Preview

Nightmarish Quality In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
206 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Nightmarish Quality In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis
In the Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the style enhances the nightmarish quality of the work. On line 1 it reads, “One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin”. The author, Franz Kafka, plainly states what has happened to him. Instead of freaking out about not being human, he treats the day like a regular morning. This enhances the nightmarish quality of the work because it does not explain how it happened, and makes his terrifying transformation seem normal. Another instance where the style enhances the nightmarish quality of the work occurs when the author states, “ Well, there's still some hope; once I've got the money together to pay off my parents' debt to him

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is a nightmarish tale with a very straightforward, matter-of-fact style, and this style enhances its nightmarish quality. An example of this is found in paragraph, which states, “His many legs, pitifully thin when compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.” When describing this scene, the narrator definitely uses illustrative words, but does not have the disgusted tone one would expect from a story like this. The narrator speaks in an emptier way, which helps magnify the eerie feeling of the work. Both it and Gregor act very removed from the events, not how a normal human would react. Another instance of this is, “So then he tried to get the top part of his body out of bed…

    • 239 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the style enhances the nightmarish quality of the work. On page 92, it says, “His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.” With a straightforward description of Gregor, nothing is needed to be implied that he is a grueling bug. Knowing that he is a vermin is creepy and makes it seem as if it was nightmare. Page 97 again shows where the style enhances the nightmarish quality, “If he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first one that would stretch itself out; and if he finally managed to do what he wanted to with that leg, all the others seemed to be set free and would move about painfully.” The story is eerie enough without its straightforward…

    • 165 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the Metamorphois by Franz Kafka, the style enhances the nightmarish quality of the work. The story starts when Gregor wakes up as a beetle. That seems like it would be a nightmare because people don’t want to wake up as a beetle. Also it gives the creepy feeling because what he turns into is a beetle and they are creepy and also the word play gives it a dark and eerie tone. This makes it even more like a nightmarish quality because the tone is what sets everything. If the tone is dark and eerie then the story will end up that way.…

    • 110 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The nightmarish quality of “The Metamorphosis,” by Franz Kafka, is enhanced by the straight forward -almost academic- nature of the writing. One such example of this occurs on page 93, reading, ““What’s happened to me?” [Gregor] thought. It wasn’t a dream. His room, a proper human room, although a little too small, lay peacefully between its four familiar walls.”(Kafka) From thereon, he abandons the description of his transformation to describe the room and previous night. As the audience reads this, they are thrown by the sudden shift of topic, still wondering what has happened. The fact that most works put an emphasis on the “why?” makes the reader expect an answer, developing their panic as it becomes less and less likely that there will…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    As with any great literary work, there must be a purpose behind the story. Kafka’s short story was written for a few main reasons. He wanted to exemplify the absurdity of life, show that there is often a disconnect between the mind and body, and that there are limits to society’s affection for its servants. I found that all points appeared to be both relevant and accurate while maintaining the fantastical appeal of the strangeness of Gregor’s sudden transformation. I believe this contributes to why “The Metamorphosis” has made a lasting impact across the globe.…

    • 95 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    “The Making of an Allegory,” by Edwin Honig and “Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ as Death and Resurrection Fantasy,” by Peter Dow Webster illuminate how sacrifice and transformation are a vital part of the deeper meaning of "The Metamorphosis." Gregor Samsa is an ordinary young man until he wakes up one day as a giant vermin; metamorphosised into something horrendous and reviled by the world. Through Honig’s and Webster’s critical essays, this transformation, as well as many more, and sacrifice made by all involved are explored in a thorough and definitive way.…

    • 1090 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Statistics show that 1 in 10 Americans have suffered depression, depression often being a result of isolation and alienation from society. In the short story “Metamorphosis”, Franz Kafka utilizes point of view and anthropomorphism to develop the theme of alienation.…

