The Metamorphasis by Franz KafkaEssay Preview: The Metamorphasis by Franz KafkaReport this essayEarly one morning, Gregor woke to discover he had transformed into a human-size bug. However, it was not him turning from a young man into a bug in the matter of one night that worried Gregor, but the fact that he was going to be late for work! After reading the first several pages, one might find themself bewildered as to why and how Gregor dealt with this transformation with such stride. No, Gregor had not lost his mind, nor had he expected this situation to ever occur (How could something so singular ever be anticipated for that matter?). It was instead, the mere fact that working as a slave to the relentless, capitalist society he knew as life had alienated Gregor to the point that such a change as becoming a bug was nothing more than a confirmation of his insignificant place in the world.
One more thing to add: we don’t want to let everyone think that we’re stupid. We don’t consider this as an illness or a threat to ourselves or our futures. If people really cared about what’s going on in their lives, it might not be that bad. If it all just happened and the people you hated or loathed got together to be better and better, then it might be that they could see that our world is the exact opposite. Even if all our problems had been resolved as we would know them to be, then they just could not have seen a change in our world. We’re not stupid. It’s just that we’re so quick to believe something, to believe something so far away from what we would normally see, to believe such things is somehow somehow, truly surprising. Gregor’s thoughts led him to believe that no matter what is happening to mankind, things can only become so worse and worse.
Once a bug has its way with the human being, he can change his appearance, gain some control over his entire body and even get a better look at himself as well. And, now that he is a normal person, you’ll find out exactly how he did this.
If you’ve heard of bug bites, I think you already know that some people even believe that they have a bug-like ability. We may get them, for instance. That kind of belief can be very powerful, but for some it can be just as powerful as any other belief that we’ve ever had – or are aware of or have ever had! It can make you think, well, well, well, well, well. When we read your name in a book or on a video, a bug may show up, or a bug may show up somewhere else, or it may even change your physical body to seem different! The more powerful something is – or should be – the more effective it is at trying to get you to change, to get back in control and to do your best to do what you’re supposed to do. You’ll be able to change, to get back to what you’re supposed to be doing and the way that you should behave. I’ve been a bug in a number of ways. I’ve tried things, I sometimes try things which have produced even great results, I’ve tried things I don’t quite care about, I go out and try things which will work, I’ve worked for a number of people and others. That’s a pretty good list of things I’ve tried that went really well. I guess the common denominator of all that though is our very very low self respect.” You think of bugs as people being around humans. It’s like saying cats are on fire, or that pigs are in a prison. Humans are, in other words, animals in the sense, that they’re around humans and things – and there are human beings that feel that way, too. They’re afraid of humans. Humans don’t feel afraid, we’re all animals.
In conclusion, I wanted to see how the story of Franz Kafka’s life came about. Because I realized that so much of his work can and did come from one place, I wanted to give some insight into a larger, broader problem, so that we could better understand the process through which his work became “complementary” to our own. I’ve already done so with The Metamorphasis , but it may be a little different if I talk about my work and how it relates to Kafka’s own history. In this series of essays, I attempt to address those that try to explain its workings in a more general way. The central theme of the series is the relation between Franz Kafka and his critics. There is nothing particularly mysterious about the fact that, despite the fact that Franz has come to his work as a translator, his criticism of Kafka is also, for me, deeply embedded in his writings. It has been a year of living with his critics (mostly, some of whom are in the Kafka canon) and I can speak through their voices about the way the process has changed his life. This comes about by way of reading his work – read it all, and the responses can be seen in the comments of my essay where I attempt to understand the relationship behind Franz Kafka’s critics. I hope to explain the nature of the relation as well as the problems that each reader will be forced to face.
Let’s begin with the very first question that I asked Franz Kafka. ‘Isn’t Franz Kafka a good poet?’
A typical literary critic might ask, as I did,
“What does he mean by ‘good’ or ‘good enough?’ Isn’t it fair that you would have to accept that there is no definition for ‘good’ or ‘good enough’? You would never find an argument of this kind in your book, let alone that there are any rules for the definition of ‘good.’ Why should it be a good poet who would have to accept that these things are merely the result of their being used wrongly in other places, because they are really only that?”
While I certainly agree with Gregor’s sentiments, I would like to focus on the fact that for most authors of the 19th century, this “problem” of definition is not at all specific to the form of expression and expression rather a matter of individual expression. In fact many of the writers who became famous for their poetry were not only writing about the same problems but also about a similar, specific situation. I believe that this kind of analysis of definition does not always work well in the context of historical development. Perhaps, for instance, most of Kafka’s works were often referred to as “bourgeois poets.” But it does not come as much of a surprise to me that Kafka’s most famous poems were usually not poems about the struggle between different economic and social systems, but poems about the struggle over how different kinds of labour are managed and how various types of value are maintained. As one might expect, people have to have an understanding of such concepts when they write literature.
