Alienation is the state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be involved. Alienation is a central theme that Franz Kafka discusses in his story ‘Metamorphosis’ from the beginning all the way to the end when the main character, Gregor, dies alone in his room. Gregor’s guilt, being a work alcoholic, and the rejection from his family feed off the central core of alienation. There seems...
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Freedom is always an interesting and important topic. In the United State, every citizen is supposed to be free. According to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, citizens have many rights such as freedom to express yourself, right to vote in elections for public officials, and freedom to pursue ‘life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness’. In this analytical paper, my topic is describing what freedom means in The Metamorphosis and The Bell Jar. I argue that Kafka and Plath...
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Abstract In this essay, I will talk about how the main symbolism in The Metamorphosis is shown through the protagonist, Gregor, and his family. In that, we’ll explore how his family is symbolic for capitalism, using him one moment, and then disregarding him once he is unable to help them anymore, to him himself, being unable to go out and about, being stuck in his room, ostracized by his work and his own family because of his newly found bug...
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Introduction to Alienation and Transformation In the story “The Metamorphosis”, Franz Kafka focuses on the topic of alienation and considers its underlying effect on the human consciousness and self-identity. The alienation Kafka instigates is propagated towards the main character Gregor Samsa, who inevitably transforms into a giant cockroach. The alienation by family relations affects him to the extent that he prioritizes his extensive need to be the family’s provider before his own well-being. This overwhelming need to provide inevitably diminishes...
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Franz Kafka was a German novelist and short story writer who was born and lived in Prague, Czechia. Kafka was known for his particular style of writing. His novels often consisted of isolated protagonists that were faced with surreal conflicts. Many of his stories have even been considered to be somewhat autobiographical. Kafka often shows dichotomy through his writings and the existential dilemmas men face. In his novella Metamorphosis, published in 1915 dichotomy is presented as the dilemma that exists...
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Part 1 & 2 Comprehension/Analysis Questions Directions: Answer the following questions in complete sentences. You must use a piece of textual evidence in each response to fully develop your answer. These questions are only about Part 1 & 2 of The Metamorphosis. What type of narration (first person, third person, etc.) is used in The Metamorphosis? How is this an effective way of telling Gregor’s story? Gregor’s narration is in third person, meaning that the narrator is not a character...
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The onlookers go rigid when the train goes past. Franz Kafka writes this in his diary in 1910. He is twenty-seven years old and more than half his life is over. He doesn’t know this, of course, but he has intimations: glimpses forward into the abyss. Suffering as he has his whole life with debilitating migraines, insomnia and crippling self-doubt, he begins the diary after a five month period of being unable to write. I write this very decidedly out...
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What is it about some novels that captivate and capture our attention? Why do they continue to enthrall and beguile us despite it being decades after their publication date? There are original stories that are fundamental to our society. Some have acquired the attention of readers for decades, centuries, and even millenniums; they might be religious texts, national epics, or folktales explaining some quality of the world or human existence. However, just as individual narratives maintain the ability to rapt...
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“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.” The preceding quote is an excerpt from Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” which is a novella about Gregor, a salesman, who unexpectedly turns into a huge, unidentified insect one morning. ‘The Metamorphosis” is an allegory for humankind and Gregor’s transformation is more of a symbolic one than a physical one. The book is sectioned into three sections and the...
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Introduction: The unique writing styles of simplicity and irony are intermingled with an interview style, employed by John Krakauer in “Into the Wild” serve to exemplify the main themes of existentialism and materialism. “Into the Wild” is a biography written three years after the events transpiring within the novel. “The Metamorphosis” is a social commentary written in the form of a novella. Both books follow the predestined stories of young men struggling to embrace the materialistic demands as well as...
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In ‘The Metamorphosis’, Franz Kafka depicts Gregor Samsa and his acceptance with the the psychological and mental repercussions of an inalterable physical transformation. The local segregation that Gregor faces within his household parallels to the seclusion of the cultural ‘other’, who lies on the outskirts of societal norms. Throughout history, minority groups have been oppressed by dehumanizing stereotypes and stigmas for conditions of religion, race, gender, or sexuality. Gregor throughout his life has been a nuisance to his surroundings; however...
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Answer all of the following questions. Please use no more than the recommended number of words for you answer to each question. 1. How does the narrative perspective of either ‘Metamorphosis’ or ‘The Judgement’ impact on the reader’s understanding of the story? (150 words) In both cases, the stories are told from a third-person perspective, nevertheless, it only focuses on the protagonist’s point of view. In ‘ The Metamorphosis’ there’s a limited omniscient narrator who despite being well aware of...
