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Modernism and its impact on society
Modernism and its impact on society
Modernism and its impact on society
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Viewing Individuals as Machine
Modern, capitalist society has shaped individuals into becoming producers. Individuals are considered products that can accessibly be replaced. People are expected to follow orders and take responsibilities for any consequences that may occur. Some of the aftereffect may not be the fault of an individual. Consequently, companies may sacrifice their worker to keep their business from being weakened. Conversely, individuals in modern capitalist society are considered products instead of human beings. “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville and “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka are both allegory of the modern capitalist society. Both stories illustrate that individuals have no value when they stop producing
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Breathing in a society where humans are not value is terrifying. Therefore, death recused people who are suffering to live. “He recalled his family with affection and love. His opinion about the necessity for him to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister’s. He remained in this state of vacant and peaceful contemplation until the tower clock struck the third the third morning hour. He was still alive when the world started to become brighter outside the window. Then his head involuntarily sank down altogether, and his last breath issued faintly from his nostrils.” (Franz Kafka 49). This declare that Gregor has a heart of a human being. His love and affection for his family is rooted in his heart. Withal, he acknowledge that departing from this world would release all his agony. It would even help his family’s accelerate their living condition by forgetting his existence. Yet it could also make them reflect on the memories Gregor appeal on them. His family’s may redeem themselves and sorrow about the loss of Gregoe. Overall, the benefit of death is certain because it releases all the pain and agony an individual have in their
People one can never really tell how person is feeling or what their situation is behind closed doors or behind the façade of the life they lead. Two masterly crafted literary works present readers with characters that have two similar but very different stories that end in the same result. In Herman Melville’s story “Bartleby the Scrivener” readers are presented with Bartleby, an interesting and minimally deep character. In comparison to Gail Godwin’s work, “A Sorrowful Woman” we are presented with a nameless woman with a similar physiological state as Bartleby whom expresses her feelings of dissatisfaction of her life. Here, a deeper examination of these characters their situations and their ultimate fate will be pursued and delved into for a deeper understanding of the choice death for these characters.
Society also has expectations of Gregor that he cannot escape even when he is locked up in the room that eventually becomes his grave. On one of his agonizing sleepless nights he is still thinking of his workday and of people he mingles with on a daily basis. He realizes that instead of helping him and his family, they were all inaccessible and he was glad when they faded away(Kafka 43). Gregor receives no help from the society that he is so loyal to.
... to do this every day Gregor would have had to have some sense of time. His dwindling human aspects are prominently marked in two places: the first when Gregor is incapable of communicating with his family and the sales manager and the second when he takes pleasure in rutting about in dirt and filth. Lastly, Gregor's loss of consciousness causes a polar change within his family. As Gregor is no longer able to earn money to support the family, everyone else is forced to take action to bring in capital. The most obvious change is in the father who transformed from a dead weight into a zealous worker. Despite Freedman's employment of flawed logic to formulate some of his theories, the majority of his conclusions are quite valid and probe deeply into the meaning behind Kafka's writing.
Gregor’s life slowly ends due to the betrayal of his his loved ones. He feels bad once his parents betray him and he feels he is an inconvenience. Then his sister is too busy and exhausted for him and he has nobody to help him or bring him food. Lastly, with nobody left Gregor betrays himself by simply allowing himself to die. Betrayal contributes a lot to this book as it is evident in every part of Gregor’s downfall. If Gregor’s family did not betray him, maybe they could have found him help to get better and back to normal. He also could have learned how to cope with his metamorphosis and lived with it everyday, however; Gregor’s family did betray him, and it slowly led him to end his life by starving
Guilt is deadly. Gregor's guilt actually leads him to his death. The stress built up from his guilt was part of his death. Because of the stress and guilt Gregor did not eat much. He became malnourished. Many tragedies have been written on the guilt of a person. In the tragedy the guilt kills them.
In “A Hunger”, “The Penal Colony”, and Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Kafka succeeded in showing his individuals as obsessed with their profession; however their obsession caused their doom because society asks so much from an individual, only so much can be done. However, regardless of that, these individuals choose their work over themselves, and not even bad health or death can stop them. Because society places immures pressure on Kafka’s work obsessed character, they neglect their well-being and cause their own downfall.
While Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the scrivener” and Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” have unrelated plots, they both contain Marxist undertones that address alienation in the workplace as a result of capitalism. The protagonists, Gregor and Bartleby, are examples of how the working class is treated when they do not conform to the conventions of capitalism. Gregor and Bartleby alike are working class men who, through some turn of events, stop working and are deemed useless to those around them. Both of these stories end in the death of the protagonists, as these men are seen as unproductive and discarded by their capitalistic societies.
