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The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

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Strained Relationships between Father and Son Have you ever questioned your own identity to the point where you ask yourself a multitude of questions? “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka raises countless questions in the wake of transformation and the perception of belonging and non-belonging. Nonetheless, the tale of the unfortunate Gregor Samsa makes us think more deeply about his identity, and how it parallels to the author Franz Kafka. The novella “The Metamorphosis” written by Franz Kafka is about a young man named Gregor Samsa who turned into an insect and the troubling life he lead due to this transformation. Gregor Samsa, who is the main character, is modified physically, emotionally and mentally and he changes his outlook toward himself. …show more content…

When looking at Franz Kafka and Gregor Samsa in “The Metamorphosis” many will see some very close ties between the two, such as issues with their family, particularly their father. It can be said that “The Metamorphosis” is a reflection of the author Franz Kafka’s real life issues with his father. Kafka, an astonishing author, reflects his reality into “The Metamorphosis” and also shows a peak of his identity who he really was and what he had to deal with through his work. The many encounters Gregor has with his father, while as an insect were never pleasant. For example, his father tries to kill him by throwing apples at him and his mother has to beg for his life to be spared, “From the fruit bowl on the sideboard his father had filled his pockets, and now, without for the moment taking accurate aim, was throwing apple after apple.” (Kafka, 64) The apple is symbolizing the object to lead Gregor to his death. One of the apples lodges into his back injuring him quite seriously. From this point on, physically he is less able to function and can no longer do a lot for himself, marking the start of his long demise which results in his inevitable death. His father was always pushing or poking him to get back in the lonely room when he is trying to help his family to understand him. His father does not understand him and they isolate him in his room, becoming

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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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“The Metamorphosis”, written by Franz Kafka, takes place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the city is unspecified. The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, is turned into a giant bug and struggles to regain his harmonious life as a traveling salesman. Gregor goes through both a physical and emotional change throughout the novel, from turning into a bug and then being unable to provide for his family because of his condition. Gregor has been changed into a giant bug where he is a not a pleasant eyesight to his family and isn't accepted by his father and mother but only his sister. As the novella begins,”he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect”.

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777 Words | 4 Pages

Gregor began to resent his father for throwing household items at him, squashing him like a bug. Even his beloved sister Grete began irritating Gregor by removing all of his belonging from his room, leaving him with nothing. The cruelty performed on Gregor by his own family sends him into a dark pit of despair. With nothing to live for he began to slowly end his life, making one final sacrifice for the ones he loves

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1047 Words | 5 Pages

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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747 Words | 3 Pages

Transforming and Romanticizing a Storyline The Metamorphosis, a novella written by Franz Kafka, attracted the attention of many of its readers due to the writing framework and shocking concepts. The story depicts a man named Gregor Samsa who has befallen the fate of a cockroach- literally. After being transformed into a large bug, Gregor goes through the struggles of misunderstanding, neglect, and loss of his family relationships.

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Vince Dinh Mr. Platt IB English SL 2 Mar 2018 The Representative Transformation of Gregor in The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, known for defining a new grotesque, or kafkaesque, genre of literature, explores the life of a travelling salesman after his unfortunate transformation into a giant vermin. As the novella progresses, Gregor Samsa becomes anything but human after the titular metamorphosis occurs. During his human life, being a hardworking salesman for his family, Gregor Samsa exuded common traits of the typical middle-class worker during the time, such as that he worked tirelessly for his family.

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Title: The Metamorphosis According to J. Stephens, the story Metamorphosis reflects Franz Kafka life because "The relationship between Gregor and his father is in many ways similar to Franz and his father Herrman.'' The author lived his life in the shadow of his father. In the novel, Kafka is using the main charter, Gregor, to express his true feelings and little detail about his life. (J. Stephens) '' The Metamorphosis'' takes place at Gregor's apartment where he is lying in bed and wakes up as a large bug.

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The apple is lodged in a painful place and causes pain every time he moves, but he gets used to it. In my opinion, this is trying to convey how dealing with severe depression is. Gregor is clearly depressed because he is cut off from his family. “ Gregor’s serious wound, from which he suffered for over a month (since no one ventured to remove the apple, it remained in his flesh as a visible reminder), seemed by itself to have reminded the father that, in spite of his present unhappy and hateful appearance, Gregor was a member of the family, something one should not treat as an enemy, and that it was, on the contrary, a requirement of family duty to suppress one’s aversion and to endure-- nothing else, just endure”(Kafka

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As the main character, Gregor Samsa, transforms from human state to that of a beetle, there are many aspects that are left unexplained and seemingly unstable. For example, in the novel, Gregor’s transformation into a beetle is left unexplained by Kafka. Kafka opens up the novel by stating, “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 1). There is no scientific or physical evidence as to why this transformation occurred, but it can be ascertained that it is a psychological transformation.

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947 Words | 4 Pages

Later on in the story, when his mother asks him what is wrong, he lies and tells her he doesn’t feel well. He’s ashamed of what he’s become and does not want her to find out what has happened to him. At the end of the

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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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1092 Words | 5 Pages

With such a title, one might expect that this story will express the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly, but with Kafka’s troubled upbringing, abuse and feelings of being devalued for most of his life, it’s easy to see how Kafka felt the need to symbolically dehumanize himself. Kafka’s choice of human-to-insect transformation exudes self-loathing because there’s nothing lower than a cockroach. While Gregor is the one who took on the grotesque transformation, it’s actually his family’s behavior towards his change which conveys complete hostility. Grete, for one, had enough near the end when she said, “If it were Gregor, he would have realized long ago that it isn't possible for human beings to live with such a creature, and he would have gone away of his own free will” (Kafka). It’s very disheartening knowing that his own family couldn’t handle his transformation when his first thought in the morning was getting to work on time for their

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1259 Words | 6 Pages

Published in 1915, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is a tale of a salesman named Gregor Samsa who one day wakes up to discover that he has quite literally transformed into an insect. Unable to support his family as an insect, he is only able to stay in his room and eat the rotting scraps of food that his sister brings him. Over time, Gregor’s transformation into a large bug begins to affect the lifestyle of his family, and they slowly become resentful of him. His family secretly wishes Gregor would leave, and knowing this, Gregor willfully dies in his room.

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1454 Words | 6 Pages

The apple is seen as a double edged sword that symbolizes two things. The apple symbolizes destruction and growth. The apple is the cause of many events in Gregor’s life which eventually all lead to his total annihilation. Though the apple is also as symbol of destruction it is also seen as a symbol of growth. Grete and her parents are able to move on with their lives after the apple incident.

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1168 Words | 5 Pages

Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis is the tragic story of young travelling salesman Gregor Samsa who becomes alienated by his family after he transforms overnight into a giant insect. The Metamorphosis, while open to various interpretations, clearly depicts Kafka’s own views of the suffocating capitalist socio-economic structure and the struggles for power that occur within one. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka illustrates the incessant oppression that occurs as a result of a rigidly capitalist society. First, Kafka illustrates the expendability of workers in a capitalist society with the role of Gregor at his workplace and within his family. Gregor is a traveling salesman, utterly unimportant to the company to which he dedicates his life.

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