There are many different factors that play a role in shaping one’s life. Two of these, family and society, are expressed by Leo Tolstoy and Franz Kafka. Tolstoy’s novella The Death Of Ivan Ilyich draws attention to the quality of Ivan Ilyich’s life. Although he has a life the whole community aspires to, he becomes aware of the hypocrisies and imperfections that accompany it. Similarly, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis focuses on the ostracized life of Gregor Samsa who continuously seeks the approval of his family, but somehow always ends up letting them down. Ivan Ilyich in Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Gregor Samsa in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis both experience extreme alienation from their families, and thereby shed light on the nightmarish quality of their existence.
Ivan Ilyich, a decorous man with a life deemed perfect by society, gradually becomes aware of his life’s dark secrets, which cause him to feel excluded from his family and society. The tone is set by Tolstoy in the very beginning of the novella - as Ivan Ilyich’s colleagues receive the news of Ilyich’s death, the first thing they can think about is whom amongst them will receive a promotion. Moreover, at the funeral, Ilyich’s wife worriedly asks his colleague for some advice about her pension. These events foreshadow how “Ivan Ilyich’s life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible” (1427). Ilyich leads the life society tells him to lead, which first becomes clear before he decides to marry - “The marriage gave him personal satisfaction, and at the same time it was considered the right thing by the most highly placed of his associates” (pg. 1430). And even though he is disgusted with law, he considers it righteous and honorable when he see...
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...eptance of his death, liberates him.
Gregor Samsa and Ivan Ilyich cast a light on the intolerable conditions they experience, which originate from the inability to fit in and have a connection with their surroundings. The incessant search for a place of belonging by both characters stems from what society and family thinks is standard; Ilyich and Gregor think they will find belonging if they follow society’s rules. Kafka must utilize Gregor’s metamorphosis or dehumanization to separate Gregor from the rest of the world. Likewise, Tolstoy utilizes Ivan Ilyich’s torment and suffering to separate himself from society, and thereby criticizes society for imposing conventional rules. Only through these comparisons and referrals to dehumanization suffering can the reader truly understand and empathize with the drastic alienation and agony experienced by both characters.
Gregor’s family loved him while he was an asset, but they despised him when he was a burden. When people lose value as laborers, they begin to lose value as a whole person, too. Thus, they also become a ‘bug’ in society because of their inability to continually contribute to the world. Metaphorically speaking, this is how Gregor felt. He was discarded at the slightest change in his laboring ability. Following the Marxist theory, economic and monetary principles far surpassed any emotional attachment in the Samsa family.
The Metamorphosis is said to be one of Franz Kafka's best works of literature. It shows the difficulties of living in a modern society and the struggle for acceptance of others when in a time of need. In this novel Kafka directly reflects upon many of the negative aspects of his personal life, both mentally and physically. The relationship between Gregor and his father is in many ways similar to Franz and his father Herrman. The Metamorphosis also shows resemblance to some of Kafka's diary entries that depict him imagining his own extinction by dozens of elaborated methods. This paper will look into the text to show how this is a story about the author's personal life portrayed through his dream-like fantasies.
In the novella The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the author analyzes change and its repercussions in its entirety. Kafka offers a unique perspective as he follows the transformation of the main character, Gregor Samsa. The transformation from human to insect, as exemplified by Gregor, helps the reader understand Kafka's portrayal of Samsa as a character. The reaction of Gregor's family and their own transformation throughout the progression of the story also provides readers with Kafka's thoughts on change and alienation as well as other key themes. One may argue that the two most prominent transformations were that of Gregor and his sister Grete. Although Gregor's personality remains relatively consistent throughout, his physical transformation serves as the basis of the plot which strengthens its prominence. Grete goes through several changes throughout the novella as well. Grete's transformation from girl to woman holds nearly as much significance as Gregor's. Ultimately, each member of the Samsa family undergoes transformations of various degrees. Throughout the novella, the relationships between the Samsa family emphasizes the common practice of completely disregarding someone once they have changed in a way that doesn't abide by the standards society has deemed as acceptable. Through the use of Gregor Samsa as well as other characters, Kafka expresses his ideas on change and the stigma that is, at times, associated with it which can lead to alienation; each character can also serves as a metaphor by representing society and our tendency to reject people based on their flaws physically or personality-wise.
