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How Does The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka Existentialism

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Have you ever wondered what makes you breathe, move, eat, and live. Have you ever questioned your purpose in life? These questions were part of a twentieth century philosophical movement that analyzes individual existence in a universe where everyone has free will. Nothing in this world is right or wrong, but is merely your own decision that you can make to decide your fate. This was called existentialism and Franz Kafka was one of these philosophers in this movement. Kafka presents his existentialist philosophy in The Metamorphosis through use of imagery, metaphors, and dialogue to create isolation and despair. By doing so, Gregor was able to effectively achieve existential understanding through these methods.
Isolation is a big key for existential …show more content…

Kafka uses Gregor’s appearance and imagery to put him in despair. Grete and his mother decide to clean out his room of all his possessions so he could have more room to crawl around, thinking it would make him happier. His mother still hasn’t seen him since the incident with his manager but wanted to. Kafka says, “she stepped to one side, caught sight of the gigantic brown blotch on the flowered wallpaper……...cried in a hoarse, bawling voice: “Oh, God, Oh God!”; and as if giving up completely , she fell”(Kafka,36). Gregor’s mother fainted at the sight of him because she didn’t recognize him as her son but only the disgusting brown blotch that he is. Gregor tries to help his Grete revive their mother but he can only watch, because he is unable to communicate with her. This makes him anguished and hopeless because he didn’t mean to cause his mother to faint and is unable to help her because of his condition. Gregor’s despair is also created through the use of metaphors. The source of his hopelessness comes from Grete and his mother moving his furniture out of his room. Gregor tells himself, “They were cleaning out his room; depriving him of everything that he loved;they had already carried away the chest of drawers……...were now budging the desk…..the desk he had done his homework on”(Kafka, 35).His desk is where he did his …show more content…

Because of these methods, Gregor was able to achieve existential understanding. Imagery is used to create images in the reader’s mind of what Gregor’s appearance is like. Kafka forms images of Gregor’s many thin legs and his outer shell to create isolation and despair. Gregor’s many uncontrollable legs isolates him from humanity because humans only 2 legs that they can easily control and Gregor doesn’t have that anymore. Imagery of his outer shell creates despair because his mother sees her son as a brown blotch and faints. Gregor is in despair because he caused his mother to faint due to her not seeing him as her son. Kafka utilizes metaphors of his appearance and desk to isolate and create despair. He uses Gregor’s metamorphosis as a metaphor for the person he once was. Gregor is now a pathetic, disrespected, weak bug which is the complete opposite of a person he used to be in the army. Because of this his family treats him as someone less than human like an animal. Despair was created when Grete and his mother took away his desk. His desk was a metaphor for his knowledge. Taking that away was stripping Gregor of his humanity and it put him in despair because he tries to cling onto humanity. Lastly Kafka incorporates dialogue to isolate and create despair. Grete refers Gregor as ‘it’ which is significant because she

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Gregor Samsa’s transition from human to vermin was not the only shift that happened through the duration of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. The novel is centered around Gregor who wakes up as a vermin, presumably a cockroach, which catalyses a series of emotionally traumatic experiences for him and his family, culminating in Gregor’s death. Yet the most significant change is, in fact, the gender role reversal seen both with Gregor and Grete, his sister, as Gregor becomes more effeminate and Grete becomes more emasculate, directly correlating with their societal and emotional transformation due to Gregor's physical change. From the moment, Gregor wakes up he has transformed. But not just as a vermin.

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Growing up in a community with an unequal view of women, Grete has been influenced by the idea that her knowledge is of no importance. Grete had been looked down upon by her family for her lack of a stance and her position in society. However, Gregor’s transformation forces Grete to make up for his shortcomings, pushing her out of her comfort zone as well as her ideal gender role. Given the circumstances, Grete gives up her simple, easy lifestyle to make up for the loss of Gregor. In the beginning, Gregor depicts Grete using degrading terms to explain his sister, which suggests that her role as a female falls below his status as a male.

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Yet, she is actually exercising her authority over both her mother and Gregor. As Gregor’s mother reasons as to why not to remove Gregor’s furniture, Grete “did not let herself be swerved from her decision by her mother” (Kafka 34). Her conviction to deprive Gregor of the pieces that represent his life as a human reveals the process of her own transformation into a figure of power. Finally, Grete’s most significant show of power is her convincing of the family that the insect is not Gregor. She announces to her family that they “have to try to get rid of it” (Kafka 51), and upon hearing this Gregor retreats to his room and dies.

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