Essay Comparing The Elephant Vanishes And Ozymandias

The Metamorphosis, “The Elephant Vanishes”, and “Ozymandias” all share a common theme of abandonment. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor lost the love of his family when he couldn’t provide for them anymore. In “The Elephant Vanishes”, the man felt alone in the world without the old elephant, and in “Ozymandias”, he thought that he had everything, but centuries later, nothing was left. In all these stories, the tragic heroes are not traditionally Greek Tragedy and they are left abandoned and alone. The Metamorphosis, is a story about a man named Gregor, who has been abandoned by his own family. Gregor, the tragic hero of the story, brought suffering to his family by not paying his father’s debt with the chief. His family no longer recognizes Gregor as part of the family. Gregor has held in his feelings and this caused his tragic flaw into …show more content…
He has a hard time trying to deal with the fact that one of the most calm and peaceful things to him has vanished. The man is the tragic hero, but he doesn’t bring suffering to anyone, he likes to “take a look at the elephant every now and then and to look at the elephant inside the house” (Murakami 323). He “liked the idea of my town owning” and taking care of the elephant, since the elephant had no where else to go with its old age (Murakami 312). The man would go outside of his house at night and just sit and watch the elephant and the keeper, this helped him be more calm and something about the elephant helped him to be more relaxed. Whereas, the dramatic irony is present when the elephant and the keeper mysteriously disappeared than the man was not himself, he “quit smoking three years earlier, but had begun again” when the elephant was gone (Murakami 322). This is Dramatic Irony because we didn’t know that he started smoking and drinking again since the elephant disappeared, this is how much this elephant means to the