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In The Metamorphasis, Kafka’s treatment of Gregor’s transformation demonstrates how beyond human control the natural world is. The human turning back into nature demonstrates a relationship between man and the environment. Throughout the novel there is, however, much talk of the cure and of acceptance, yet nature goes on unrelated to all talk of ways to change the situation.…

    • 555 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    A compare and contrast Analysis of Frank Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis and The Things They Carried.…

    • 1069 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In Franz Kafka's short story Metamorphosis symbolism plays a great part in developing Gregor's character and life. First, s picture Gregor has of a woman is the representation of his last strand of human life in addition to the furniture in his bedroom. Secondly, the apple that Gregor's father implants into his back is a representation of good and evil within the Samsa family. Lastly, Gregor's door represents his isolation from humanity and his true transition into a bug.…

    • 487 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is a novella. The theme in this story is that change in one character leads to positive and negative change in other characters. Gregor Samsa, the main character changes into dung beetle. His change affects his family deeply and they make both positive and negative changes to accommodate both his change and themselves. The family resents Gregor and sees him as a burden, which is a negative change, but previously the family had relied on Gregor as their source of income. This is where the conflict arises because now they have to learn to work for themselves instead of relying on Gregor for income, which is ultimately a great positive change.…

    • 797 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Franz Kafka is said to have based most of his works off of his own life. Consequently, in one such work, Metamorphosis, the characters, and their struggles parallel those of people present in Kafka's life. Metamorphosis tells the story of a man, Gregor, who leads a prominent lifestyle until he wakes up one morning transformed into a bug; from the moment that he takes his first breath in his transformed state, Gregor's life goes downhill. Because Kafka's work reflects his life, his state of mind is revealed through the fact that he chooses a bug in peril to represent himself. Kafka's purpose for writing Metamorphosis was to alleviate his hardships by providing himself an escape through writing.…

    • 993 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Ivan Ilyich Suffering

    • 1371 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In the story “The Metamorphosis,” Kafka expressed this modernist writing when he talks about death. Although this story isn’t directly focused on the death, it reflects what the character had to go through leading up to his death. The Metamorphosis is about a man named Gregor Samsa who wakes up one day in the form of a roach. Samsa works at a job that he thinks is unpleasant but does not want to quit because he wants to repay his parents for the debt incurred from his schooling. To roughly summarize the story, he remains in the form of a roach and over time is slowly resented by his parents and sister.…

    • 1371 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Since the Greek philosophers people have debated endlessly the extent to which the mind influences oneʼs personal reality, or even reality in general. In the Metamorphosis, the link between Gregorʼs mental and physical reality are in some way linked, and as Gregorʼs ability to function within the parameters of humanity dissipates, his physical links with the human world diminish as well. He loses his personal connection with his own body, and slowly but surely loses connection with the outside world; work and acquaintances progress along without him, and his family shuts him away as if he had never existed. But despite the authorʼs frequent superficial focus on Gregor Samsaʼs physical aspect, it is fundamentally the mental breakdown which Franz…

    • 1137 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the novel The Metamorphosis, Kafka uses symbolism to express the idea that Gregor transformed into a bug physically, after feeling like one psychologically. Gregor worked as a traveling salesman and although he didn’t like his job or boss, he dealt with it in order to support his family. His parent’s owed money to an employer and Gregor wanted to help in any way he could and stated "Well, there’s still hope; once I’ve saved enough money to pay back my parents’ debt to him—that should take another five or six years--I'll do it without fail. I'll cut myself loosely then" (Kafka267). He hopes to quit his job, clear his parents from debt, and send his sister to music school. The story begins with Gregor waking up and finding himself to be a giant insect. He did not seem to care about his transformation and did not believe that it would change his life in any way. He was more worried about missing the train and angering his boss than the fact that he turned into a bug. The moment his family saw him as an insect they were in shock and worried about what they were going to do. After a while they really did not seem to mind at all and handled his transformation well. He’s sister was still supportive of him and even fed him.…

    • 502 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays