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The Metamorphosis Short Story Analysis

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Non-western and Western texts have many differences and similarities in there writing styles, themes, characters, and the images they evoke in their stories. In the two stories, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and “I Beg You, Brother: Do Not Die” by Yosano Akiko, both portray the theme of family relations and how two sisters share the possible loss of their brothers. The nonwestern text, “I Beg You, Brother: Do Not Die”, and the western text, The Metamorphosis, both present a female character who is faced with a tough situation in which their family is put through hard times and reveals the inner character of those in that family. The two young women, Yosano and Grete, share the pain in which they end up in a situation of the possibility …show more content…

The family reacts in such shock that they leave Gregor in his room and they are scared to even see Gregor in his bug form. While Gregor’s father and mother were both unable to look or even bare to take care of their transformed son, their daughter, Grete, took on the role as care taker of Gregor. The short story is written in such great detail of how Gregor was treated and what happened during the life of his metamorphosis. Throughout the story Grete continued to try to make Gregor’s situation better and it was impressive that she tried to do the things she did for Gregor, but near the end of the story she begins to question whether Gregor is still in the form that used to be her brother. Although the story ends tragically for Gregor, the story portrays Grete to grow stronger in the end and how she became a …show more content…

One major difference between Grete and Yosano is the culture they live in and their ethnicity. Yosano is a Japanese woman living in the time around the Russo-Japanese War and Grete is living in American society during a time in which their family is in great debt and they lose their major or only income due to the transformation of Grete’s brother, Gregor. Yosano is an older woman, who loves her younger brother very much and does not want what happened to her father to happen to him while he is at war. Grete is a young woman around the age of 17 who blossoms into a strong woman as she takes on the role of helping her family and her brother. Near the end of the story, the reader begins to realize that Grete is beginning to take less and less care of Gregor and is losing faith that Gregor is even in the creature that was once him. Grete changed from trying to help her brother be more comfortable and taking care of him each morning to evening to barely opening the crack of his door to feed him after a scene Gregor scared Grete and her mother as they were trying to rearrange his room. The story shows Gregor noticing Grete slowly pulling away from Gregor, “But he could probably have stayed there for weeks without his sister’s showing any improvement; she must have seen the dirt as

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Gregor shows that he cares for his 7 year old little sister, Boots. When Gregor and she had fallen through a grate in the laundry room of their apartment building, Gregor went to go find her sister. Before Boots and Gregor had fallen through the grate, Gregor’s mom had told him to watch his younger sister. Gregor started to panic

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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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" Physically: Gregor literally crawls into his room, lays down on the floor, and takes his last breath. Mentally: Gregor's family alienates him and is ultimately responsible for Gregor's death through their negligence. Clearly, the bug is Gregor, but Mr. and Mrs. Samsa and Grete treat 'it' as if he was scum. " They were treating him as though he was invisible. They would literally walk past his room every day and attend their family dinners without saying anything to Gregor at all.

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Grete’s Significant Transformation She’s the only one who can face Gregor in his new body. She is the only one who can understand his needs. She is no longer Gregor’s little sister who needs to be protected, now she wants to return the favor, her name is Grete.

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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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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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In Metamorphosis, Gregor’s love for his sister, Grete, is what brings him happiness and the ultimate reason why he stays alive. His love for his sister, is what allows him to continue living as a transformed bug, but once his sister rejects Gregor saying, “He must go… this creature

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(Kafka 34). Grete has learned in order to go up, one must go down, and what better person to go down than her now incapable brother. She exploits the fact that Gregor can’t work, and proves her usefulness to her parents, depicting how in Capitalism one can easily be replaced if they unable to achieve their expected

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He tries to keep himself separated from his family and others, but that fails after a while. His family cannot take the sight of what he has become, except for his sister who becomes the one to look after him. In the story, Gregor’s family feels that he cannot communicate with them, but he still can understand everything they are saying. So, they lock him inside of his room away from the world. Gregor’s mother and father feel that Gregor will eventually get better, and turn back normal.

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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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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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They start out with a very close relationship and slowly drift apart, until Grete wants Gregor totally out of her life. The changes Gregor went through are too much for Grete to deal

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In the Disney movie The Little Mermaid, Arial doesn’t want what everyone else around her wants in life. She dreams of being a human unlike her friends and family. Both Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Franz Kafka are different from the norm, like Arial. They experiment with what it means to be a “normal” human in their books. Though the books Metamorphosis, and Notes from the Underground have different authors, they share many parallels, but also have numerous contradicting themes.

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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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