People today live in an absurd world, where they are constantly working and on the go, they forget what matters most to them like their dreams and aspirations and become work zombies. That is why the stories of the Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and The Death of Ivan Ilych by Leo Tolstoy speak to me, they comment on the absurdity of mundane daily life and tasks that we have become accustomed to and make you think about the life that you are living. The main characters of the two stories, Gregor Samsa and Ivan Ilych, become overwhelmed by the amount of pressures that they put on themselves and by their families. The two characters epitomize what the workers of today have become and the worst part is they never realize how unhappy they have become until it is too late. I know many of us feel the burden of working to much and not living the way we want to. These stories are very bleak and don't offer hope for the main characters, they failed to adapt and perished because of it. The stories make you feel that as if there is no escaping the absurdity of life, as is the
The Metamorphosis advances the existential view that choice is the opportune of the individual. It is the responsibility of the individual to maintain a balance between work and leisure. The Metamorphosis lends the idea that, if one chooses to devote their life entirely to work, they are no more than droning insects, yet if they devote their lives to leisure, they are no better off; a balance needs to be found. As rational beings, the burden of moderation between value to society and value to self must be assumed by the individual. One must be productive in order to be valuable to society, and one must have leisure in order to be valuable to themselves.
The story begins with an elderly lawyer, whose business picks up to the point where he needs to hire a third scrivener. Nippers and Turkey, his current scriveners, are overworked and have serious health issues; Nippers suffers from stomach problems, and Turkey is an alcoholic. Enter Bartleby, the dreary, desolate, “forlorn-looking” applicant. For whatever reason, the lawyer hires Bartleby. In the beginning Bartleby’s production and work are excellent, but begin to seriously deteriorate throughout the story, after being asked to perform different tasks. Bartleby’s work performance gradually deteriorates until he is performing no work at all. The lawyer relinquishes any responsibility for Bartleby, his work, or his well being, until the time of his passing. Upon learning of Bartleby’s passing, the lawyer re-examines the world through Bartleby’s eyes, and gains an understanding of his misery and suffering.
The overriding presentation in the novella Metamorphosis, Kafka- 1915, of industrialisation is shown clearly through the themes of alienation, dehumanisation and entrapment all of which highlight the effects on the people increasing industry was having at this time in Europe. Changing technology and industry meant a changing society as well which many feel is what Kafka is focusing on during this novella as well as tension from an impending war.
Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is a novella that follows the story of Gregor Samsa who, one day, wakes up as an insect. On the surface, it’s just a story about a man who’s transformed into a bug; but, when deeper analyzed, you come to understand that it’s a about a man who was always a bug conflicted by his identity in a class struggle between what is known as the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Kafka’s work was written in a time in history when the struggles between the classes were becoming more defined due to the rise of industrialization and other changing social structures. This story can best be interpreted though a Marxist lens. In Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, his Marxist ideology comes through in the way the characters represent the struggle between the proletariat and bourgeoisie classes during the turn of the century.
One of the saddest aspects of Franz Kafka's novella, The Metamorphosis, concerns the fact that young Gregor Samsa genuinely cares about this family, working hard to support them, even though they do little for themselves. On the surface, Kafka's 1916 novella, seems to be just a tale of Gregor morphing into a cockroach, but a closer reading with Marx and Engels' economic theories, unveils an impressive metaphor that gives the improbable story a great deal of relevance to the structure of Marxist society. Gregor, the protagonist, denotes the proletariat, or the working class, and his unnamed manager represents the bourgeoisie. The conflict, that arises between the two after Gregor's metamorphosis, contributes to his inability to work. This expresses the impersonal and dehumanizing structure of class relations.
Both Gregor and Meursault have pivotal experiences with denial, the first stage of the grief process, in their respective novels. While Gregor refuses to accept his transformation in order to remain a part of society, Meursault denies God in the religious culture of Algeria, proving his individuality while isolating himself. Gregor’s denial takes place when he prepares for work, ignoring his transformation, “First of all he wanted to get up quietly, […] get dressed, […] have breakfast, and only then think about what to do next” (Kafka 6). By characterizing Gregor as determined, Kafka shows his protagonist’s resolve to remain firm in ignoring his transformation for his family’s sake. Typically, such a metamorphosis would warrant panic, but Gregor is so selfless that he denies his own emotions to be useful for his family. Through the sequential syntax employed in this quoate, Kafka shows that Gregor does not want to stray from his usual routine. This attribute, along with his physical transformation, separates Gregor from humanity. With his unfamiliar mindset, seen through the denial of his metamorphosis, and his lack of human physical charac...
Bartleby the Scrivener sounds like a story about a copier and albeit in some cases the title of a story can be called a preview about its main character--in this case that way of reasoning would be wrong. Comparatively the story is formed by the lawyer who both narrates and employs Bartleby at his law office. While Bartleby is mentioned and discussed the main points of the story are about the narrator's view of Bartleby, his own thoughts and emotions, and his strange relationship with Bartleby. Even though some information is given about Bartleby such as his appearance and his strange replies, the most amount of detail is shared by the narrator and is most known about him as well. Although the short story is titled after the character of Bartleby the Scrivener, the real central figure is the unnamed lawyer who narrates.