The Complete Stories of Franz Kafka

Writer Franz Kafka is widely known for his deeply philosophical and existentially conflicting stories. While many of his works make it difficult to identify a singular theme, many of them revolve around the concept of the mind and the body and the relationship between the two. Some of his most famous short works, including “The Metamorphosis,” “A Hunger Artist,” and “In the Penal Colony,” portrays characters who are stuck in between fulfilling their spiritual wants and answering to their bodily…

Powerlessness in Comparison to “The Panther” The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, tells the story about a man’s transformation into a bug. Through his journey in his new life as a bug, he experiences many emotions such as isolation and powerlessness. His family is frightened and disgusted with him and he must learn how to adapt to his new life. “The Panther”, by Rainer Rilke, also displays feelings of isolation and powerlessness. The story and poem compare in the emotions they depict to the…

Illness of a Loved One: The Truths behind it In the short story Metamorphosis, author Franz Kafka, describes a young man seemingly wheeling in a world of depression. By illuminating certain hardships of the protagonist in this story, Kafka shares what it is like to live life with an illness or disease. Specifically I will focus on Kafka’s depiction of alienation and how sick individuals are often shunned by loved ones. Additionally, I will look at the burden taken on by the family who must deal…

feelings of severe depression and anxiety, trouble with communication, insubordination, and feelings of hopelessness. Alienation is a condition that severely affects the human mind, and can drive one into a dismal and erratic mental state. In the short stories “The…

Many stories contain characters who are quite different than others around them, including creatures such as insects, humans, or even monsters. These outcasts often have similar characteristics due to their aberrations from society. However, they do have variations from each other that forms their personalities into the original characters that they are. In Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Victor Frankenstein and Gregor Samsa are two people who undergo life…

In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka illustrates the difficulties Gregor faces after transforming into a bug. While Gregor is the main character of the story, the relationship he has with his sister, Grete, plays a fundamental role in depicting the novel’s theme of the limits of sympathy and causes Grete to undergo significant character development. Furthermore, the correlation between these two aspects of the novel compels the reader to question what it means to be an adult, bringing out the…

Franz Kafka was a tortured soul, he was a very lonely man and had no confidence in his writing. It took other people to encourage him to release his work to the public. He also was a writer that didn’t finish stories, because he felt that they were bad and not worthy of being read. Although Kafka had a hard and difficult life, it allowed him to write true and honest stories about the human condition. Throughout Kafka’s writing we see that he is curious about relationships with people. Kafka is…

Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883, in Prague, the capital of what was then, Bohemia, (a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire), to two upper middle class Jewish parents. After studying law at The University of Prague, he worked in insurance and wrote in the evenings. In 1923, he moved to Berlin to focus on writing, but died of tuberculosis shortly after. Before he died Kafka asked Max Brod to destroy all of his writings after his death, but Brod didn’t comply with his wishes. Over the course of…

In today’s society, it is hard to overcome being just a number. Within work and school, society teaches to follow the crowd and obey authority. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is a novella detailing a man’s absurd transformation from human to bug. Gregor Samsa goes from being mentally dehumanized in his working life to being physically and literally dehumanized. This metamorphosis affects not only Gregor, but his entire family. His family is burdened with the maintenance of a domesticated bug…

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…