How Does Kafka Use Imagery In The Metamorphosis

Decent Essays
Literary Analysis of The Metamorphosis In the story “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, Gregor Samsa transformation into an insect is the beginning of events that leads to a tragic ending. Kafka uses imagery and symbolism in “The Metamorphosis” to illustrate the setting Gregor Samsa and his family are living in when he wakes up an insect and the events leading up to his death. Kafka uses imagery to show alienation towards Gregor and isolation to show the outcome of Gregor becoming an insect. Symbolism is used to explain the transformation of how Gregor feels.
Kafka uses imagery to show Gregor’s alienation long before he turned into an insect and well after being an insect. Gregor’s alienation started with his job because he was fully devoted

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    In the novella “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, Gregor, a middle aged man living at home with his two parents and his younger sister, is the sole provider for his family. One morning, Gregor wakes up to find that he has been transformed into a bug, and his family’s greatest fears are met. Normally, people would analyze Kafka’s work and find that Kafka illustrates the unfortunate and difficult decisions between caring for a family member that is in trouble, or leaving them to their own devices. But what if someone thought that Gregor was never human at all, but just a slave blindly working to support his family without any recognition at all. Gregor’s family’s greatest fears are made apparent once it is clear that Gregor is no longer able…

    • 2178 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gregor constantly removes pleasure from his life—diving deep into complete isolation. After his physical metamorphosis, Gregor ironically begins to develop his human characteristics in order for Kafka to illustrate how extremism starves one from essential human nourishment. Gregor starves his life from human need in order to cater to the needs of others. He works as a traveling salesman, assuming his father’s debt, and retains a great deal of suffering from it.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Kafka’s story directly relates to the real world, using Gregor to symbolize outsiders, people who are simply misunderstood for their differences. Gregor, an average middle aged man who provides everything for his…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, goes through a change that gives him a new perspective. His metamorphosis causes not only a physical but a psychological transformation within Gregor. This transformation is not exclusive to Gregor, but is also prevalent within the entire Samsa family. Gregor’s metamorphosis was sudden and unexpected. “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (4).…

    • 859 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Therefore, he begins to feel that he is a real insect, which triggers the psychological transformation in Gregor Samsa. (Kohzadi, Azizmohammadi, and Nouri 1603). As time passes and Gregor is forced to adjust to his new life as an insect, he becomes alienated from the human experience as well. Gregor’s physical transformation into a strange creature coupled with the poor treatment towards him exuded by his family members lead him to believe that he was no longer human. Every concrete ounce of humanity was drained from him with only his abstract mind to prove that he was still human.…

    • 1798 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Society and family are the most influential forces that can play significant roles to build or destroy the lives of individuals. Throughout the ages, both of these forces have attempted to control its individuals on the premises of providing stability, security, and social acceptance. In the Romantic Era, writers took to their pens to cleverly express their outright dissent with regards to the laws and norms. This is the case presented in both the Shakespearean tragedies, Hamlet and Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis.…

    • 827 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Why Gregor is More Uncanny than His Metamorphosis Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” frightens and intrigues with the idea that a man could wake up one morning and find himself no longer human, but a giant insect. The situation leaves much to interpretation about what is possible and impossible, especially in the world that Gregor and his family occupy. However, reading the Metamorphosis through the lens of Freud’s ideas in “The Uncanny”, the story of how a man inexplicably transforms into a bug is not so much about the transformation as it is about the reality of the situation. In other words, Freud’s concept of the uncanny compels a reading of “The Metamorphosis” that does not question how Gregor changes, but examines why this change is uncanny…

    • 1655 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The author directly characterizes Gregor when “...he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 1156). This quote expands the reader's knowledge on who Gregor is and how he drives the plot. The reader is supposed to grasp the idea of Gregor being an insect and what it does for the main idea. Gregor is the main character, and his modification of becoming an insect creates the story because he has become something new, and has to adapt to a new lifestyle. He becomes very isolated, and this causes the plot to be focused on his adaptations and how his family focuses on him.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The Metamorphosis written by a German author Franz Kafka is viewed as one of the most analyzed works of literature. It is an incredible story that explains the process of transformation from human into a massive insect of Gregor Samsa. This story continues to be an inspiration for many imaginative pieces of literature. The aspect of Metamorphosis has transformed it into a puzzle of contemporary imagination. Popular culture has always shown the difference between functional and dysfunctional families to provide the factors that influence their information.…

    • 1824 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Gregor is not the only one who transforms but the whole family dynamic transforms due to his metamorphosis into a cockroach. Due to that transformation, there is conflict between family members particularly between Gregor’s mother and Grete, his sister. This transformation helps the readers see another view on human nature and family dynamics. From the start of the story, Gregor is transformed into a cockroach, which leads his family into conflict about how to take care of him. His mother and Grete fight over what is best for Gregor.…

    • 809 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Basically, the story of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is about a man transformed into a giant bug and died without the exact help of family members. In essay “Transforming Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis”, Nina Straus points out that the story of Metamorphosis is mainly about the gender role exchange between male and female, “Metamorphosis unfolds by contrasting Gregor’s maimed and dying body with the evolving, blossoming body of Grete, who take Gregor’s place as family provider and favorite”(Straus 134). It is no doubt that Straus well explained the gender role exchange. At the same time, It is glad that she has the idea that “The male world is a horror and a jail and a prison for both Kafka and Gregor,[ for men]” (Straus 136). The masculine…

    • 1967 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Symbolism In The Metamorphosis Kafka

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited

    Kafka illustrates this idea to the reader by symbolizing Gregor’s bug body as a reflection of the authentic side of Gregor, which makes his human life inauthentic. Although being turned into a bug seems mortifying, Kafka makes the idea appealing since Gregor no longer has the “torture of traveling” and the narrator clarifies that his human life had “no relationships that last[ed] or [got] intimate”(4). The displeasure in Gregor’s life is an indicator that Gregor was unsatisfied with not only his job, but his life too since he had no personal connections with not only other people, but his family too. When Gregor starts to get used to his bug body he finds that climbing walls “almost [made him] happy absent-mindedly” (32). The reader is able to decipher that “almost” feeling happy creates comfort for Gregor because it’s more optimistic than his lonely life that lacks focus or a sense of contentment in the future.…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It was no dream” (3). Also, why does Gregor become a insect, but not something else? Kafka uses the insect that Gregor became to represent the importance of the social status. Since Gregor becomes to an insect, a thing that is not desired by the society. This also indicates the social situation.…

    • 1489 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The story "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka opens with the realization that the main character, Gregor Samsa, has awoken as a giant bug. The reader is introduced to this extreme metamorphosis right from the start. However, does the title "The Metamorphosis" really refer to this blatant and quite literal change, or does it refer to something less obvious and more subtle? After reading into the story deeper the reader is often left wondering, "To what does the title 'The Metamorphosis ' really refer to?" By indentifying Gregor 's relationships and perceptions of himself as well as his family members, particularily his father, Mr. Samsa, and his sister, Grete it becomes apparent that the Metamorphosis has less to do with Gregor 's literal appearance…

    • 1776 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He uses a metaphorical transformation to explain the themes of existentialism and its role in the human condition. In the starting of the novel, “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 1). It shows that Gregor change as it though it were an ordinary event, and it never raises the issue of how or why Gregor undergoes his transformation, implying that the change has occurred without any particular cause or for any particular reason. When Gregor finds out that he has transformed into an insect, he does not panic about the absurd reality of his new physical state. Instead, his first worry is how he will go to work and support his family, which was the primary purpose in his life.…

    • 1230 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays