Metamorphosis: Summary/Analysis
The Metamorphosis is the story of a commercial traveler, Gregor Samsa,
that one morning awoke turned into a gigantic insect. It is no dream
but, simply and plainly, a real metamorphosis with no rhetoric in
between. Facing this incredible fact, Kafka does not do any realistic
concessions and keeps the new condition of the character to the end.
That makes of The metamorphosis a hard work of fiction, in the way of
Odyssey (with which, besides, it is closely related) or in the way of
the Medieval fairy tales, specially those in which the wicked witch
turns The Prince Charming into a hideous animal.
>From the other side, the work, that belongs to a trilogy about marriage
in relation to the individual, the family and the so-ciety written by
Kafka, has a highly autobiographical contain. In The Judgment the
subject is the engagement assumed as a treason to the literary calling;
in The metamorphosis there is a view of marriage and family relations
from a masochistic and incestuous perspective; in The Trial, it is the
settlement of accounts, related with the incapacity of accomplishing the
acquired compro-mises, according to an unwritten law, he must pay. In
the three cases, the story ends with the protagonist's death.
The Metamorphosis is built on a fiction level with two faces, Crime and
Punishment by Dostoevsky and Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch,
superposed in a way they get in contact with a real level with two faces
too, the family relations and his dreams of Felice. By the merging of
theses two levels, Kafka gets a fantastic reality which allows him to
express his deepest dreams and desires in relation with marriage and sex
in a poetic language that turns The Metamorphosis into a classic of
erotism, aspect not considered until now. (Such a pleiad, Kafka, Sacher-
Masoch and Dostoesky, met in The Metamorphosis turns into a height of
masochism this work).
PART ONE
The
that one morning awoke turned into a gigantic insect. It is no dream
but, simply and plainly, a real metamorphosis with no rhetoric in
between. Facing this incredible fact, Kafka does not do any realistic
concessions and keeps the new condition of the character to the end.
That makes of The metamorphosis a hard work of fiction, in the way of
Odyssey (with which, besides, it is closely related) or in the way of
the Medieval fairy tales, specially those in which the wicked witch
turns The Prince Charming into a hideous animal.
>From the other side, the work, that belongs to a trilogy about marriage
in relation to the individual, the family and the so-ciety written by
Kafka, has a highly autobiographical contain. In The Judgment the
subject is the engagement assumed as a treason to the literary calling;
in The metamorphosis there is a view of marriage and family relations
from a masochistic and incestuous perspective; in The Trial, it is the
settlement of accounts, related with the incapacity of accomplishing the
acquired compro-mises, according to an unwritten law, he must pay. In
the three cases, the story ends with the protagonist's death.
The Metamorphosis is built on a fiction level with two faces, Crime and
Punishment by Dostoevsky and Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch,
superposed in a way they get in contact with a real level with two faces
too, the family relations and his dreams of Felice. By the merging of
theses two levels, Kafka gets a fantastic reality which allows him to
express his deepest dreams and desires in relation with marriage and sex
in a poetic language that turns The Metamorphosis into a classic of
erotism, aspect not considered until now. (Such a pleiad, Kafka, Sacher-
Masoch and Dostoesky, met in The Metamorphosis turns into a height of
masochism this work).
PART ONE
The