In the Tolstoys story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” he scrutinizes the life of Ivan Ilyich, a gentleman whose life has become an entanglement of loneliness and utter hatred towards his life. Tolstoy never fails to pinpoint the discomfort Ivan has in his own marriage and the constant pressure he feels from society. Ivan’s life is in shambles by the time he is about to die, but accepts it because he feels his life has no purpose and is only to torture others. Tolstoy examines the theme of meaninglessness in Ivan Ilyich’s life, and the reason why Ivan is discontent with the way he lives by paying close attention to Ivan’s social interactions and pressure to live up to society’s expectations.
In the novel The Death of Ivan Ilyich, Tolstoy portrays the family life of Ilyich as a rather negative burden on him. Throughout the book, he is happy only through certain times, and interestingly with certain people that are not of his family. Towards the end of Ilyich’s life, he became extremely miserable, finding comfort in things that allow him to “escape” reality, clinging onto people and activities that only drew him further away from his immediate family. There are several areas in the passage that have interesting ways that Ilyich followed through to remove himself from the discontent of his family. What this book can refer to is someone who has a family, but does not like his family. To get away from this, he chooses to be distracted with things, whether that is always being out with friends, and simply just becoming busy with work.
Gregor Samsa is the protagonist in the famous novella The Metamorphosis, written by the Czech author Franz Kafka. Gregor goes through a physical metamorphosis during his sleep, awaking to find himself entrapped in the body of a giant insect, not knowing how or why it happened. Yet, throughout the story you see that Gregor’s humility, as a human and as an insect, shows that he truly cares for his family in the 1915 classic. Through Gregor’s love for his now neglectful family, we can ask this question: is Gregor actually more human than his family? This question can be answered by looking at one of Gregor’s greatest attributes, his selflessness.
Leisure and wealth come at an immense price. In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis (1915), the miserable nuclear family translates their suffering into anger as they are increasingly stifled by poverty. Gregor Samsa, the main character who transforms into a vague yet vile creature, witnesses frigid desertion as he becomes the family’s deadweight and shows no sign of recovery. As an archetype of warmth, security and love, ‘family’ obtains the opposite meaning as the Samsas take full advantage of Gregor’s filial obligation, thus unearthing the underlying evils of self-interest. Financial security is subsequently destroyed following Gregor’s fantastical affliction, capturing the pitiful craving for being royally supported scot-free. Kafka’s humorously macabre tale traces the social shunning of the everyman’s plunge into disability in order to expose the evils of the new-age family corrupt by capitalism, the fundamental darkness of human nature, and the polarity of goodness and man.
However, these differences should not become suppressed. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka expressed that Gregor “had not been sick once in five years of service” revealing that Gregor is a diligent man who will do anything for the company (947). This is a personality trait of Gregor that is different to another employee at his company. In addition, in “The Unknown Citizen”, Auden states that the unknown citizen is a “modern sense of the old-fashion word, he was a saint” revealing that the man did the right thing, he was innocent, kind and selfless (Line 7). A person's personality is an essential part of life because they feel valued in society because without personality we are all “equal”. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor found pity in his room when looking “on the wall directly opposite hung a photograph of Gregor from his military days, which showed him dressed as a lieutenant, with a carefree smile, his hand on his dagger, his bearing and his uniform commanding respect” (953). He found pity because he realized that he morphed into an insect, which stripped his personality away from him. Gregor’s transformation was the result of him being too different from the social norm, so the “society” punishes him for being an abnormally to their system. Both authors’ articulated the idea that there are numerous variations of people’s personality that without their
Franz Kafka's Judgement & nbsp; This short story by Franz Kafka is really a challenging one to interpret, but apparently there are some contextual clues that enable us to draw some logical conclusions out of the story. Firstly, we should handle this story in terms of human relationships; there are 3 kinds of relationships represented in the story. The first is the relationship between George (the main character of the story) and his friend in Russia; the second is George's relationship with his fiancée and the third is his relationship with his father. Each exposition of these relationships contradicts the persons involved. That is, while George is devoted to writing to a friend whom he hasn't seen for 3 years, he doesn't write about important events.