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‘I am separated from all things by a hollow space…and I do not even reach to its boundaries” – Kafka‘s diaries. It is no wonder that Kafka felt such a hollowness between himself and everything around him, considering that he existed within a monotonous, traditional, patriarchal and a habitual society. Such anxiety and separation from meaningfulness in life has not only been utilized by Kafka to practice self-reflection within his own stories but has also been a focal point of...
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‘The Metamorphosis’, by Franz Kafka, is story about Gregor Samsa who is a traveling salesman forced to keep his job in order to pay off his father’s debts and to support his family. There is a great change in the character’s physical appearance considering he wakes up as a giant insect. Gregor goes through many challenges and unusual situations in the story but seems as if he only cares about being able to work for his family, and almost completely...
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While on the surface, Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’ appears to be just a tale of a travelling salesman who one day wakes up transformed into a monstrous vermin, this far fetched plotline is only the tip of an iceberg concealing beneath the surface a wealth of societal criticism. The novel carefully explores and critiques the dehumanizing nature of the system of capitalism and the effect it has on laborers. A trenchant analysis of the character Gregor Samsa provides a window into...
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This year, last May, my family and I visited the Czech Republic, specifically the city of Prague. It was an amazing experience, during which we learned very much about it’s past and present history. We admired the beautiful Romanesque architecture, we walked along the famous Charles Bridge, and we were able to watch the amazing astronomical clock and many places more, all of them full of beauty and interest. One day, exploring the Jewish Quarter, we came across one of...
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In ‘The Metamorphosis’, Kafka portrays the world as an irrational place through an abrupt and unexpected opening to his book. Without explanation, Kafka utilizes ‘In Medias Res’ to immediately place his audience in the middle of the story with Gregor’s transformation into a pest. Through his use of this device, Kafka introduces an impossible situation and bizarre characters, which bring forth a sense of confusion from his audience to express the existentialist idea of the irrational world. To portray the...
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The masked anxiety in Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ is a rooted trauma from parental alienation which transforms Gregor’s self-image from human to bug. The behaviors in the narrative are mirror images of the author’s life and are reminiscent of his feelings towards his father. This parental alienation experienced during Kafka’s interactions with his father is further demonstrated by Gregor’s parents in the text. The self-neglect Gregor faces while being a dutiful slave-like character who is treated like vermin by his family literally...
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There is no doubt that writing is a way to demonstrate our deepest feelings and beliefs; therefore, it is important to comprehend the background of our writing in order to understand and analyze diverse situations. The purpose of this essay is to develop a comparative analysis between the different works written by Franz Kafka: ‘The Metamorphosis’ and ‘In the Penal Colony’. Both readings are considered literary classics, and from my humble point of view, they cover complex issues like the...
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Have you ever felt out of place in your workplace or community? Society as a whole has several negative aspects with the main being that people are very hollow. One prominent writer such as Franz Kafka laid out some of these critiques in his novel. In ‘The Metamorphosis’ by Kafka society is shown to be extremely materialist as a whole and value external appearances in excessive amounts. In the novella ‘The Metamorphosis’, society and more specifically Gregor, are shown to...
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‘The Metamorphosis’ by Kafka it gives us a story about transformation, abandoned by parents, relationship with sister. Instead of receiving love Gregor is an outcast and trying to find his way to a human again. One would normally think of the home and family as a sanctuary; however the evidence is true for Gregor Samsa in Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’. Instead of receiving love from his family, Gregor is mistreated. Gregor transformation into a bug started into his room waking...
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The novella “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka is a short story about a man named Gregor that turns into a cockroach after waking up. The graphic novel also titled “The Metamorphosis” by Peter Kuper is an adaptation of Kafka’s novella that has illustrations to go along with the storytelling. Something that the two versions have in common is symbolism to represent and convey things such as tone and mood. However, there are differences between the two in how they utilize...
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Gregor’s metamorphosis accomplishes several of his aims: First, it frees him from his hated job with an odious company by using disabling him from working; second, it relieves him of the requirement to make an agonizing desire between his filial duty to his parents—particularly his father—and his desperate yearning to emancipate himself from such responsibilities and dependence. It as a consequence allows him to “bug out” of his loathsome constraints yet do so on a degree of aware innocence, with...
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