Samples

Gregor

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka's is a characteristic in the genre of investigational symbolic fiction that came about in the early 20th century. The central character of the story, Gregor Samsa, is the epitome of the numbing of the soul amidst the rising of the industrial revolution. An irony in The Metamorphosis is that Gregor Samsa experiences a metamorphosis in the corporeal sense only; philosophically was always a bug and turning out to be one physically has no consequence on his satisfaction in life.

According to Karl Marx, the laborer's "work is external to the worker, i.e., it does not form part of his essential being so that instead of feeling well in his work, he feels unhappy, instead of developing his free physical and mental energy, he abuses his body and ruins his mind" (Bloom 107).  Gregor is the perfect symbol for what Marx is arguing about; he is estranged from the product he endeavors to generate for the reason that he doesn't own it. Further, he is actually not even laboring to earn a wage; his wages are going to settling his father's sum unpaid.

When Gregor body transforms into the bug he was philosophically all alone, his alienation and isolation turns out to be complete. “Gregor Samsa's transformation into vermin presents self-alienation in a literal way,not merely a customary metaphor become fictional fact...no manner more drastic could illustrate the alienation of a consciousness from its own being than Gregor Samsa's startled and startling awakening” (Bloom 105). Lastly, Gregor's estrangement from his humankind is totally realized and physicalized: “That is to say, Samsa, having been a successful salesman, was once the pillar of his family, but now, being helpless, his sister assumes in the eyes of his parents the role of leadership and reassuring strength that he had once occupied” (Scott 37). Just like an insect is a small participant in the grander system of nature and not anticipated to experience things such as ambition or content, so does Gregor ultimately give over completely to a scheme meant to obliterate those key workings of humanity.

Works Cited

Bloom, Harold, ed. Franz Kafka's the Metamorphosis. New York: Chelsea House, 1988.

Scott, Nathan A. Rehearsals of Discomposure: Alienation and Reconciliation in Modern Literature: Franz Kafka, Ignazio Silone, D. H. Lawrence . New York: King's Crown Press, 1952.

Kafka, Franz. "The Metamorphosis." The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Vol. F: The Twentieth Century. 2nd Edition. Ed. Sarah Lawall. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2003.

 

 

Place an order