Essay On Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is a disturbing and a complex novel that depicts the horrific transformation of a man into a disgusting, oversized dung beetle or “a monstrous vermin.” This “transformation” is the reality of the world that the character lives in, but no one in that world is able to see it. Kafka demonstrates this reality using his extraordinary, one of a kind writing style which portrays everything illogical as logical, unreasonable as reasonable, and incomprehensible as comprehensible. The metamorphosis reads like a normal novel, but takes the reader through a disgusting and shocking journey that shows them the reality of the world which is that people are unable to see that they are alienated from themselves. Kafka writing style …show more content…
Each of his sentences start very normal but end shocking, like the first sentence of the novel, “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed,”—normal, “into a monstrous vermin”—shocking. Not only his sentences, but also his descriptions of the transformation are very bizarre and unexpected. Kafka describes the transformation of Gregor Samsa in such way that it tends to startle the reader and make them feel disgusted by it, “He was lying on his back as hard as armor plate, and when he lifted his head a little he saw his vaulted brown belly, sectioned by arch-shaped ribs, to whose dome the cover, about to slide off completely, could barely cling. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him were waving helplessly before his eyes.” This bizarre description is written in a sense that in Kafka’s world it is normal for a man to transform into a bug. Kafka is trying to say that man is alienated from himself but sees this alienation as normal because it has become a part of his life just like Kafka’s writing style which is bizarre but is reads