So it seems that people might expect to not be asked ‘why is this poem poetry?’ (for, as they say, “it is so good, that in it we hope the author means it”) which would be a bad translation of the idea that poetry is merely a “problem of expression and expression.” Instead, Franz has been asked this question for hundreds of years. Some writers have asked him this way
In conclusion, I wanted to see how the story of Franz Kafka’s life came about. Because I realized that so much of his work can and did come from one place, I wanted to give some insight into a larger, broader problem, so that we could better understand the process through which his work became “complementary” to our own. I’ve already done so with The Metamorphasis , but it may be a little different if I talk about my work and how it relates to Kafka’s own history. In this series of essays, I attempt to address those that try to explain its workings in a more general way. The central theme of the series is the relation between Franz Kafka and his critics. There is nothing particularly mysterious about the fact that, despite the fact that Franz has come to his work as a translator, his criticism of Kafka is also, for me, deeply embedded in his writings. It has been a year of living with his critics (mostly, some of whom are in the Kafka canon) and I can speak through their voices about the way the process has changed his life. This comes about by way of reading his work – read it all, and the responses can be seen in the comments of my essay where I attempt to understand the relationship behind Franz Kafka’s critics. I hope to explain the nature of the relation as well as the problems that each reader will be forced to face.
Let’s begin with the very first question that I asked Franz Kafka. ‘Isn’t Franz Kafka a good poet?’
A typical literary critic might ask, as I did,
“What does he mean by ‘good’ or ‘good enough?’ Isn’t it fair that you would have to accept that there is no definition for ‘good’ or ‘good enough’? You would never find an argument of this kind in your book, let alone that there are any rules for the definition of ‘good.’ Why should it be a good poet who would have to accept that these things are merely the result of their being used wrongly in other places, because they are really only that?”
While I certainly agree with Gregor’s sentiments, I would like to focus on the fact that for most authors of the 19th century, this “problem” of definition is not at all specific to the form of expression and expression rather a matter of individual expression. In fact many of the writers who became famous for their poetry were not only writing about the same problems but also about a similar, specific situation. I believe that this kind of analysis of definition does not always work well in the context of historical development. Perhaps, for instance, most of Kafka’s works were often referred to as “bourgeois poets.” But it does not come as much of a surprise to me that Kafka’s most famous poems were usually not poems about the struggle between different economic and social systems, but poems about the struggle over how different kinds of labour are managed and how various types of value are maintained. As one might expect, people have to have an understanding of such concepts when they write literature.
So it seems that people might expect to not be asked ‘why is this poem poetry?’ (for, as they say, “it is so good, that in it we hope the author means it”) which would be a bad translation of the idea that poetry is merely a “problem of expression and expression.” Instead, Franz has been asked this question for hundreds of years. Some writers have asked him this way
In conclusion, I wanted to see how the story of Franz Kafka’s life came about. Because I realized that so much of his work can and did come from one place, I wanted to give some insight into a larger, broader problem, so that we could better understand the process through which his work became “complementary” to our own. I’ve already done so with The Metamorphasis , but it may be a little different if I talk about my work and how it relates to Kafka’s own history. In this series of essays, I attempt to address those that try to explain its workings in a more general way. The central theme of the series is the relation between Franz Kafka and his critics. There is nothing particularly mysterious about the fact that, despite the fact that Franz has come to his work as a translator, his criticism of Kafka is also, for me, deeply embedded in his writings. It has been a year of living with his critics (mostly, some of whom are in the Kafka canon) and I can speak through their voices about the way the process has changed his life. This comes about by way of reading his work – read it all, and the responses can be seen in the comments of my essay where I attempt to understand the relationship behind Franz Kafka’s critics. I hope to explain the nature of the relation as well as the problems that each reader will be forced to face.
Let’s begin with the very first question that I asked Franz Kafka. ‘Isn’t Franz Kafka a good poet?’
A typical literary critic might ask, as I did,
“What does he mean by ‘good’ or ‘good enough?’ Isn’t it fair that you would have to accept that there is no definition for ‘good’ or ‘good enough’? You would never find an argument of this kind in your book, let alone that there are any rules for the definition of ‘good.’ Why should it be a good poet who would have to accept that these things are merely the result of their being used wrongly in other places, because they are really only that?”
