Alienation in Kafka
Franz Kafka published one of his famous works, "The Metamorphosis," in 1915. Gregor Samsa is the principal character in the story. Samsa is the character whose metamorphosis is the primary subject of the story. The story is not a happy one. One of the primary themes upon which the story meditates is alienation. The paper will examine and explore the instances of alienation in "The Metamorphosis." Gregor Samsa experiences alienation before and after he transforms into a very large insect; it is only after his transformation that the others around him notice him and his alienation.
Gregor Samsa is miserable in his career as a salesman. He does not have much privacy because he has a room in an apartment occupied by his parents and sister. Gregor's supervisor is an unpleasant and disagreeable man who does not favor Gregor. One morning, Gregor awakes in his bed in his room with a strange feeling. From very early on, Gregor realizes that he has transformed into "monstrous vermin." He is the same size as his adult self, but now he is a bug. He has the same thoughts and feelings he retained as inn his human form while within his bug body. Gregor does his best to conceal his new form until he mentally gets a grip on this new and startling situation, but due to his supervisor's listlessness, he opens the door to his room with his mouth to apologize. The supervisor flees from him in fear and Gregor's father chases him back into his room with a rolled up newspaper, just as if he were a bug of more normal size.
Gregor experienced loneliness as a human. He did not have friends. He did not receive any pleasure or fulfillment in his work in sales. In an indirect way,...
And a lot of this has to do with real epithets that were used against Jews at that time on the streets. Someone would see a Jew and say, 'You dirty dog', or 'You're nothing more than a cockroach', or something like that. For Kafka, this became a kind of literal condemnation which he accepted into himself. OK. 'You point a finger at me and call me a dog,
Franz Kafka "The Trial" Franz Kafka's possibly unfinished novel, "The Trial," is one of the great mysteries of modernist literature. It was at once an astute, even prescient critique of modern power structures as well as a novel that does not quite make sense from a literary perspective. Left on the shelf by Kafka in 1915, the book was published in 1925 during the tense interwar period, which was, not coincidentally,
Narration Undergoing 'Kafkan Metamorphosis' In his well-published and -- renowned short story, "The Metamorphosis," Franz Kafka has elucidated through effective symbolism the influence of change and difference to the psyche of the individual. The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, experienced this when one day, he found himself unable to go about his daily activities anymore because he has transformed -- or more aptly, metamorphosed -- into a giant insect. In the last few paragraphs of
The depiction of the man-turned-insect and his descent into oblivion is less than pleasant, much like the description of the narrow, deserted streets in Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." In the description of the insect and the city in each work respectively, no details are given but the negative ones. In the case of Eliot's work, Prufrock is unable to find a confidence in himself and even
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