Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka
1- Bibliographic data
1.1- Title of the work: The metamorphosis
1.2- Author: Franz Kafka
1.3- Biography:
Franz Kafka, was born in Prague,
Austro-Hungarian Empire, on July 3, 1883-Kierling. He died in Austria on June
3, 1924. He was a bohemian writer of Jewish origin who wrote in German. His
work, one of the most influential in universal literature, is one of the
pioneers in the fusion of realistic and fantastic elements, and its main themes
are paternofilial conflicts, anxiety, existentialism, physical and
psychological brutality, guilt. , the philosophy of the absurd, bureaucracy and
spiritual transformations.
He was the author of the novels The
process (Der Prozeß), The castle (Das Schloß) and The disappeared (Amerika or
Der Verschollene), the short novel The metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) and a
large number of short stories. Moreover, he left many correspondence and
autobiographical writtings. His peculiar literary style has been commonly
associated with the artistic philosophy of existentialism - which he influenced
- and expressionism. Kafka scholars discuss how to interpret the author, some
speak of the possible influence of some anti-democratic political ideology, a
mystical religiosity or a claim of their ethnocultural minority, while others
focus on the psychological content of their works. His personal relationships
also had a great impact on his writing, particularly his father (Letter to the
father), his fiancé Felice Bauer (Letters to Felice) and his sister (Letters to
Ottla).
In 1912 Kafka became aware of being a
writer. He wrote in eight hours The trial (Das Urteil) and, at the end of
November 1912, Contemplation (Betrachtung), a collection of eighteen stories
that had previously appeared scattered in various media. The appearance of this
book made him known as a writer.
At Christmas 1923, Kafka contracted a
pneumonia that forced him to return to the paternal home in Prague in March
1924. When the disease worsened, he entered the Wiener Wald sanitarium, near
Vienna, where he suffered a tuberculosis attack of the larynx , which made
swallowing food very painful, so that in his last weeks he fed mainly on
liquids. He was transferred to the university clinic of the capital and, at the
end of April, to the Dr. Hoffmann de Kierling sanatorium, where he died on June
3. He was buried on June 11 in the Jewish part of the New Prague-Žižkov
Cemetery. Kafka died without having to suffer the horror planned and executed
by the Nazis unlike his three sisters killed in concentration camps.
In his diaries and letters he frequently
complained of insomnia and headaches. He favored the vegetarian diet and
naturism. It is said that he drank a lot of unpasteurized milk, which could
trigger his tuberculosis in 1917. There is no agreement on Kafka's
psychological problems. In his intimate notebooks he speaks of "demons",
"collapse", "attacks", "helplessness",
"persecution", "loneliness", "assault on the last
earthly borders" and "overwhelming self-observation". Kafka was
a tormented and complicated being, but also in his own way he enjoyed life with
an unusual intensity. He could have what is now called schizoid personality
disorder.
1.4- Literary production:
• Works published in life:
- Contemplation
- Sentence
- The
stoker
- Metamorphosis
- In
the prison colony
- A
rural doctor
- An
artist of hunger
• Works published posthumously:
- The
process
- The
castle
- The
missing
1.5- School or literary movement:
Modernism, expressionism, existentialism.
1.6- Historical-social context: at the
beginning of the 20th century.
2- Analysis of the form:
2.1- Structure of the work: Linear. Events
occur one behind the other in the current timeline, without resorting to
flashbacks.
2.2- Form of the expression: It is
organized in prose. "His many legs, ridiculously small compared to the
rest of his size, vibrated helplessly before his eyes."
2.3- Type of language: Written,
colloquial. They almost always talk among the family itself, using more
familiar language.
2.4-
Narrator: Witness
2.5- Vocabulary:
• Windowsill: Turn or oblique cut that
makes the wall in the opening of a window; especially the horizontal piece on
which the base of the window sits.
• Dressing gown: Garment, usually wide and
knitted, wool or quilted, with sleeves, which covers the body up to the knees
or to the feet and is fastened in front with buttons or with a belt; It is used
at home to be comfortable and warm and usually put on other clothes.
•Landing: Horizontal and flat surface,
greater than the step, in which each section of a staircase ends.
• Crowded: That it is completely full.
•Overcoat: Thick garment with long sleeves
that covers the body below the knee, goes open at the front and is put on other
clothes to protect the body from the cold; It is a basically masculine garment.
3- Content analysis:
3.1- Discursive genre: Narrative.
3.2- Textual genre: Novel.
3.3- Theme: The adventures of a man
because of a mysterious transformation.
3.4- Characteristics of the characters:
3.4.1- Main:
- Gregorio Samsa: He is the main character
of the work and although his age is not specified, he is believed to be at
least 23 years old, he is a young entrepreneur determined to work daily to
support his family, but suddenly he wakes up one day and he realizes that he
has become an insect, so he decides to isolate himself from the world and even
more so when his own family turns his back on being despised and being isolated
in this way he could only leave his room when his family was not in House.
- Grete Samsa: She is the sister of
Gregorio Samsa, and it is said that she is at least 17 years old, she was very
close with her brother to the point where her brother becomes an insect, she
was in charge of taking care of him, but their relationship is cracking until
they reach the point where Gregorio's same sister encourages the whole family
to have to kill their brother turned into an insect.