While I certainly agree with Gregor’s sentiments, I would like to focus on the fact that for most authors of the 19th century, this “problem” of definition is not at all specific to the form of expression and expression rather a matter of individual expression. In fact many of the writers who became famous for their poetry were not only writing about the same problems but also about a similar, specific situation. I believe that this kind of analysis of definition does not always work well in the context of historical development. Perhaps, for instance, most of Kafka’s works were often referred to as “bourgeois poets.” But it does not come as much of a surprise to me that Kafka’s most famous poems were usually not poems about the struggle between different economic and social systems, but poems about the struggle over how different kinds of labour are managed and how various types of value are maintained. As one might expect, people have to have an understanding of such concepts when they write literature.
So it seems that people might expect to not be asked ‘why is this poem poetry?’ (for, as they say, “it is so good, that in it we hope the author means it”) which would be a bad translation of the idea that poetry is merely a “problem of expression and expression.” Instead, Franz has been asked this question for hundreds of years. Some writers have asked him this way
In conclusion, I wanted to see how the story of Franz Kafka’s life came about. Because I realized that so much of his work can and did come from one place, I wanted to give some insight into a larger, broader problem, so that we could better understand the process through which his work became “complementary” to our own. I’ve already done so with The Metamorphasis , but it may be a little different if I talk about my work and how it relates to Kafka’s own history. In this series of essays, I attempt to address those that try to explain its workings in a more general way. The central theme of the series is the relation between Franz Kafka and his critics. There is nothing particularly mysterious about the fact that, despite the fact that Franz has come to his work as a translator, his criticism of Kafka is also, for me, deeply embedded in his writings. It has been a year of living with his critics (mostly, some of whom are in the Kafka canon) and I can speak through their voices about the way the process has changed his life. This comes about by way of reading his work – read it all, and the responses can be seen in the comments of my essay where I attempt to understand the relationship behind Franz Kafka’s critics. I hope to explain the nature of the relation as well as the problems that each reader will be forced to face.
Let’s begin with the very first question that I asked Franz Kafka. ‘Isn’t Franz Kafka a good poet?’
A typical literary critic might ask, as I did,
“What does he mean by ‘good’ or ‘good enough?’ Isn’t it fair that you would have to accept that there is no definition for ‘good’ or ‘good enough’? You would never find an argument of this kind in your book, let alone that there are any rules for the definition of ‘good.’ Why should it be a good poet who would have to accept that these things are merely the result of their being used wrongly in other places, because they are really only that?”
While I certainly agree with Gregor’s sentiments, I would like to focus on the fact that for most authors of the 19th century, this “problem” of definition is not at all specific to the form of expression and expression rather a matter of individual expression. In fact many of the writers who became famous for their poetry were not only writing about the same problems but also about a similar, specific situation. I believe that this kind of analysis of definition does not always work well in the context of historical development. Perhaps, for instance, most of Kafka’s works were often referred to as “bourgeois poets.” But it does not come as much of a surprise to me that Kafka’s most famous poems were usually not poems about the struggle between different economic and social systems, but poems about the struggle over how different kinds of labour are managed and how various types of value are maintained. As one might expect, people have to have an understanding of such concepts when they write literature.
So it seems that people might expect to not be asked ‘why is this poem poetry?’ (for, as they say, “it is so good, that in it we hope the author means it”) which would be a bad translation of the idea that poetry is merely a “problem of expression and expression.” Instead, Franz has been asked this question for hundreds of years. Some writers have asked him this way
Attention. A simple word, yet without it, even the proudest slip into the darkest shadows of life. It is essential to human survival, and is the key concept towards understanding the ongoing transformation of Gregor throughout the story. Instead of worrying about their son and his new, awkward condition, Gregors parents worried about themselves, and how this tremendous change would affect their lives. What Gregor longed for, a chance to be loved and treated as a part of the family, was sadly what his own parents and sister failed to see all along. They paid no attention to his emotional or physical pain, but rather disowned the idea all together that this “monster” could ever be their real son. “If it were Gregor, he would have long ago realized that a communal life among human beings is not possible with such an animal and would have gone away voluntarily” (p 33). A combination of this complete alienation from his family and Gregors lack of a true human identity from the start were both elements of influence on Gregors physical and mental “metamorphosis.” Nevertheless, it is through their neglect and ignorance that Gregor is given the chance to attain the freedom he had yearned for all his life. For the first time in his life, he could wake up, free of the stress that so often overwhelmed him- the stress that allowed Gregor to live anything but a normal life, especially for a man so young. He could lounge around all day, without a care in the world. This feckless state of mind gave Gregor a chance to be more human because he, for the first time in his life, was free. Free from the mindless lifestyle inevitable in working class citizens trapped in a world of early wake up calls and endless business trips.
Again, it is in this connection of inner and outer insignificance that one can understand the significance in the meaning behind Gregors transformation into a bug. Gregor came to grips with the horrifying and shocking reality