Metamorphosis pdf franz kafka biography

Unlock the hidden meanings: Dive deeper into the central themes and symbolism, and analysis of The Metamorphosis. Get to know the characters: Understand the characters in The Metamorphosis. About Emma Baldwin B. Discover the secrets to learning and enjoying literature. Join Book Analysis Learn More. Sign me up! Download options Only pdf Read Online Send gift.

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Metamorphosis pdf franz kafka biography

Related books. It is made clear that Grete is disgusted by Gregor, as she always opens the window upon entering his room to keep from feeling nauseous and leaves without doing anything if Gregor is in plain sight. She plays the violin and dreams of going to the conservatory to study, a dream Gregor had intended to make happen; he had planned on making the announcement on Christmas Day.

To help provide an income for the family after Gregor's transformation, she starts working as a salesgirl. Grete is also the first to suggest getting rid of Gregor, which causes Gregor to plan his own death. At the end of the story, Grete's parents realize that she has become beautiful and full-figured and decide to consider finding her a husband.

Samsa is Gregor's father. After the metamorphosis, he is forced to return to work in order to support the family financially. His attitude towards his son is harsh. He regards the transformed Gregor with disgust and possibly even fear and attacks Gregor on several occasions. Even when Gregor was human, Mr. Samsa regarded him mostly as a source of income for the family.

Gregor's relationship with his father is modelled after Kafka's own relationship with his father. The theme of alienation becomes quite evident here. Samsa is Gregor's mother. She is portrayed as a submissive wife. She suffers from asthma, which is a constant source of concern for Gregor. She is initially shocked at Gregor's transformation, but she still wants to enter his room.

However, it proves too much for her and gives rise to a conflict between her maternal impulse and sympathy and her fear and revulsion at Gregor's new form. The charwoman is an old widowed lady who is employed by the Samsa family after their previous maid begs to be dismissed on account of the fright she experiences owing to Gregor's new form. She is paid to take care of their household duties.

Apart from Grete and her father, the charwoman is the only person who is in close contact with Gregor, and she is unafraid in her dealings with Gregor. She does not question his changed state; she seemingly accepts it as a normal part of his existence. She is the one who notices Gregor has died and disposes of his body. Like much of Kafka's work, The Metamorphosis tends to be given a religious Max Brod or psychological interpretation.

Besides the psychological approach, interpretations focusing on sociological aspects, which see the Samsa family as a portrayal of general social circumstances, have also gained a large following. Vladimir Nabokov rejected such interpretations, noting that they do not live up to Kafka's art. He instead chose an interpretation guided by the artistic detail but excluded any symbolic or allegoric meanings.

Arguing against the popular father-complex theory, he observed that it is the sister more than the father who should be considered the cruelest person in the story, since she is the one backstabbing Gregor. In Nabokov's view, the central narrative theme is the artist's struggle for existence in a society replete with narrow-minded people who destroy him step by step.

Commenting on Kafka's style, he writes, "The transparency of his style underlines the dark richness of his fantasy world. Contrast and uniformity, style and the depicted, portrayal and fable are seamlessly intertwined". In , Nina Pelikan Straus wrote a feminist interpretation of The Metamorphosis , noting that the story is not only about the metamorphosis of Gregor but also about the metamorphosis of his family and, in particular, his younger sister Grete.

Straus suggested that the social and psychoanalytic resonances of the text depend on Grete's role as a woman, daughter, and sister, and that prior interpretations failed to recognize Grete's centrality to the story. In , Gerhard Rieck pointed out that Gregor and his sister, Grete, form a pair, which is typical of many of Kafka's texts: it is made up of one passive, rather austere, person and another active, more libidinal, person.

The appearance of figures with such almost irreconcilable personalities who form couples in Kafka's works has been evident since he wrote his short story " Description of a Struggle " e. They also appear in " The Judgment " Georg and his friend in Russia , in all three of his novels e. Robinson and Delamarche in Amerika as well as in his short stories " A Country Doctor " the country doctor and the groom and " A Hunger Artist " the hunger artist and the panther.

Rieck views these pairs as parts of one single person hence the similarity between the names Gregor and Grete and in the final analysis as the two determining components of the author's personality. Not only in Kafka's life but also in his oeuvre does Rieck see the description of a fight between these two parts. Reiner Stach argued in that no elucidating comments were needed to illustrate the story and that it was convincing by itself, self-contained, even absolute.

He believes that there is no doubt the story would have been admitted to the canon of world literature even if we had known nothing about its author. Reduced to carrying out his professional responsibilities, anxious to guarantee his advancement and vexed with the fear of making commercial mistakes, he is the creature of a functionalistic professional life.

In , Ralf Sudau took the view that particular attention should be paid to the motifs of self-abnegation and disregard for reality. Gregor's earlier behavior was characterized by self-renunciation and his pride in being able to provide a secure and leisured existence for his family. When he finds himself in a situation where he himself is in need of attention and assistance and in danger of becoming a parasite, he doesn't want to admit this new role to himself and be disappointed by the treatment he receives from his family, which is becoming more and more careless and even hostile over time.

According to Sudau, Gregor is self-denyingly hiding his nauseating appearance under the sofa and gradually famishing, thus pretty much complying with the more or less blatant wish of his family. His gradual emaciation and "self-reduction" shows signs of a fatal hunger strike which on the part of Gregor is unconscious and unsuccessful, on the part of his family not understood or ignored.

Sudau also lists the names of selected interpreters of The Metamorphosis e. Beicken, Sokel, Sautermeister and Schwarz. He further notes that Kafka's representational style is on one hand characterized by an idiosyncratic interpenetration of realism and fantasy, a worldly mind, rationality, and clarity of observation, and on the other hand by folly, outlandishness, and fallacy.

He also points to the grotesque and tragicomical, silent film-like elements. Fernando Bermejo-Rubio argued that the story is often viewed unjustly as inconclusive. He derives his interpretative approach from the fact that the descriptions of Gregor and his family environment in The Metamorphosis contradict each other. Diametrically opposed versions exist of Gregor's back, his voice, of whether he is ill or already undergoing the metamorphosis, whether he is dreaming or not, which treatment he deserves, of his moral point of view false accusations made by Grete , and whether his family is blameless or not.

Bermejo-Rubio emphasizes that Kafka ordered in that there should be no illustration of Gregor. He argues that it is exactly this absence of a visual narrator that is essential for Kafka's project, for he who depicts Gregor would stylize himself as an omniscient narrator. Another reason why Kafka opposed such an illustration is that the reader should not be biased in any way before reading.

That the descriptions are not compatible with each other is indicative of the fact that the opening statement is not to be trusted. If the reader isn't hoodwinked by the first sentence and still thinks of Gregor as a human being, he will view the story as conclusive and realize that Gregor is a victim of his own degeneration. She is the character the title is directed at.

Gregor's metamorphosis is followed by him languishing and ultimately dying. Grete, by contrast, has matured as a result of the new family circumstances and assumed responsibility. In the end — after the brother's death — the parents also notice that their daughter, "who was getting more animated all the time, [ From this standpoint Grete's transition, her metamorphosis from a girl into a woman, is the subtextual theme of the story.

The Metamorphosis has been translated into English more than twenty times.