Use Of Symbols In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka uses tangible objects as symbols in Metamorphosis to parallel the obscurities of his own personal life. These objects include, but are not limited to, Gregor’s bedroom door, the picture of the woman in furs, Grete’s violin, and the food he eats during his life as a bug. All of these can all be connected to represent Kafka's unstable relationships and his transition to a secluded lonely life. Gregor’s bedroom door, which prohibits him from observing and participating in the daily occurrences in his house and hides him from his family, is used to represent the unstable relationships he shared with his family. After his metamorphosis, the attitudes and feelings of his family change. They barely come in to visit him anymore, and

Although he was just a salesman, he was still a human, and being a human, still wanted to have a family, be financially secure, and have things that other people had. The novella opens with a description of the picture of the woman in furs that he had recently cut out of a glossy magazine and lodged in a pretty gilt frame. It “showed a lady done up in a fur hat and a fur boa, sitting upright and raising up against the viewer a heavy fur muff in which her whole foreman had disappeared” (3). The audience soon sees the importance of this picture when his mother and sister try to move furniture from his room so he has more open space to move. When he sees what they’re doing, he “really didn’t know what to salvage first” (33), but then “saw hanging conspicuously on the wall, which was otherwise bare already the picture of the lady all dressed in furs” (33), and crawls up on it. He believes that “no one would take away this picture” (34), at least not while he was on it, and it ended up being the only thing that he was able to preserve. This picture embodies everything that he had wanted before his metamorphosis, and in Kafka’s real life, mirrors his …... Kafka’s personal life “raged with complications” (“Franz Kafka”), and his relationships were plagued by his insecurities. He was engaged to marry his girlfriend twice before they finally separated. Later on, he fell in

He has a special relationship with her, in which she “remained close” (26) to him, and even had a secret plan to send her to the Conservatory so she could learn violin. After Gregor goes through his metamorphosis, his sister is the only person who treats him well initially. She feeds him every day and even goes through all his favorite foods to see which ones he still liked to eat. However, even his close relationship with his sister couldn’t stop the strained relationship that soon came upon them. After his metamorphosis, when feeding him, she quickly shoves “any old food into Gregor’s room with her foot” (41), and sweeps any leftover “out with a swish of the broom” (41). This caused Gregor immense pain, as he couldn’t bear to see the sight of his relationship with his sister go to ruins just like that. When he hears her play her violin one evening, he was so determined to crawl to her and somehow let her know that she should bring her violin into his room, as no one “appreciated her playing the way he would appreciate it” (46). This leads to the sighting of him by the other people living there and his eventual death, as well as a broken heart. In Kafka’s real life, Ottla was his favorite sister. She was his “silent ally in his conflict with his father” (“Ottla, Kafka’s Favourite Sister”), and in her, he found someone who “understood his writing and unconventional