Marxist Criticism of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis follows the psychological downfall of a travelling salesman, Gregor Samsa, who loses everything but his subconscious after transforming into a vermin. The novella is the epitome of ontological magic realism, where Gregor’s surreal metamorphosis is described in a flat, matter-of-fact tone; but a reading through the lens of Marxist literary criticism reveals Kafka’s social commentary on capitalist societies. Kafka uses the metamorphosis as a symbol of Gregor’s succumbence to familial and social pressure, as it removes his responsibilities and his spine and takes away his ability to work. Hence, Gregor’s gradual undoing illustrates the results of a worker’s inability …show more content…
The bourgeoisie are “owners of the means of social-production and employers of wage-labour,” and the character which fits this category best is Gregor’s manager (Marx, 21). He appears soon after the readers are told that Gregor is late for the train, and is impersonal, insensitive, and demanding. The absence of the manager’s name also suggests his lack of humanity. “Your performance of late has been very unsatisfactory; I know it is not the best season for doing business… but a season for not doing any business, there is no such thing” (Kafka, 11). Rather than showing care towards Gregor’s well-being, the manager is concerned about the production of his workers. Gregor makes a remark on the manager’s presence: “Really, wouldn’t it have been enough to send one of the apprentices to find out… did the manager himself have to come[?]” (Kafka, 9). Gregor also says that the manager "sits on the desk and talks down from the heights to the employees" (Kafka, 4). Because the manager has no labour of his own to perform, he has the time to reprimand his workers and flaunt his advanced economic position. Kafka’s portrays the manager as unpleasant figure, and in this way, makes us sympathise with the proletarian insect Gregor rather than the bourgeois human …show more content…
Having been abandoned by his employer, Gregor’s relationship with his family gradually deteriorates. “The bourgeoisie… has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation” (Marx, 8). Gregor is the only labourer in his family, and the rest his family are mere consumers of Gregor’s production. Now that Gregor is unable to financially support them, a deep rift between Gregor and his family is created. This is particularly clear in the severed relationship between Gregor and his father. Gregor’s father’s reaction after seeing his transformed son is to “seize in his right hand the manager’s cane… and stamping his feet, started brandishing the cane… to drive Gregor back into his room” (Kafka, 18). When Gregor is stuck and is unable to go through the door, with “one of his flanks... scraped raw, ugly blotches marred the white door,” his father gave him “a hard shove… and bleeding profusely, [Gregor] flew far into his room” (Kafka, 19). Despite having spent years working a job he hated to pay off his father’s debts, Gregor is quickly discarded by his father as soon as he can no longer earn
Gregor’s initial reaction to his transformation shows his preoccupation with work. His confusion over his radical transformation does not last long, quickly becoming concerned with work and disregarding that he woke up physically transformed into a monstrous vermin. Immediately after realizing he had transformed, Gregor explains, “Well, I haven’t given up hope completely; once I’ve gotten the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to [the boss] that will probably take another five to six years… But for the time being I’d better get up, since my train leaves at five” (4). The quick transition of Gregor’s thoughts from the initial shock to his economic duties reveals his ironic nonchalant attitude towards his nonsensical transformation and
This is the reason he isolated himself from his family. Gregor is forced to work in an environment he hates but his transformation overlooks that. He doesn’t have to suffer from his occupation and allows him to spend more time with his family. However, this change only had a positive affect temporarily.
Neither Kafka nor Gregor followed the existentialist idea of freedom of choice in a person’s life. They both had a life they didn’t ask for and responsibilities they were forced to assume. This principle of lack of freedom is clearly shown by the unexpected transformation of Gregor, waking up as an insect and obtaining the freedom he lacked, emancipating himself of obligations, injustice and final duties. He is freed from the obligation to work to maintain his family and liberated himself from his tyrannical father. Although he turned into a horrible insect, the metamorphosis did not change the beauty of his soul.
Hurry, get the doctor. Did you just hear Gregor talking?’ ‘That was a voice of an animal’” (12). Through Gregor’s perspective, one may assume that his response to his manager was heard loud and clear and the only modification to his identity is the physical change he has undergone which highlights the importance of Kafka’s change in perspective. Although Gregor believes himself to be in control of the situation, the third person narration as well as the other character’s remarks reveal quite the opposite.
“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”.
Gregor, as the breadwinner and dominant male figure of his household, is committed to his job of traveling salesman. In fact, he awakes as a vermin and is immediately concerned about work. He even ventures to say, “The business worries are far worse than they are on the actual premise at home” (Kafka 77), when he has just turned into a beetle, illustrating just how important his position in the family’s social hierarchy is. He is the breadwinner, while the rest of his family is practically leeching off of his work. But, due
However, his family never realizes these sacrifices and takes Gregor for granted, ultimately leading to his painful demise. Gregors perpetual devotion to his harsh family represents the unconditional love one feels for their own flesh and blood no matter how wicked they may be. The family's reaction to Gregor’s transformation into a bug demonstrates their lack of compassion for
Gregor’s apathy towards his new form shows not only that he cares deeply for his family, but also that the initial stress caused by his transformation is nothing compared to what he endures in his day to day life. Gregor’s
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.
Gregor is the main provider within the family for the amount of income he brings, and is idolized for his role. Being raised in the 20th century, Gregor 's view on women had been the same as any other male during this time period and looked down upon women as inadequate, and, in most societies, the man provides and the woman maintains; however, this viewpoint alternates once the unexpected change in their life occurs resulting in a switch of leadership within their household. "Gregor felt very proud that he had been able to provide such a life in so nice an apartment for his parents and his sister. (21)" After his mysterious modification within his physical form, his mentality also weakened.
Franz Kafka is a German novelist who wrote “The Metamorphosis.” In the story, he uses a third person point of view narrative. The novel uses absurdum, which exaggerates and dramatize the absurdity of modern life. The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, struggles with an external factor of transforming into an insect like creature. The transformation was not under his control and now struggles with a new identity.
He tries to keep himself separated from his family and others, but that fails after a while. His family cannot take the sight of what he has become, except for his sister who becomes the one to look after him. In the story, Gregor’s family feels that he cannot communicate with them, but he still can understand everything they are saying. So, they lock him inside of his room away from the world. Gregor’s mother and father feel that Gregor will eventually get better, and turn back normal.
Kafka uses diction and symbolism to convey the family’s dissatisfaction and the deterioration in their family ties. Each family member acquires a job to compensate the loss of Gregor’s salary. Kafka writes: “They were fulfilling to the utmost the demands the world makes on the poor: Gregor’s father fetched breakfast for the petty employees at the bank, his mother sacrificed herself for the underclothes of strangers, his sister ran back and forth behind the shop counter at her costumers’ behest... And the wound in Gregor’s back would begin to ache anew when… Gregor’s mother…would say: ‘shut the door now Grete’; and Gregor was left in the dark again” (Kafka
To management, workers like Gregor become disposable at the slightest infraction. Indeed, Gregor is dispensable to even his own family. When Gregor first found success at work and brought money to his family, they had been “astonished and delighted” (Kafka 27). However, their wonderment soon fades as “they had just gotten used to it” and “the money was received with thanks and given with pleasure, but no special feeling of warmth