Comparing Metamorphosis And Persepolis

The clever use plot to project a story which criticizes society is what we can see in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis. In both these novels the characters are integral part of a social commentary on specific society they are living in. While Gregor Samsa (Metamorphosis) struggles to cope with his family but also tries to find out his own individuality comments on the capitalistic society where working and earning money is the norm, Marji (Persepolis) is going through a phase of rebellion in a country where the social norms are made too dense in name of religion. Both of these novel give the readers a plot based on commentary on the rules that the society has imposed and which forces the character to come out of their normal to rebel against the society and find their own individuality.

In Metamorphosis, the protagonist finds himself turned in to large, vicious vermin when he’s trying to get up from his bed to go to work as he has to catch an early train unless his absence would be noticed by the manager and would bring problems for his family. The first few pages of the novel clearly shows how even after becoming a large beetle the societal norms are still so deeply embedded in his body that he’s thinking of going to work and what kind of consequences will be there for being late. The way how the capitalistic society has molded the way of the protagonist mindset, in the novel is a great example of the criticism of the capitalistic