This was the case of Franz Kafka; his inability to physically express his opinions to his family in reality, lead him to intellectually pursue his thoughts and relationship into the imaginary, his writings, as displayed in his short novella, “Metamorphosis.” Due to Kafka's life background and the nature of his society in the beginning of twentieth century in Prague, his only and main outlet in expressing his thoughts were to put them down onto paper. As a result, Kafka utilizes these two elements to satirize his internal thoughts into fiction. Although his stories are label as fiction, beyond its contextual interpretation, his stories are a reflection of his life. Needless to say, the most apparent factors that bleed through “Metamorphosis” are Kafka’s life relationship with his family and how he saw himself within that dynamic. Therefore, we can imply that the protagonist Gregor Samsa in “Metamorphosis” can well be the embodiment of Kafka himself. However, because the novella was written in fictional form, where taking the impossible of reality and making it possible, it can be hard to relate the interaction among characters to Kafka real life relation to his family. None the less, through the lens of biographical criticism in the analysis of “Metam...
Leo Tolstoy’s “Death of Ivan Ilyich” and Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” both are pieces of literature written in the late 19th century and early 20th century that demonstrates individuals living in middle class yet in an unstable mental and physical life. Both protagonists in each works, have experienced a significant crisis in their lives and resolved the issues with death. Gregor Samsa and Ivan Ilych both displays the action of breaking free from the pressure of being depersonalized by family, friends, and society. The action, which was death, caused both stories to have significant similarities and differences with both the protagonists and secondary characters.
No person that leads a normal life is likely to write a metaphorical yet literal story about a man transforming into a bug. That being said, no person that leads a normal life is likely to alter a genre as much as Franz Kafka did. With the unusual combination of declining physical health and a resurgence of spiritual ideas, Franz Kafka, actively yearning for life, allowed his mind to travel to the places that his body could not take him. In his recurring themes of guilt, pain, obscurity, and lucidity, are direct connections to his childhood and daily life. His family dynamic, infatuation with culture and theater, and his personal illnesses all shaped his imagination into the poignant yet energetic thing that made him so well-known. With all of his influences combined, Franz Kafka developed a writing style so distinct that he founded a semi-genre all his own: kafkaism.
Franz Kafka inspired many artists with his work, so much so that the term “Kafkaesque” was added to the dictionary. This term is used to describe pieces that emulate Kafka’s style of unsettling surrealism. While Kafka has influenced many with his writing, he too possessed many influences that shaped his literature. Some of the most prominent situations relating to Gregor Samsa’s suffering in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis were the protagonist’s job, family, and lack of a relationship. The similarities between the miseries of Gregor and Kafka support the idea that Kafka projected his own characteristics onto his tale. Although there are ways to formally analyze Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, one cannot accurately and completely evaluate the piece
The theme of isolation is present in Franz Kafka’s “The Hunger Artist” and “The Metamorphosis” as a result of his childhood experiences of separation from the typical culture. From an early age, Kafka’s aspirations of being a writer set him apart from his mother and controlling father. In “The Metamorphosis”, Gregor Samsa transformed into a bug he is separated from the rest of his family and those he cares about. In ‘The Hunger Artist”, Kafka created a story of a man who set himself apart from society through the misunderstood qualities of fasting as an art. Franz Kafka’s experience as a child with isolation influenced his writing as the theme of being detached from society is seen through “The Metamorphosis” and “The Hunger Artist”.
In Franz Kafka’s short story, Metamorphosis, the idea of existentialism is brought out in a subtle, yet definite way. Existentialism is defined as a belief in which an individual is ultimately in charge of placing meaning into their life, and that life alone is meaningless. They do not believe in any sort of ultimate power and focus much of their attention on concepts such as dread, boredom, freedom and nothingness. This philosophical literary movement emerged in the twentieth-century, when Kafka was establishing his writing style in regards to alienation and distorted anxiety. A mirror to his own personal lifestyle, this story follows the short and sad life of a man unable to break out of the bonds society has placed on him. These bonds are not only evident in the work place, but at home too. Being constantly used and abused while in his human form, Gregor’s lifestyle becomes complicated once he becomes a giant insect and is deemed useless. Conflicts and confusion arise primarily between Gregor and his sister Grete, his parents, and his work. Each of these three relationships has different moral and ethical complications defining them. However, it is important for one to keep in mind that Gregor’s metamorphosis has placed him into a position of opposition, and that he has minimal control over the events to take place. Conflicts will also occur between family members as they struggle with the decision of what to do with Gregor. In the end they all come to the agreement that maintaining his uselessness is slowly draining them and they must get rid of him.