Existential Isolation and Identity in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis: A Study Through the Lens of Martin Heidegger's Philosophy (original) (raw)
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In Pursuit of Identity: A Quest to Escape Emotional Alienation in Kafka's Metamorphosis
Daath Voyage , 2020
The proposed research paper endeavors to investigate the quest for emotional identity experienced by the narrator in Franz Kafka's novel The Metamorphosis. The novel opens with the narrator's realization that he has been transformed into a monstrous vermin, which can be perceived as Gregor's unintentional isolation from family and society. His Metamorphosis can be interpreted as a form of emotional escape from stressful reality and its dangers. It analyzes the emotional and psychological transformations experienced by the narrator, trying to be a part of something higher than what he was born. It narrates how he alienates himself from the surroundings while pretending someone that others wanted him to be. It represents a meta-conflict that budded in him due to a perplexing state of 'who he is' and 'what he wants to be.' Kafka's The Metamorphosis is a masterpiece of modern literature that examines universal concerns of despair, hope, and conflict an individual comes across in his alike Kafka.
Exploring the Depths of Modern Life as Reflected in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis
IUBAT Review—A Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 2023
This paper explores the philosophical themes present in Franz Kafka's seminal work, The Metamorphosis (1915). Through an analysis of the novella, the paper delves into how Kafka grapples with profound issues such as alienation, existential crisis, and the human condition. The paper examines the transformative journey of the protagonist, GregorSamsa, who undergoes a physical and psychological metamorphosis into a bug, serving as a metaphor for the human experience of feeling disconnected from oneself and others. By immersing readers in Gregor's surreal and isolating world, Kafka prompts introspection into the inherent struggles of human existence. Moreover, the paper explores Kafka's masterful use of absurdity and dark humor throughout the narrative, shedding light on the futility of human existence and the inevitability of death. By interweaving absurd and grimly humorous elements, Kafka offers a critique of societal norms and underscores the existential anxieties that arise when confronted with the absurdity of life. The pervasive sense of irony and bleakness in the novella serves to highlight the absurd and inherently flawed nature of the human condition. Furthermore, the research paper delves into the influences that shaped Kafka's philosophy, particularly his Jewish identity and experiences living in a rapidly changing, industrializing society. Kafka's writing reflects the anxieties and struggles of individuals in a modernized world, highlighting the existential dilemmas faced by those grappling with societal expectations and personal identity. By examining the philosophical dimensions of "The Metamorphosis," this paper offers a nuanced and in-depth analysis of Kafka's views on the human experience and the search for meaning in modern life. It invites readers to engage with the profound questions raised by Kafka's work and provides valuable insights into his philosophical stance.
This study of Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" reveals how the notion of transformation is of great importance to the foundation of modern literature. Transformation works as the key that opens the myriads doors presenting the opportunity to become well acquainted with the author's personality, his struggles, his experiences, and the tangled web of his self-conscious mind. This is done through examining his creationalso known as, the protagonist of the novella: Gregor Samsa; and how he is in fact influenced by these factors that are devouring Kafka himself. In turn, the transformation of Gregor Samsa into a verminous bug is rendered incomplete echoing that true metamorphosis begins on the inside.
The Tragedy of Modern Individual in Society: A Kafkaesque View
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” Franz Kafka opens his novella The Metamorphosis with this powerful phrase and presents implicitly the deepest problems of being an individual in modern life, from the perspective of an insect which is the protagonist of the tale. The most significant appearance of an person in the crowd is the fact of belonging to society including social forces, culture, historical heritage and technical developments makes someone a part of the herd. And society is something more than merely the sum of individuals who composed it. It has a different power on an individual more than a quantitative majority which then becomes a pressure. Gregor Samsa works as a salesman who sacrifices himself to his family’s livelihood. He is never recognized by his family and expected to support them without considering his personal needs. Kafka uses Gregor's family to show how inhumane society can be. He can not accept this transformation that happens suddenly without his demand, but his parents can do after a while. However he can’t look from the same point of view to his work, parents and life any longer with the isolation. The Metamorphosis tells the tragedy of an individual in society under the appearance of the relationship of family members. It shows the fact that we establish slave and master relations with each other in society. So it has to be interpreted as the rebellion and alienation of a human being who becomes free with the transformation. Gregor the insect is no longer a part of the herd nor the server of social roles. Metamorphosis is nothing but a symbol. Kafka uses it to attract people’s attention to the problem of alienation which happens unnoticeably every day to millions of people. The most important fact is the alienation doesn’t start after Gregor has turned into insect. Metamorphosis only shapes out the problems, which have existed before. Alienation from the society and other people is merely a part of the problem. But alienation of an individual from himself is the most serious problem. Gregor is an instance of people who lose their identity in the chase for money, popularity, and wish to correspond to the expectations of others that cause omission of the meaning of existence. So the “metamorphosis” is as a reaction against bourgeois society and being imprisoned by its social and economical demands.
