Comparing The Trial And The Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, to a middle-class Jewish family in what is now referred to as the Czech Republic. Growing up, Kafka faced many hardships that took a toll on his emotional state. All five of his siblings died tragic deaths and left Kafka with his domineering father who looked down on him as if he were a failure. “His only aim, it seems, is to belittle everything that Kafka is— to isolate and subject him” (Blunden, 13). Kafka’s father is a recurring character in his works, a man with “strength, health, a hearty appetite, a powerful voice, eloquence, self-satisfaction, a supreme sense of assurance, stamina, presence of mind, a knowledge of human nature and a certain generosity,” (Blunden, 12), all the things which Kafka feels …show more content…
Both novellas take place in unnatural universes, acting as parallels to Kafka’s world. The characters in his stories are faced with absolutely ludicrous situations to help promote Kafka’s view on life. “The situations are meant to be meaningful, and their meaning is precisely the impossibility of grasping by logic what the meanings are… they are at the very core of what he is doing. They amount to a profound, and profoundly disturbing, vision of human life” (Dyson, 61). The Metamorphosis, for example, commences with an astronomically absurd situation: the protagonist finds he has transformed into a gigantic insect. “One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka, ). When The Metamorphosis was written, Kafka was hard at work just like Gregor Samsa. He was suffering immensely, not sleeping, not eating, becoming extremely isolated. This can be compared to Gregor Samsa’s life as an insect, one that is lonely, pathetic, inhuman, and miserable. This undeniably obvious correlation between Kafka and Gregor Samsa also illustrates Kafka’s ideas on the true nature of humanity as well as human vulnerability. “The fear of the metamorphosis reflects human anxieties about the body: fears of sexuality, ugliness, …show more content…
Gregor Samsa’s life is extremely lonely before he becomes an insect and once he becomes the creature he is literally shunned from society. This ties into the idea of death in life according to Greenberg since Samsa’s life was so meaningless to begin with, it was as if he was already dead (64). “The first sentence of The Metamorphosis announces Gregor Samsa’s death and the rest of the story is his slow dying” (Greenberg, 63). Kafka wants people to consider the idea that there are different forms of death, not only the death of our physical beings. Gregor Samsa is an isolated insect, the same way he was an isolated man. His insect form has no effect on his identity, but it helps him to realize that he has been dead all along and now all he has left for him is true death. This can be related back to the idea that humans are just like insects. Kafka views humans as parasitic, selfish, judgemental, exhausted beings. He illustrates this through the different types of characters found in his novellas. (Gregor is a literal parasite, his family is selfish, his sister who once was kind is now wishing for Gregor to die because in the end humans only care about themselves). In The Metamorphosis, the only way Gregor can be redeemed is through his death. “He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His