Excerpt from Term Paper:
KAFKA’S METAMORPHOSIS
THE USE of SYMBOLISM in FRANZ KAFKA’S
“THE METAMORPHOSIS”
Relating to Nahum N. Glatzer, philosopher Albert Camus when said that “the whole of Kafka’s fine art consists in compelling you to re-read him, ” and since the interpretations of Kafka are many, this undoubtedly leads to a return to the tale itself “in the wish of finding direction from within” (35). This kind of internal “guidance” is related to a large number of elements of fictional works, such as metaphor, characterization, plot and motif, yet having a single studying of Kafka’s the Transformation, written during late Nov and early on December of 1912 and published in October of 1915, one can easily know that the use of meaning is the major trait and “guidance” to get the reader, because of Kafka’s extraordinary ability to go beyond reality and create a universe that could just exist inside the realms with the supernatural and also the human depths of the mind mind.
Essayist Eliseo Vivas in “Kafka’s Distorted Hide, ” points out that Kafka’s use of artsy symbols, we. e. representational metaphors, are very similar in character to face masks which work as shields by reality. “The light which usually rests on the distorted mask” is Real truth, but “the mask which it excels… is distorted” by Fact or, in Kafka’s case, symbolism (Gray, 143). Hence, in the Metamorphosis, symbolism runs rampant and can be sensed in several of the character’s traits, individuality and actions as well as in the descriptions linked to plot moments and physical objects.
Inside the very first passage of the Metamorphosis, Kafka pertains that Gregor Samsa, the key protagonist inside the tale, “awoke one morning” and “found himself converted in his understructure into a huge insect” with an “armoured-plated back… (a) domelike darkish belly divided into stiff arch segments… inches And “numerous legs… pitifully thin” which “waved helplessly before his eyes” (89). Robbie Batson views the symbolism from this description to be biographical in nature, intended for instead of talking about the topic, Kafka is usually symbolizing certain aspects of his personal life in addition to doing so, “leaves a simple story that stands only for an objective view of his personal thoughts and dreams” with a focus after “a sole character that symbolizes himself and his your life… ” (“Kafka/Samsa, ” Internet).
Although Batson’s view could possibly be valid, Kafka’s transformation of an ordinary man into what sounds like a cockroach includes much symbolism related to contemporary society and lifestyle. Gregor Samsa obviously perceives himself as nothing but a low-life, low-paid traveling sales person with no future or monetary prospects; in fact, he lives with his parents in a small, filled apartment, very much like an uncreated, unbegotten, unconceived insect within a cocoon. However his insect-like appearance really does greatly raise red flags to his family and his employer which indicates that Gregor Samsa, at least from his perspective, should indeed be an pest.
But Kafka skillfully pertains to the reader that when Gregor comes forth from his bedroom, the expressions of horror and shock within the faces of his parents and workplace may not be because of Gregor resembling an insect. Symbolically, Gregor is now some form of misfit trapped in a globe which this individual never built which is supported by his assertion, “What provides happened to me?… It was simply no dream” (89).
Johannes Pfeiffer, writing within a critical essay on the Evolution, views Gregor Samsa’s modification as a kind of “magic realism, ” meaning that objects, including Samsa, “are presented with such a… useful detail… that they will be constantly converted into something not real or more than real” (Gray, 53). Naturally , “magic realism” is most tightly linked to the so-called “Black Arts” and the practice of witchcraft, both of which in turn rely extremely heavily upon symbols expressing thoughts and ideas. Figuratively, metaphorically, Gregor Samsa, in the guise of a enormous insect, is definitely “cut away by this mysterious transformation by all community with other men” and does not understand that this alteration will have very much impact on his social and professional lives (Gray, 55). In essence, Gregor Samsa has become symbolizes the down-trodden, the men and women worldwide who function themselves to death to get pennies and quite often end up only and ostracized from contemporary society.
By the time that Gregor Samsa attempts to open his bedroom door along with his boss by work fantastic mother and father hollering on the other side, he sets himself “to turning the key inside the lock along with his mouth, pertaining to his insect jaws will be “certainly extremely strong” and with their support “he would manage to established the key in motion, ” despite a few “brown fluid” coming from his mouth (Kafka, 99). This key which usually Gregor Samsa uses to spread out his bedroom door is yet another symbol, the one that expresses the concept the key is going to force him to enter a very strange universe where anything is transformed as a result of his new personage as a crawling and disgusting cockroach-like irritate.
His statement “So I didn’t require the locksmith” (100) also signifies that Gregor Samsa can be symbolically the master of his personal fate and does not require the assistance of some otherworldly being (i. e. The locksmith) to this new and compelling environment. Biographically, Kafka did precisely this once, as a result of staying denigrated by his daddy, “Kafka declined to take up his father’s business, instead selecting his own path” (Batson, “Kafka/Samsa, inch Internet).
Simply II with the Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa, following awaking from “a deep sleep, a lot more like a swoon than a sleep” (Kafka, 105), goes into the family living room and climbs “under the sofa” where he feels great yet to some degree cramped since “he could hardly lift his head up” and his body “was also broad to obtain the whole than it under the sofa” (Kafka, 107). This is one more example of meaning, for it creates the image that Gregor Samsa, the cockroach-like insect, should indeed be experiencing the associated with his alteration, due to instinctually wanting to spider under the settee, much like a bug crawling under a mountain. Early each morning, Gregor’s sibling spies him under the couch as if she was “visiting an broken or even a stranger” in her own residence (Kafka, 107). This helps the suggestion that Gregor Samsa is actually a stranger within a strange area and is quite debilitated simply by his insect existence which in turn forces him to figuratively, metaphorically hid via society, possibly from those that love him as a son and a brother.
At this moment in the Transformation, it is generously clear that Gregor Samsa’s life has become utterly transformed, much like his physical body, and considers himself to be a vermin, akin to a rodent surviving in a trash heap. Batson agrees with this assumption, intended for when Samsa became a great insect, this individual “crossed more than an fictional line into a point where there is no turning back, much like that of any person with a chronic disease, ” a reference to a period of time in Kafka’s life when he began to go through the symptoms of tuberculosis, such as “insomnia, recurring coughs, night sweating, and comparable difficulties” (“Kafka/Samsa, ” Internet), symbolic symptoms fully experienced by Gregor the insect.
When the mother finally discovers the courage to confront her simply son, Gregor’s father and sister make an effort to dissuade her from the thought, and she soon cries out “Do let me into Gregor, he’s my unfortunate son! inch (Kafka, 114). The key words here are “unfortunate son” which will symbolize not only Gregor’s arachnid-like predicament yet also his position as “a man cut off from society, radically estranged via it in such a way that the distantly sensed door into the open remains blocked… ” (Gray, 58).
An additional symbolic information occurs the moment Gregor’s mother and sibling begin to remove furniture from Gregor’s bedroom. “They had been clearing out his room, depriving them of everything this individual loved, inch such as a upper body and