Alienation, Franz Kafka Metamorphosis
This paper looks at the philosophy of power, alienation and what's more, minor writing through an examination Franz Kafka's short story, The Metamorphosis . In the story the hero awakens a titan, caterpillar-like animal, which winds up changing his life, employment and family connections. The hidden subjects are estranged worker and activity of force through brain control. The premise is Karl Marx's part on Estranged Labor and the ideas of commodification, objectification and antagonism. There is additionally an investigation of Antonio Gramsci's idea of administration of force, which is fundamentally seen as controlling the brain by implication. Capital, including private property, riches and assets, has a tendency to amass in the hands of lesser and lesser individuals, leaving nothing for the masses or the worker that creates the riches. Force movements and capital streams however are both packed in a couple hands. Destitution material as well as of brain also, is a vital by-result of industrialist improvement through creation. The human worker turns into an item utilized for increasing the value of an item and in the process loses his compassion.
Incapacity of the Moment: An Analysis of Inability and Transformation in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is too long to be a short story and again shorter for a novel. Like the form of novella, the story also dwindles between choices: whether to accept the transformed life or to keep on living the same life that Gregor can no longer stand a moment. The novella is a process – a transformation along with its many problems and the incapacity of actually going for what is needed the most. The need perhaps is very ambiguous, considering the need of Gregor’s family and the need of Gregor’s, something which he only realized but could not have the means to fulfil.
Shame and Alienation in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
Poetika, 2017
This article explores Sartre’s concept of shame and alienation in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis through the portrayal of the protagonist. By focusing on the interpretation of the characteristics of Gregor Samsa through New Criticism approach, this article reveals that shame and alienation may occur when a person realizes that one is judged by others and sees oneself through the eyes of others. This way of looking at one’s identity is problematic because it creates complexity within the existence of the self. Through his fantastical transformation into an insect, Gregor cannot help but seeing himself from his family’s point of view. Instead of fighting for himself, he is made to believe that he deserves to be alienated. From the analysis of the protagonist, it is revealed that his being selfess and dutiful in a way trigger the shame and alienation that result in his submission to death. Keywords: alienation, Kafka, Sartre, shame
Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis –Veracity of Life Consciousness, and Existence
International Journal of Trends in English Language and Literature, 2021
Franz Kafka in his novella 'The Metamorphosis' uses literary techniques like expressionism and Absurdism to investigate the meaning of consciousness and human existence between absurd ethics of socioeconomic settings. The protagonist of the story Gregor Samsa's transfiguration into a huge Bug, unveils his depressed mind, he struggles, accepts, and succumbs to the absurd transformation. Gregor becomes a symbol in Kafka's novella in which he shows the world where he leads an insecure, ignored, isolated, and criticized life solely bearing his oppression.
A Study of Kafka's the Metamorphosis in the Light of Freudian Psychological Theory
2013
The aim of this manuscript is to consider Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in the light of Freudian psychological theories. Specifically, The Metamorphosis will be seen as Kafka’s own autobiography. The Metamorphosis is the dramatization of Gregor’s inner world, the world which is depicted by Kafka is the world of unconscious. Freud defined the unconscious as a world in which our suppressed wills, feelings, horrors, drives and conflicts are hold. Why Gregor transferred in to a big insect? Why he was killed by his father? Why he knows himself responsible for family financial problem? This paper aims to answer all these questions.
KAFKA'S ESCAPE FROM REALITY TO ONEIRICISM IN METAMORPHOSIS
Born in Prague as the son of well-to-do Jewish parents, he was a pupil at the Gymnasium. He thereafter was a student at Prague University, first of chemistry and German language and literature, from which he switched over to the law. He made friends with a fellow student, Max Brod, who, after Kafka"s early death, published his friend"s work. Kafka was a jew, and once described himself as "the eternal Jew... wandering senselessly through a senselessly obscene world."1 His life was indeed wandering in the wilderness. He was, in his own words, "full of childish hopes (particularly as regards women)"; these hopes, however, are"merely mirages born of despair," especially at those times when he was "the wretchedest of creatures in the desert." Canaan was his only "Promised Land, for no third place exists for mankind." He also added in his diary, referring to his miserable life, that he was "as lonely as F.Kafka." Kafka scratches the surface of everyday existence to reveal a world of absurdity and paradox, of aimlessness and futility, in which unrevealed and unexplained anxiety torments man. His style is exact and lucid, despite the grotesque unreality of the occurrences used to describe. His stories, in their combination of clarity and unreality, are masterpieces of dream-fiction. Kafka is known for the visionary character of his novels, stories, parables, and sketches, all of which center on the problematic existence of modern man, including Kafka himself in the person of Joseph K. in The Castle. After this preliminary observation, the purpose of the present paper is to undertake a study of Kafka"s famous story, Metamorphosis, with references to Ovid"s Metamorphoses. Lucius" Golden Ass. Miller"s Death of a Salesman. And Tolstoy"s The Death of Ivan Ilyich.