Metamorphosis

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.