslaved to money and materialism. After his transformation the reader observes that Gregor’s family’s main concern, which should be helping Gregor and restoring him to normality, is their financial security. Without Gregor to provide for them, they have no reason to love him.