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Authority In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

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In Metamorphosis, Kafka uses the role of the Father to depict parental authority. Throughout the novel, the Father’s attitudes towards Gregor changes as he re-establishes himself as the patriarch, inside the family hierarchy. The protagonist, Gregor, genuinely cares for his family. However, after his metamorphosis, their loyalty is tested. Slowly, he is rejected by his family who he adores, showing us just how important he was within the family unit. The family take Gregor for granted. “I have responsibilities for my parents and my sister”(101), Gregor is the sole provider for the family; being the only one to uphold a job. Without him, they would not be able to afford simple necessities. His family as a result, become lethargic; weak and …show more content…

The same man that lay “feebly buried in bed,”(124) who could not “get to his feet any more,”(124) was now standing “fairly erect; wearing a smart blue uniform with golden buttons,”(124). He had an “alert and vigorous expression”(124) in his eyes. As he raised his feet to an “uncommon height”(124) above Gregor, we understand just how much he loathes Gregor 's presence. Kafka uses adjectives like ‘alert’ and ‘vigorous’, strengthens how quick he has become; how he is physically strong, healthy and full of energy. Kafka uses the verb ‘buried’ to emphasise just how debilitated his father was. How he was so lifeless and cadaverous, and how limited his abilities were. His new occupation as a bank messenger, with new uniform, fills him with a strong sense of authority. This aids him in affirming himself as the head of the household. He now provides income, which was Gregor purpose in the family, which removes him from the family unit. Retaining his authority, he does “refuse to take off his uniform”(127). To him he is never off duty; guarding Gregor and protecting his family. He is always alert, keeping Gregor at bay. Gregor is no longer his son, but instead is a threat to his …show more content…

Gregors pain is not purely physical, as his unhelpfulness pains him as well. As before they depended on him so strongly, and now he needs them more than ever. However, he is a burden that they have to take care of, and they conclude that Gregor is really just a giant insect that creates no income. The rotting fruit stays in his back, because “no one dared to remove the apple”(126). It decayed slowly, allowing him to come to terms with the truth; that he is unwanted. As his mother begs for his life, we see Gregor’s physical and mental condition significantly decrease, all because of the actions of his father. Kafka shows us that because the Father is strong and powerful again, Gregor becomes a waste of space. Once, they relied heavily upon him, and now he is excluded, feared and an outcast. In

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Gregor’s initial reaction to his transformation shows his preoccupation with work. His confusion over his radical transformation does not last long, quickly becoming concerned with work and disregarding that he woke up physically transformed into a monstrous vermin. Immediately after realizing he had transformed, Gregor explains, “Well, I haven’t given up hope completely; once I’ve gotten the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to [the boss] that will probably take another five to six years… But for the time being I’d better get up, since my train leaves at five” (4). The quick transition of Gregor’s thoughts from the initial shock to his economic duties reveals his ironic nonchalant attitude towards his nonsensical transformation and

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616 Words | 3 Pages

1. Almost from the very beginning of Gregor’s metamorphosis, Mr. Samsa has been unwilling to accept Gregor as his son. Furthermore, Gregor’s transformation into an offensive form of an insect, constantly reminds Mr. Samsa of the grotesque, feeble, and pathetic aberration that he has fathered. Consequently, now that Gregor has genuinely revealed himself in all his audacious behavior, his cruel father is driven to destroy him. In his eyes, Gregor has become everything loathsome to him—scrawny, parasitic, and futile—not the kind of son this once successful and ambitious storekeeper could be proud of.

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484 Words | 2 Pages

The narrator said, “During the first fortnight, Gregor’s parents could not bring themselves to enter his room…” He has been disconnected from his family to the point where they’re emotionally unstable and unable to treat him as he deserves with affection and comfort to help him cope with his metamorphosis. The narrator shows this disconnection before the mutation,”Gregor later earned so much money that he was in a position to cover the expenses for the entire family…” He later described the exchange not “particularly warm”. Gregor feels alienated by his parents because of the lack of affection for him providing for them.

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804 Words | 4 Pages

This is the reason he isolated himself from his family. Gregor is forced to work in an environment he hates but his transformation overlooks that. He doesn’t have to suffer from his occupation and allows him to spend more time with his family. However, this change only had a positive affect temporarily.

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777 Words | 4 Pages

Gregor’s isolation and loneliness begins to toy with his composure, he becomes unpredictable and frightening to his family. Although, Gregor’s slow transformation from man to bug eventually becomes beneficial to Gregor. For instance, Gregor’s bug-like appearance allows him to be released from his family's high expectations. As for his developing bug-like qualities helps him to register his inner anger he feels towards his father. Gregor now realizes his father shows no sympathy towards Gregor and instead punishes him for something he has no control over.

