Examples Of Dehumanization In The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

In the metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, there are significant actions and transformations which make the story sad, and strange with a happy ending. Explanations that are dramatic events that intensify the excitement of all these actions. Reality and reflection play an important role in this story because the events that happened could be applied and assimilated with modern society. The story is very sad and realistic, some of the things that are related in Kafka's story can be found in modern families today.

Friedrich Nietzsche once said: “Man is the cruelest animal.” In regards to The Metamorphosis, Gregor’s family is less human than Gregor – even if he is in the body of a bug. In chapter 1, it is explained that Gregor worked long and hard in order to support his family while they did not enter the workforce for five years. In return, when Gregor wakes up as a bug, no one in his family throw themselves to find a way to ‘bring Gregor back’. Although he is a bug, he possesses human thoughts and behaves in a respectful manner when his sister enters his room every day. Gregor’s morals and love for his family are not accepted by his family, instead he is locked in his room separated from society and his family does not even offer to help him. The cruelty

The Repercussions of Cruelty Cruel actions lead to cruel endings. Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis, is turned into a bug from the mental and emotional abuse by the hands of his own family. The cruelty in the Samsa household is apparent from the beginning of the storyline. Their neglect and lack of compassion for Gregor's condition immediately sets the dark and miserable mood of the novella. Gregor’s whole existence has been about caring for his family and making sacrifices for their well being.

“The Metamorphosis”, written by Franz Kafka, takes place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, the city is unspecified. The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, is turned into a giant bug and struggles to regain his harmonious life as a traveling salesman. Gregor goes through both a physical and emotional change throughout the novel, from turning into a bug and then being unable to provide for his family because of his condition. Gregor has been changed into a giant bug where he is a not a pleasant eyesight to his family and isn't accepted by his father and mother but only his sister. As the novella begins,”he found himself transformed right there in his bed into some sort of monstrous insect”.

Franz Kafka, heavily influenced by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, devises the character Gregor Samsa in order to portray a detailed experience of an individual’s metamorphosis. Kafka’s narration style differs greatly from Ovid’s, in that, the narration begins with a first person perspective and changes to a third person narration, which remains consistent to the end of the novel. Unlike the stories within the Metamorphoses, there is a clear contrast in the portrayal of Gregor’s transformation. Ovid and Kafka’s depiction of a metamorphosis incorporates the concept of identity in the individual’s transition, however Kafka emphasizes the family dynamic and the hostility Gregor feels. Gregor’s family’s inability to look past Gregor’s exterior appearance

Much like the Jewish community, he is mistreated and disowned by his father who is a symbolic representation of society’s ideals in the early 1930s. He begins to be isolated by his family mainly his sister/mother who remove materials from his room while leaving him inside showing the comparison to Nazi soldiers who robbed Jews of their valuables and money. This shows the isolation created for Jews as they are looked at differently and mistreated as innocent human being. Lastly, the apple stuck in Gregor’s back shows the suffering that Jews had to go through carrying the burden and pain along as they are discriminated

In The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka cruelty is what stemmed Gregor’s change into a large bug and subconsciously motivated him to end his life. Gregor’s new form was a depiction of how he already felt in his household, trapped, voiceless, and small. As Gregor’s metamorphosis developed so did the characters cruelty which affected both the perpetrators and the victims. The Samasa family’s cruelty was demonstrated both physically and mentally by Gregor’s father driving him back into his room, throwing apples at him and by Grete’s use of the word “it”.

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis reveals the symbol of the apple in two lights, destruction and growth, and finding a person’s place in the

1. Almost from the very beginning of Gregor’s metamorphosis, Mr. Samsa has been unwilling to accept Gregor as his son. Furthermore, Gregor’s transformation into an offensive form of an insect, constantly reminds Mr. Samsa of the grotesque, feeble, and pathetic aberration that he has fathered. Consequently, now that Gregor has genuinely revealed himself in all his audacious behavior, his cruel father is driven to destroy him. In his eyes, Gregor has become everything loathsome to him—scrawny, parasitic, and futile—not the kind of son this once successful and ambitious storekeeper could be proud of.

“Next to me lay a Hungarian Jew suffering from dysentery. He was skin and bones, his eyes were dead… These words, coming from the grave, as it were, from a faceless shape, filled me with terror” (Wiesel 78). Gregor faces the same problem—the reduction of self-awareness. “Streaks of dirt ran along the walls; here and there lay tangles of dust and garbage” (Kafka 33).

Through the book, Gregor, the main character, is desperate for attention. This causes him to work really hard, but it will ultimately alienate him from the relationships that he loved. Before his transformation, Gregor worked really hard to please his family. He alienated himself

Each family member experiences a metamorphosis, because each of them started to despise Gregor and thought that he was ridiculous. But in irony all of them also became savages and just waited for gregor to die to start a new lifestyle with his sister, so they were more disgusting and absurd than Gregor turning into a bug. “ [Mr. and Mrs. Samsa] thought that it would soon be time, too, to find her a good husband. And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions”, these were some of thoughts of the mother and father after the death of Gregor, this shows how little they cared for their son. They were ready to start a new life which symbolizes the metamorphosis the family is going through.

What is deconstruction in literature? According to Merriam Webster, a deconstructionist literary criticism is a “philosophical or critical method which asserts that meanings, metaphysical constructs, and hierarchical are always rendered unstable by their dependence on ultimately arbitrary signifiers” (Merriam). In other words, a deconstructionist literary criticism looks at the book as a whole and deconstructs the pieces of the novel and how they may seem unstable when compared to the whole meaning. This mindset is exhibited in that of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Franz Kafka leaves many aspects of the novel unexplained and he includes details that are unstable to the meaning of the novel as a whole.

Gregor “had come very close to forgetting, and it had only been the voice of his mother, unheard for so long, that had shaken him out of it.” Gregor had almost forgotten about his humanity. He had embraced his new vermin form and had so little human contact that he forgot what he missed about being a human. However, as a result of Gregor’s metamorphosis, his relationship with his mother was tested and ultimately

The short stories, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street” by Herman Melville and “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, exemplifies the ideology that a man’s importance is directly equal to their usefulness in society. In “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” Bartleby is described through the perspective of his employer who becomes exasperated by the overtly mysterious scrivener. In “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor Samsa finds himself transformed into a cockroach and cannot attend work which in turn ceases his role as the provider of the family. The surrounding characters’ faulty ideologies of Bartleby and Gregor creates conflict seen through the contrasting styles of narrative and characterization; representing the loss of