Theme Development In George Saunders's 'The Metamorphosis'

In stories authors use literary techniques, language, and theme development to establish their tone. In the stories “The Metamorphosis” Franz Kafka and “Puppy” by George Saunders use these to show the audience how their opinions on parenting. They both share their views in their stories using the same techniques even though they have different views. The view of parenting that Kafka has is that parents should not take their children for granted, they should love their children. The view that Saunders has on parenting is that parents are all different and should not judge one another, the way people parent is strongly based on how they were brought up and people should not judge one another on what they decide is best for their child. In both …show more content…
Both “The Metamorphosis” and “Puppy” use theme development to show how they feel about parenting to their audience. The author of “The Metamorphosis” uses the theme that says people should not rely on others to plan their entire lives and that is what Gregor’s family does. “No plea of Gregor 's helped, no plea was even understood; however humbly he might turn his head, his father merely stamped his feet more forcefully his father gave him a hard shove, which was truly his salvation, and bleeding profusely, he flew far into his room” (Kafka). By saying that Gregor’s family plans his entire life and mistreats him, it shows that the author thinks that Gregor’s family is mistreating and psychologically abusing Gregor. When the family does not have anything to gain from Gregor being their they quit caring about him. The author develops the theme very early on in the story. By developing it early on it conveys that the author feels very strongly about how the parenting styles of the parents of Gregor is awful. In “Puppy” the theme of the story is that people have different views about parenting and these views come from how they were raised by their parents. The author develops the theme very slowly and progressively throughout the story. The particular theme the author has chosen shows that he thinks that parenting can be hard and that parents do not need to judge each other but instead they need to worry about how they are treating their own