read the letters with the booksQuote:
Originally Posted by Buddenbrooks
Kafka hated people when one of his friends asked if 'Samsa' was supposed to mean 'Kafka'
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read the letters with the booksQuote:
Originally Posted by Buddenbrooks
Kafka hated people when one of his friends asked if 'Samsa' was supposed to mean 'Kafka'
s.o.s i need help i have a presentation about the implications of the death of gregor samsa at the end and i need your thoughts about it
Did any readers of Kafka ever hear of E.M.Cioren? I think somewhat contemporary with K and also Rodin and Rilke. You would never know they were all exposed to the same religiopolitical climate. RJS
http://www.online-literature.com/for...ad.php?t=19023Quote:
Originally Posted by jaded
If you need something else, feel free to ask.
Welcome!
Ah you don't want flashbacks of that time you awoke as a giant beetle? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Woland
Haven't read the metamorphosis in quite a while, will reread soon though. To me Kafka points out the phoniness in social structures by stripping away that which makes them appear to have value, leaving only the social structure/traditions to be examined.
For example, if Kafka wanted to write something criticizing religion, he'd maybe describe a religious-LIKE world of assembling every sunday, an appointed man preaching values, a book such as the bible, but in that world, to strip away the "titles" to only examine the absurd social traditions, Kafka may take away God, so that it would be people assembling in a building abiding by a mysterious book they've found but no one knows who wrote it, obeying the man speaking at the building every sunday, but no one knows his credentials. As silly as organized religion can be at times, the fact that it's for the sake of our creator, makes it unquestionable, despite any absurdity we see. So Kafka, to me it seems, like taking away the object that makes a tradition unquestionable, to examine what's really going on. (hopefully I didn't offend religious folk here, it's just the best example I could think of)
So
1. The Trial is stripped of an accusation, so it's not about justice for a certain crime, it's about the structure of power/authority and how everyone follows into it despite questionable meaning.
2. Castle - K is stripped of status - is he a mere migrant worker, or elite friend of the castle - Land surveyor is too vague to guess, and spends the novel trying to enforce a structure and his status/ranking where it's ambiguous. The "power" of K's status is stripped, so what's left for us to examine?
3. Metamorphosis - haven't read in a while, so I may be way off with this one. It's obviously about a family structure, maybe Kafka is questioning that. Why do we indebt ourselves to family? Merely because someone has sex and copulated? Do we really love family or is it a brainwashed structure of society? For example, when you stick up or help out a relative, a lot of people say they do it "because he's family", providing a title or structure, instead of describing the actual value and virtues of that person, it's merely drawn out into a socially provided "role".
Is Samsa really loved/appreciated or is it just because "he's family" they have to live with him and be supported by him and live in that role? He's familiar, they've known his face for 30 years and they are supported financially by him as is the case with most families. Kafka, like the other examples, strips away his familiarity to a beetle and thus it's alienation. Kafka strips Samsa of a job, thus he can't do the family "role" of providing. What's left to examine now that which defines a socially established role is gone?
I just finished The Metamorphosis then. I plan to re-read it soon, but currently I'm reading some critical essays about the book.
I read this one essay where the writer makes it clear that the transformation is a metaphor for suicide.
Obviously Kafka was in a deep depression when he wrote the book, and he was practically the bread winner for his family (like Samsa). If he committed suicide at that point, he would have been betraying himself and his family.
Samsa's transformation can then be seen as a betrayal of himself and also of his family.
Well what if Gregor never literally turned into a beetle? I believe his "transformation" is a symbol for him going insane, truly losing his mind. He was responsible for supporting his family and was forced to go through life with a monotony that drove him crazy. Sorry that sentence does not make much sense but I could not think of another way to word it. Now I have a question for you guys. I have to write this paper for my AP Lit class and i cannot come up with an example in Metamorphosis that supports my thesis. I believe that fear drives society to make monsters. Is there anyone who can help find and example of this in this novella? All I have so far is the alienation of Gregor's sister, Grete. At first she was putting up with his horrendous appearance but then once she learned of her father's opinions, she was totally repulsed by him... Help, please.
Kafka has always been a difficult read for me and I have read the book three times and each time I got a different meaning in the book but it never stopped fascinating me in point of fact.
Kafka has a different presentation, in fact an experiment he had that distinguish him from the rest of others, for his way is surrealistic and it is really hard to kind of sequence one part with another when we read the novel.
Difficult or hard I always hungrily read Kafka, and I list him as one of the most fascination authors in my selection.
I like particularly his style of writing that is unique and a different experiment with language.
Kafka has always been a very fascinating read.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka has always been one of my favorite novellas. I've read it many, many times and enjoy it more each time. I always have such sympathy for Gregor Samsa. I always feel like he is being punished because of his differences. I'm not sure what the differences are, but they cause him to try to remain invisible. But they are too strong in him and he can't hid them. Everyone sees him as they believe him to be, vermin. His lack of self esteem causes him to see himself the same way. I know this is simplistic but it's my reaction.
The Metamorphosis was written as agasint the conventional way of writing, and of course the writer has gone beyond set limits, systems, and he wove characters differently and that is why the book is hard to undersntand
Thanks a lot for the site!Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Well, "The Metamorphosis" has a great sense, but it was hard to me to read it. When this man have transformed into this bug, I started to feel this ugly smell of poison for roaches. Kafka is a very talented writer if he causes such an emotions and feelings.
I saw Gregor's troubles as a criticism of action. Kafka, perhaps unwittingly, was ridiculing, yet validating, the existential call for action.
Not in a direct way, Kafka demonstrated that the existence of a human is rarely understood. More so, the essence of a human is neither.
Gregor's troubles show this.
A loving son, caring brother and all round family keeper he is inauthentic and just a social construct. As a beetle he is authentic, his base self, but through lack of meaingful action which his family can interpret as appropriate for a family member he is now considered inauthentic and a social outcast. To amplify this consciousness he can speak but not be understood and he can understand in a way that nobody expects of him.
The absurdity, the nausea and the loneliness strike Gregor doubly.
As a young man all of these experiences hover around his being, as a beetle they become prominent.
As an inauthentic man - never choosing action, living in Sartre's bad faith - and as an authentic beetle - consciously choosing actions and accepting responsibility - Gregor is struck by the absurdity, the nausea and the loneliness either way.
An infection from an apple and drunk on melancholy Gregor chooses an authentic death but refused the chance to be a hero (Dosteovskian double / triple elements at play here.......does a true hero stay, leave or ignore the thought?).
Born by chance, live through weakness, die by chance. Gregor had the oportunity to decide his death and to do so magnificently, saving a memory, preserving a forward love etc, but didn't take it. He lived on through weakness.
To put all the above simply, because i tend to favour nonsense, Gregor was damned as a humand and damned as a beetle.
Either living consciously (the beetle) or unconsciously (the human) aware of his freedom and responsibility ultimately makes little difference. We realise, through Gregor, there is a difference to living authentically and not but it is not necesarily an option for the better, one way or the other, and the matter of fact of it actually happening is much down, entirely down, to chance itself. What virtue is there in being conscious if it is arrived at by chance?
More so, if becoming a beetle is purely down to chance (Gregor woke), then, after all, who would actually choose to want to become a beetle?
Consciousness is something arrived at that nobody aspires to, is the indication.
Dostoevskys underground man suggested it was an ilness. I believe Kafa is suggesting it is too.
Interestingly, Dostoevskys underground man described himself as neither a hero nor an insect.
Kafka's Gregor, we never actually know what type of monstrosity he is, might be neither too.
Goodnight.
I'd say it's purposefully ambiguous. The Metamorphosis is a great example of Expressionism, where ordinary life becomes a surreal nightmare of oppression and struggle for an identity. It doesn't matter whether he's physically a beetle or not. For himself and the reader, he 'is' a beetle.Quote:
Originally Posted by jlund19
love it