Theme Of Isolation In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

Superior Essays
Society isolates people that are “useless” to the contribution to the structure society. Isolation can shape a person’s identity and sometimes make it hard for them to define their own identity. Every day we witness and maybe perhaps contribute to segregation, discrimination, and racism to others. We isolate the handicap. We isolate people that we find unappealing because of the race, believes, and looks. The discrimination against others causes them to question their true identity. Isolation can make a person to pretend to be someone who they are really not. For example we reject gays and by doing so they pretend to be someone who they really aren’t which causes struggles for them to defined their true identity. We see this lost of identify …show more content…
The change in Gregor causes an identity crisis in all of his family. Everyone and his family then becomes what they have to be in order to contribute to their well being. “His mother… sew fancy underwear for a fashion shop; his sister, who had taken a sales job, learned shorthand and French in the evening so that she might be able to get a better position later on.” (16) Everyone had to step up to cover for the disabilities of Gregor, but by doing so their hate for Gregor only grows more because they now only see him as a burden. This represent the cruelty of society we always see homeless people or people in need as a burden that we have to deal with. We see old people as a burden but we fail to realize that at some point in their lifetime they we big contributors to our society. Metamorphosis gives us a good sense of how cruel society can be. It shows us that no matter what you do or how much you help people only want you as long as you can do something for them. Metamorphosis shows us how society can change a person society whether its for the better or worse we create people around us. We help form a person's identity whether we realize it or not. Gregor and his family give us the best representation of the messed up society we live

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    After awhile Gregor was starting to feel an effect of solitude in his condition . As mentioned by Kafka, Gregor was beginning to be mobile and move around the house (ch.1). He was accepting his body and found solace in climbing up the walls. Gregor wasn't entirely sure why this transition was happening. His family wasn't content with his transition.…

    • 188 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Analysis of Gregor’s and Samsa’s New Life in “The Metamorphosis” In this story, “The Metamorphosis” By Franz Kafka, Kafka gives the reader a very strange and dramatic opening. In his first sentence, “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from his unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka). With this opening, Kafka grabs his reader’s attention.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    The moment after I finished reading the novella for the first time was one of those moments when I found myself falling into a wishful fantasy involving me having the opportunity to engage in a very long conversation with the author. I had a hundred of questions on my mind. The second time I read “The Metamorphosis”, I had a hundred more questions leading to endless interpretations of what the story could be about, the infinity of possible hidden symbols each character, every sentence or tiny detail could represent. Kafka’s Metamorphosis can be read from numerous perspectives and through multiple themes, and perhaps that is exactly what makes it one of the most discussed modern literary works. For some, the metamorphosis is solely about Gregor’s body turning into a “monstrous vermin” (1156).…

    • 1274 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The author focuses attention on how society treats Gregor; his external battles with people are the underlying cause of his…

    • 246 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is common to see man suppress their being and feelings from others. In another comparison, Kafka used the new voice of Gregor to further juxtapose Gregor's state and mankind. Gregor attempted to talk but found out that his words are“distorted...in the reverberation,”(Kafka…

    • 289 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Critical Exercise #1 In Franz Kafka’s magic realism story, The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa struggles against isolation due to his work schedule consuming most of his life and the lack of acceptance he feels from his family. Due to Gregor’s situation, he has multiple epiphanies such as, where he realizes that his job takes up most of his life and is unable to form any intimate relationships with another individual. Another, instance is where Gregor battles against himself to succumb to his natural tendencies of a bug, or try to maintain what human aspects he has left. Finally, the last epiphany is when he has no regrets passing away for his family, and realizes this is the only way to help them. Ultimately, through Gregor’s epiphanies he acknowledges his own self-awareness that he is a burden to his family, and thus…

    • 698 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This caused Gregor to realize that everything was being blamed on him, and his family’s love could only last so long. They weren't used to carrying all the weight on their shoulders since gregor was always the one creating the stable foundation for the family. He was the one who gathered all the money for the family and held them together, however, they still found the audacity to leave him behind and dehumanize…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The turn of the twentieth century sparked the change of European culture as people experienced the power struggle between nations. As World War I heightened in the early 1900s, devastation was brought to many families when the men were sent to battle, while the remaining working class struggled to control their own lives at home. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis exemplifies the constraints wrapped around the working class as World War I was underway beginning in 1914. Gregor Samsa’s bug transformation depicts his isolation from his world and his family since he is not able to work.…

    • 1586 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Gregor, the main character who metamorphizes from a human to a large insect, faces a lot of miscommunication and impartial tolerance from his family members to show us how convenience can be misleading when it comes to disadvantage. Before Gregor’s transformation, he acted as the backbone of the family, a necessity: “Gregor went on to earn so much money that he was able to bear, and indeed bore, the expense of the whole family” (Kafka, 1218). According to this statement, he was a highly-valued family member. In the beginning of the story his mother, his sister, the chief-clerk, and even the doctor (who gets turned away) comes to the door and check on him. Before his door opens, Gregor’s mother, father, sister, and even the Chief-clerk, all had a stable perception of Gregor, well stated by the Chief-clerk, “I had taken you for a quiet and sensible individual, but you seem set on indulging a bizarre array of moods” (Kafka, 1209).…

    • 621 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Literary Analysis of The Metamorphosis and Axolotl Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis and Julio Cortazar’s short story Axolotl are not only based off of the writers themselves; they also exhibit a plethora of similar themes and concepts, including absurdism, alienation, Marxism, and magic realism. Oftentimes in fictional literature, traces of emotions exhibited by characters and events that occur within the fictional work are heavily influenced by the writer’s own dilemmas. This parallel between the writer and the fictional work is demonstrated in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, where the transformation of the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, ultimately represents the guilt the writer is experiencing as a result of his nonfictional conflicts. Throughout many of Kafka’s literary works, the influence his dictatorial father left on him is exhibited, including the novella The Metamorphosis.…

    • 1798 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the straightforward style enhances the nightmarish quality of the work because it creates a creepily normal mood. For example, “Gregor tried to imagine whether something of the sort that had happened to him today would ever happen to the chief clerk too; you had to concede it was possible” (Kafka 11). Gregor basically just shrugs off the fact that he is a bug and admits that it could happen to anyone. By being so straightforward about this, the story takes on a chilling mood as one thinks about the actual possibilities. It raises questions of “Could this really happen?”…

    • 318 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    When a story is read, one of the first topics discovered are the characters. In “The Metamorphosis”, the author strongly utilizes the characters. The author writes this story to represent how he feels in his everyday life. Gregor is a salesman who is the main provider for his family. When he becomes this monstrous vermin, he has to adapt to a new life, and he becomes very limited in what he can do.…

    • 558 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved 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

    Prior to his transformation Gregor held the belief that his family relied on him completely for survival. Tragically for Gregor, this belief is shattered as he begins to realize he is not as important to his family as he thought. After the failure of his father 's business, it is explained that "Gregor 's sole desire was to do his utmost to help the family to forget as soon as possible the catastrophe that had overwelmed the business and thrown them all into a state of complete despair." (110) and that "later on Gregor had earned so much money that he was able to meet the expenses of the whole household, and did so." (110).…

    • 1776 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Gregor’s need for acceptance in society prevents him from obtaining a sense of identity, which is why he also feels the need for conformity as it gives him the false sense of identity he needs to satisfy his humanity. “I’m subjected to this torment of traveling, to the worries about train connections, the bad meals at irregular hours… The devil take it all!” (11-12). Gregor’s expressions of discontent with his job reveal that he has only undertaken this job to submit to the will of his father and the role of a son in a capitalistic society.…

    • 1855 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays