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The Metamorphosis: Difference between revisions
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Franz Kafka’s ''The Metamorphosis'' goes against what most writers would consider normal writing layout. His style is peculiar in that he places the climax at the beginning of the narrative-instead of at the end. By choosing to write in this fashion, Kafka steers his readers away from the traditional Aristotelian form of narrative (complication and denouncement) and instead creates his own form. ''The Metamorphosis'' is a brilliant novella that replaces the denouncement and conclusions one would normally expect with a form created from itself. | Franz Kafka’s ''The Metamorphosis'' goes against what most writers would consider normal writing layout. His style is peculiar in that he places the climax at the beginning of the narrative-instead of at the end. By choosing to write in this fashion, Kafka steers his readers away from the traditional Aristotelian form of narrative (complication and denouncement) and instead creates his own form. ''The Metamorphosis'' is a brilliant novella that replaces the denouncement and conclusions one would normally expect with a form created from itself. | ||
The first line of the novella proclaims Gregory’s death and the rest of the story a description of his slow dying: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect” (Bloom 19). Gregory’s metamorphosis is the truth of his life, and his consciousness has lied to him about himself. | The first line of the novella proclaims Gregory’s death and the rest of the story a description of his slow dying: “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect” (Bloom 19). Gregory’s metamorphosis is the truth of his life, and his consciousness has lied to him about himself. | ||
===The Reality of Dreams=== | |||
Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” was written as perhaps a reflection of his own inner turmoil. His insecurities began with his appearance. As an adult, he never quite grew into his strikingly tall, slender frame: huge eyes framed with thick, dark brows: prominent nose above a melancholy mouth: or his narrow forehead fringed with straight black hair. In fact, his unique looks were a subject of interest to psychologists who felt that his features seemed to fit Kretschmer’s model of the asthenic-schizoid type, which is characterized by a furry crown of hair extending down the forehead: His portrait became sort of a caricature for the model (Baumer 2). Such a categorization made him feel even odder than he already felt. This resulted in his pulling away from the outside world and subsequently plunged him into a loneliness that plagued his entire life. | |||
Kafka developed a mental illness that grew out of his forced isolation. He spent so much time by himself as a child that he could not fathom everyday life. He lacked the ability to interpret everyday demands and compromises such as those required of a job. Even simple exchanges between two people were a mystery to him. Looking for a way to escape his reality, he began living as though he were in a dream because in his dreams, he could be the person he wished he was. Franz Baumer describes Kafka as: | |||
This charming person who, almost like a saint, like St. Francis, talked to fish, who pronounced himself a dream so as not to have his gross, material appearance disturb the state of sleep he considered far more real, who was always sympathetic in his relations to the world and people, who never lost his smile and could often be very witty, who possessed a strong sense of responsibility and dedication to his job (3). | |||
It was soon after this realization that he wrote “The Metamorphosis,” which is how he views the life he must escape. He was noted as saying: “The taste for describing my dreamlike inner existence has pushed everything into the background where it has atrophied in a terrifying way and does not cease to atrophy. Nothing else can satisfy me” (Baumer 3). By morphing Gregory into a bug, instead of a happy child, he is giving the reader an image of how he sees himself. | |||
Both Kafka and Gregory are trapped by their daily reality and dreams of freedom, just as both are destined to die a lonely and tortured death through their metamorphosis. Kafka, who always thought in images that have a powerful impact, was first and foremost a poet. “Kafka’s dreamworlds will reveal themselves as realities only to those who dare gaze into the terrifying depths of our age. The dream is only denser reality” (Baumer 11). | |||
==Characters== | ==Characters== | ||