Analyse the representation and formal importance of transformation with regard to two texts studied so far.
Metamorphosis, meaning change of form, underpins the process of transformation in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (008AD). Present throughout Kafka’s text is the political instability of central Europe during the early 1900’s; the social and militaristic unrest of the Second Reich was rife in Kafka’s home city of Prague. The grim reality of Gregor’s metamorphosis, where the initial transformation seems to lack reason and resolve, contrasts that of Ovid’s use of rationalisation for his transformations. Ovid provides a clear narrative structure of cause and effect to the metamorphosis’ that take place. Through first establishing a religious historical influence followed by the mythologies, Ovid sets out the framework of the epic with thematic consistencies of transformations such as the female victim of unreciprocated male desire. Ovid’s political radicalism influences how he ridicules and villainizes the Roman Gods of 008AD, focusing in the texts on the human experience of …show more content…
Initially this is satirically out of place with the paradox between the realism of the setting and the surreal transformation ‘into some kind of monstrous vermin.’ Conformation that this as literal metamorphosis not metaphorical is established in the response to Gregor’s monologue, which takes place divided between two divisive settings, Gregor’s room and the world beyond this. ‘Could you understand a single word?’ Using the chief clerk, an authority figure, as the character rejecting Gregor’s plea to save his crumbling identity, symbolises the rejection from wider society. Gregor’s condemnation into this space of imprisonment symbolises him as a social parasite, lacking economic worth or role in the culture of conservatism of the hostile
Metamorphosis, meaning change of form, underpins the process of transformation in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (008AD). Present throughout Kafka’s text is the political instability of central Europe during the early 1900’s; the social and militaristic unrest of the Second Reich was rife in Kafka’s home city of Prague. The grim reality of Gregor’s metamorphosis, where the initial transformation seems to lack reason and resolve, contrasts that of Ovid’s use of rationalisation for his transformations. Ovid provides a clear narrative structure of cause and effect to the metamorphosis’ that take place. Through first establishing a religious historical influence followed by the mythologies, Ovid sets out the framework of the epic with thematic consistencies of transformations such as the female victim of unreciprocated male desire. Ovid’s political radicalism influences how he ridicules and villainizes the Roman Gods of 008AD, focusing in the texts on the human experience of …show more content…
Initially this is satirically out of place with the paradox between the realism of the setting and the surreal transformation ‘into some kind of monstrous vermin.’ Conformation that this as literal metamorphosis not metaphorical is established in the response to Gregor’s monologue, which takes place divided between two divisive settings, Gregor’s room and the world beyond this. ‘Could you understand a single word?’ Using the chief clerk, an authority figure, as the character rejecting Gregor’s plea to save his crumbling identity, symbolises the rejection from wider society. Gregor’s condemnation into this space of imprisonment symbolises him as a social parasite, lacking economic worth or role in the culture of conservatism of the hostile