- Mr. Samsa, is the father of Gregorio and
was a vague person, who did not want to work but since Gregorio stopped
supporting the family, he was forced to look for a job.
- Mrs. Samsa, was Gregorio's mother and
she became weak from the beginning since she wanted to help her son but she was
terrified of finding him in the form of an insect, she suffers from asthma and
is depressed throughout the story.
3.4.2- Secondary: The maids, the manager,
the carpenter, the doctor.
3.5- Time: The events occur approximately
one month and a half, taking as reference from the conversion of Gregory until
his death.
3.6- Space: All events occur in the
department of the Samsa family.
3.7- Content argument:
In this short novel Franz Kafka tells the
story of a boy named Gregorio who sees how his life changes radically after
becoming a beetle. Gregorio wakes up one day in his bed and without knowing how
or why he has become a huge and ugly insect. Throughout the novel his form goes
to the background for him, since at the end of the day, that is his new form
and must adapt to live under that new physical appearance, and in a way, he
manages to adapt and accept so, but his family does not accept it, but they lock
him up and isolate him. In spite of everything, Gregorio loves his family,
retains memories of the past and laments, at no time he tries to be
authoritarian or harm them since they are all he has despite how they treat
him.
Gregorio had a good job. With his salary
he managed to get his whole family forward, but he lost his job because of his
new physical appearance, because of his new condition of repugnant insect. From
the loss of Gregorio's job, his family will go through many economic hardships
and he feels very guilty for this reason.
After everything that happened, Gregorio
is “abandoned” by his family, he only maintains a small relationship with his
sister who feeds him and attends him minimally, but always leaving a certain
distance due to his disgusting appearance. The mother also tries to maintain a
relationship with Gregorio, something that prevents her relatives; Even so, she
continues to maintain her role as a mother behind her husband's back, also
trying to help him in the things he can, but always in things that he did not
have to see personally because his appearance made a terrible impression on
him. Gregorio is seeing how the medium has to change because he can no longer
adapt as a human, now he has other needs, so he is becoming more and more the
idea of his new insect condition, a parasite that the only thing he did was
to hinder his own house. During a day of cleaning, the mother and the sister,
begin to remove furniture and memories from their room until leaving it empty
so that it can climb comfortably through the walls (at least that was the
intention) although Gregorio was not in favor at all, Faced with this fact, a
strange fear enters him and he runs away, letting himself be seen by the mother
who begins to scream and falls lying on the sofa. When the father comes home,
he starts beating (Gregorio) throwing fruits from his pockets (apples), one of
these, is embedded in the shell.
When the family is in financial trouble,
they try to get money, so they turn Gregorio's room into a guest room. This
makes Gregorio feel increasingly marginalized. One day his sister is playing
the violin (his great passion) in front of the guests, and Gregorio goes out to
see her to congratulate her in his own way, so when everyone sees him, a great
scandal arises in the house and his relatives blame him without even try to
understand him, so Gregorio decides not to eat more to die humbly and leave the
family calm from all the problems it caused. He was such a good person that he
died thinking that he would cease to be a hindrance and at the same time
facilitate his family's life that he had been somewhat upset and bitter since
the incident because of his mutation. His, is a horrible death, especially psychologically
because the fault of having mutated, is not yours but fate in a way, and feel
the rejection of his people hurts in his soul, both him and me as a reader.
The next day the maid finds Gregorio dead
and notifies the family, which affects her very superficially, so they throw
out the tenants and decide to start a new life, another change within the
family, another metamorphosis for good or At least that's what they believe.
3.8- Values: Commitment, responsibility,
love, loyalty, truth, tolerance, forgiveness, modesty dignity.
4- Critical appreciation.
4.1- Valuation of the work:
It is a rather peculiar and interesting
text. It puts us in the context of a man who suffered a horrendous and
mysterious metamorphosis, becoming a great insect. It leaves us in doubt as to
why Gregorio will have transformed into that insect. We paint a somewhat gloomy
melancholic atmosphere, typical of Kafka.
5- Argumentative text.
This short story of Kafka, shows many
times that killing ourselves for doing something is usually bad, because, the
recognition that one has many times is not worthy of the excessive work you do.
This is what happened to Gregor, he killed
himself to work and at the moment of truth, everyone ignored him.
"The metamorphosis" is the pure
reflection of Kafka's style, it shows everything about the sad landscapes,
pessimistic and especially dull environments, which unconsciously makes
following the work with a more dramatic and curious point of view, since it
leaves many little things detailed and that is what makes you imagine how it
will be and what will be beyond what Kafka shows us.
It perfectly expresses what a human
transformation to an insect is, and adapting it to Franz's time would not be
very easy, it is a point in favor of Kafka since he was an expert in adapting
lived or devised experiences to paper, always with His style and the time.
In my opinion, I think it is a highly
recommended reading, since being so light to read, it is dense in grammatical
sense, which makes taking vocabulary and especially a more aged mentality. I
have also been surprised by the values they transmit, as I have said at the
beginning. Analyzing it, it makes everything quite clear, as it has to be ...
you work to keep yourself, but at the wrong time nobody cares about you, not
even to keep you, which also makes us doubt what the era was like since If we
update it, this would not happen today.
Franz Kafka, a very discreet and
pessimistic writer, who makes me open your mind and tell you things as he
thinks them.