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1047 Words | 5 Pages

While Gregor begins are the all mighty, male provider, he regresses into an effeminate state as he no longer can perform his tasks for work. As his transformation into a vermin worsens, he no longer can perform any action and further conforms to the true identity of a bug. Grete, on the other hand, picks up the male provider role that Gregor could no longer perform, but then, as she becomes tired with the work and as Gregor identifies with an “it”, goes back to her female role. Gregor's physical change forces him to degenerate to death, but allows Grete to thrive, growing into a

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1058 Words | 5 Pages

Both Kafka and Gregor were tormented characters facing the absurdity of their complicated situations, which brought both of them to their ruin, one by death, and the other by escaping into literary fantasies. Throughout the story I deduced the resemblance between the author, Kafka, and the main character, Gregor. There are many similarities that can be seen between both as shown above, it is as if Kafka projected his problems onto Gregor and discarded them into a fictional

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769 Words | 4 Pages

What is deconstruction in literature? According to Merriam Webster, a deconstructionist literary criticism is a “philosophical or critical method which asserts that meanings, metaphysical constructs, and hierarchical are always rendered unstable by their dependence on ultimately arbitrary signifiers” (Merriam). In other words, a deconstructionist literary criticism looks at the book as a whole and deconstructs the pieces of the novel and how they may seem unstable when compared to the whole meaning. This mindset is exhibited in that of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Franz Kafka leaves many aspects of the novel unexplained and he includes details that are unstable to the meaning of the novel as a whole.

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1504 Words | 7 Pages

Kafka uses diction and symbolism to convey the family’s dissatisfaction and the deterioration in their family ties. Each family member acquires a job to compensate the loss of Gregor’s salary. Kafka writes: “They were fulfilling to the utmost the demands the world makes on the poor: Gregor’s father fetched breakfast for the petty employees at the bank, his mother sacrificed herself for the underclothes of strangers, his sister ran back and forth behind the shop counter at her costumers’ behest... And the wound in Gregor’s back would begin to ache anew when… Gregor’s mother…would say: ‘shut the door now Grete’; and Gregor was left in the dark again” (Kafka

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753 Words | 4 Pages

The narrator describes a recently hung picture, “The picture was of a woman clad in a fur stole; she sat upright and held out to the viewer a thick fur muff into which her entire forearm disappeared” (Kafka, 2013, p. 112). The protagonist displayed, this picture in his room to symbolize his search in finding love and a true meaning in life. Therefore, depriving Gregor from having a social life affected his mental

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1857 Words | 8 Pages

Franz Kafka, heavily influenced by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, devises the character Gregor Samsa in order to portray a detailed experience of an individual’s metamorphosis. Kafka’s narration style differs greatly from Ovid’s, in that, the narration begins with a first person perspective and changes to a third person narration, which remains consistent to the end of the novel. Unlike the stories within the Metamorphoses, there is a clear contrast in the portrayal of Gregor’s transformation. Ovid and Kafka’s depiction of a metamorphosis incorporates the concept of identity in the individual’s transition, however Kafka emphasizes the family dynamic and the hostility Gregor feels. Gregor’s family’s inability to look past Gregor’s exterior appearance

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245 Words | 1 Pages

Gregor’s father usually spends hours on breakfast while he “sat reading a number of different newspapers”. (Kafka 36) It’s fair to say that Gregor has offered a comfortable life for his family and actually is the welfare of his family the only thing he concerns for all the time.

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795 Words | 4 Pages

He became embodied by his weak form and closed off to the real world, literally. Gregor’s influence on his family also allowed his father to grow as an individual and appear superior when dressing within his

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1156 Words | 5 Pages

Prior to the transformation, Gregor had always only been living for his family, due to his complete absorption in familial duties, bringing money “home every month – he had kept only a few florins for himself” (Kafka, 36), trapped at a job “he wished he could be rid of” (Kafka, 36). The extension of his alienation from the society is symbolized by the “picture…cut out of an illustrated magazine”, where he has a deeper attachment to the picture than an actual person. Hence, the transformation has freed him, which can be said to be a rebirth. From initially wanting to be “completely concealed” (Kafka, 38) to not frighten his family, to his aggressiveness in protecting the magazine cut-out, as “he squatted on his picture and…would sooner spring into Grete’s face” (Kafka, 44), the change can be observed whereby his familial responsibilities, for the first time, were not prioritized with his usual guilt towards his family being replaced with “sheer anger” (Kafka, 52). Yet, the “violin recital” (Kafka, 59) serves as the catalyst where “it was as if the way to the unknown nourishment he craved was revealing itself” (Kafka, 58), reigniting his “deep feelings of love” (Kafka, 64) for his family.

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1799 Words | 8 Pages

Here the part of Gregor 's psyche that is still human keeps on partner these crisp sustenances as things he might want to eat, yet his body rejects these nourishments as they don 't engage a bug. In any case, it isn 't so easy to say that there is a strict part between brain/body here, as what appears to be inviting is an element of both body and mind, or of body affecting personality. Gregor appeared to be confounded or even occupied while he coincidentally threatened his family, now Gregor demonstrates some seeing about the repulsiveness (and conceivable money related trouble) that his transformation has brought on, how it has overturned his family 's standard and future. Anyhow, he manages this extremely human manner of thinking in a distinctly creepy crawly like route creeping around and going under the bed—demonstrating his failure to change himself to fit a more human

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