Coming from two completely different backgrounds and lifestyles, Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Franz Kafka managed to write pieces of literature that share several features. While possessing their own unique characteristics, two short stories, “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman and “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, also have a great amount in common. Focusing on both inner and physical transformations, several parallels can be drawn between the two. They also share themes such as isolation and alienation.
While fictional works can never be simultaneously read into as autobiographies, these two short stories were written in such a manner that they do reflect the personal experiences of their respective authors. Franz Kafka …show more content…
In addition to the obvious physical transformation that Gregor Samsa experiences as he turns into an insect, there are aspects of an emotional and mental transformation. Gregor spends a significant portion of the story pondering over what it was like to be a human and how he will never feel that way again. That’s why he prevents his mother and sister from taking the painting from his room. He has not fully come to terms with his transformation and it is the one piece that is his “anchor” to the life that he will never return to. Slowly, however, the reader catches the slightest hints of Gregor accepting his fate as the story progresses. In the final moments of his life, he realizes that there is no going back to what he used to be, so he lays down and dies. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, there is also a manifest physical transformation and a latent mental transformation, but the physical transformation of this story is less dramatic. The story starts out with a young vulnerable woman who believes that she is unwell, but she still has her sanity. This woman is dominated by her husband. He makes all important decisions for …show more content…
As one scholar writes, “Gregor’s transformation gives shape to his wish to abandon responsibility as a breadwinner and supporter of his family…his metamorphosis his opposite wish to avenge himself of his family’s parasitism by turning into a parasite himself. In the former case the metamorphosis functions as submission, in the latter as aggression and rebellion” (Sokel 39). Samsa’s attitude progresses throughout the story. Conversely, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator’s attitude slowly regresses until the end of the story where she more or less has a mental breakdown. The ripping down of the wallpaper to free the “woman” trapped inside symbolizes the last bit of sanity leaving the narrator’s body and mind. She exclaims something about a woman named Jane. “‘Jane,’ here, is arguably herself, estranged now not only from John but from her own identity as well. But in believing that she has finally broken free of this internal prison - the Victorian mind-set her patriarchal society has instilled in her - she has essentially released herself from the external bars and rings that John (or all nineteenth-century men, for that matter) uses to restrain her”
While fictional works can never be simultaneously read into as autobiographies, these two short stories were written in such a manner that they do reflect the personal experiences of their respective authors. Franz Kafka …show more content…
In addition to the obvious physical transformation that Gregor Samsa experiences as he turns into an insect, there are aspects of an emotional and mental transformation. Gregor spends a significant portion of the story pondering over what it was like to be a human and how he will never feel that way again. That’s why he prevents his mother and sister from taking the painting from his room. He has not fully come to terms with his transformation and it is the one piece that is his “anchor” to the life that he will never return to. Slowly, however, the reader catches the slightest hints of Gregor accepting his fate as the story progresses. In the final moments of his life, he realizes that there is no going back to what he used to be, so he lays down and dies. In “The Yellow Wallpaper”, there is also a manifest physical transformation and a latent mental transformation, but the physical transformation of this story is less dramatic. The story starts out with a young vulnerable woman who believes that she is unwell, but she still has her sanity. This woman is dominated by her husband. He makes all important decisions for …show more content…
As one scholar writes, “Gregor’s transformation gives shape to his wish to abandon responsibility as a breadwinner and supporter of his family…his metamorphosis his opposite wish to avenge himself of his family’s parasitism by turning into a parasite himself. In the former case the metamorphosis functions as submission, in the latter as aggression and rebellion” (Sokel 39). Samsa’s attitude progresses throughout the story. Conversely, in “The Yellow Wallpaper” the narrator’s attitude slowly regresses until the end of the story where she more or less has a mental breakdown. The ripping down of the wallpaper to free the “woman” trapped inside symbolizes the last bit of sanity leaving the narrator’s body and mind. She exclaims something about a woman named Jane. “‘Jane,’ here, is arguably herself, estranged now not only from John but from her own identity as well. But in believing that she has finally broken free of this internal prison - the Victorian mind-set her patriarchal society has instilled in her - she has essentially released herself from the external bars and rings that John (or all nineteenth-century men, for that matter) uses to restrain her”