Independent Novel Reader Response
3. I am most fond of Oshima, the librarian because he is humble and straightforward. Oshima has a way with his words, and he can usher people out of his presence easily. In one of the cases, Oshima ushered two untasteful so called “feminists”. He stated that “intolerant, narrow minds with no imagination are like parasites that transform the host, change form and continue to thrive”. What I also loved about Oshima, was that he trusted Kafka without doubting him and continued to have a non-judgmental view of Kafka. He helped Kafka stay at his cabin in the woods during his running away period, and when the police were searching for Kafka. He reassured Kafka when the police were looking for him during the period his father was murdered. “If you go to the police and prove to them you have a firm alibi. It’d make things a lot easier than trying to run around avoiding them. Of course I’ll back you up”
4. I despised Kafka’s father, Koichi Tamura. Kafka’s father’s death concurs with Johnnie Walker, a cat killer in Nakano Ward. I wasn’t particularly happy with Koichi’s character because he had a sickening prophecy about his own family. He told Kafka that “Someday you will murder your father and be with your mother”. Kafka’s father didn’t speak to anyone, including Kafka, and was usually in his own world. Koichi Tamura “threw away all the pictures of my mother and sister, and removed her from the family registry” He would have done this, so that Kafka would have not found his mother and sister. Johnnie Walker is a sadistic cat killer who eventually gets killed. He shows the dark and ominous side of Kafka’s father. “It’s not you’re killing somebody who doesn’t want to die. In fact, you’re doing a goo...
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...worries that his life was difficult or inconvenient.”
14. I would recommend this book to any grade nine student who like to read fantasy and twisted novels. I think a wide range of people would enjoy this book because it mixes different genres together to create a mind twisting novel. It also touches on many subjects such as sexuality, desire, family, hatred and fantasy. Murakami includes different perspectives such as the adult and teen. He includes these things by compounding them into their life stories. It could also be a very relatable story because Kafka is “a runaway teenage with a backpack” and Nakata is someone who is seen as “useless” in society, and is relatively ignored. I think many people can relate to him because many people feel as if they are being ignored “everybody knew he wasn’t very bright, but being dumb and crazy were different matters”
As writers, neither Franz Kafka nor Flannery O’Connor received sincere approval from their parents concerning their art. While this fact in no way hampered their desire or ability to create beautifully haunting work, there is evidence that it left bitter feelings. In his letter to his father, Kafka states: “you struck a better blow when you aimed at my writing, and hit, unknowingly, all that went with it. . . but my writing dealt with you, I lamented there only what I could not lament on your breast.”
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.
Many scholarly writers such as Robbie Batson believe that Gregor is an extension of Kafka himself, both having been traveling salesmen, similar family life with an abusive father, a dependent mother, and although Kafka had three sisters he had a close relationship with Ottilla like that of Grete and Samsa. Kafka even is similar to Samsa in spelling, almost like a cryptogram(Barfi, Azizmohammadi, and Kohzadi). As the breadwinner in his house, both Kafka and Gregor had the responsibility of taking care of their family through
Sokel, Walter H. "Franz Kafka." European Writers. Ed. George Stade. Vol. 2. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1992. 847-75. Print. European Writers. Ward, Bruce K. "Giving Voice to Isaac: The Sacrificial Victim in Kafka's Trial." Shofar 22.2 (2004): 64+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 1 Oct. 2013. .
Gregor’s family and how they treat him reflects the way that Kafka interacted with his family. The similarities between Kafka’s family and Gregor’s family can be seen in their name. Kafka’s friend remarks, “The hero of the story is called Samsa, it sounds like a cryptogram for Kafka” (Kennedy and Gioia 299). Kafka’s family was middle-class, and his father was a businessman. They had servants and maids just like Gregor’s family. Kafka was the eldest out of six children, and was very close to his sisters. This is seen ...
In conclusion, I would highly recommend this book to early teens who are fans of drama and comedy because they could probably relate to most of the issues discussed to a certain extent. Girls my age, especially, would enjoy this book as they could relate to the issues discussed and they have probably already experienced similar
Kafka used to write letters to his family, and his hatred towards his abusive father is shown in his letter Brief an den Vater (Letter to His Father). In the beginning of the letter, Kafka wrote to his father “You asked me recently why I retain that I am afraid of you, As usual, I was unable to think of any answer to your question, partly for the very reason that I am afraid of you, and partly because an explanation of the grounds for this fear would mean going into far more details than I could even approximately keep in mind while talking. And if I now try to give you an answer in writing, it will still be very incomplete,” (Kafka). Hoping that the letter would mend the gap between Kafka’s and his father’s relationship, he gave it to his mother to give to his father, but she just gave it back to her son. The gap between he and his father made Kafka feel even more isolated in the world he lived
There are some key distinctions between Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) in a psychotherapeutic context and a medical context. There are key differences between the design of an RCT to evaluate a new drug and an RCT to evaluate a new form of couples’ therapy. However, it is important to begin by defining and understanding the importance of RCT in research (O'Brien, 2013).
4. Finally the reactions that the characters have to their fathers' deaths are also similar. When Hamlet learns that his father was murdered and that his stepfather is the killer[,] it is more than he can handle.
Neumann, Gerhard. "The Judgement, Letter to His Father, and the Bourgeois Family." Trans. Stanley Corngold. Reading Kafka. Ed. Mark Anderson. New York: Schocken, 1989. 215-28.
Author Franz Kafka was born on July 3, 1883 in Prague, capital of what is now the Czech Republic. Writer Franz Kafka grew up in a middle-class Jewish family. Kafka had a difficult relationship with both of his parents. His mother, Julie, was a devoted homemaker who lacked the intellectual depth to understand her son's dreams to become a writer. Kafka's father, Hermann, had a forceful personality that often overwhelmed the Kafka home. He was successful in business, making his living retailing men's and women's clothes. Kafka's father had a profound impact on both Kafka's life and writing. He was a tyrant of sorts, with a wicked temper and little appreciation for his son's creative side. Much of Kafka's personal struggles, in romance and other relationships he believed, came in part from his complicated relationship with his father. In his literature, Kafka's characters were often coming up against an overbearing power of some kind, one that could easily break the will of men and destroy their sense of self-worth. Kafka seems to have derived much of his value directly from his family, in particular his father. For much of his adult life, he lived within close proximity to his parents. In 1923, he...
Pascal, Roy. Kafka's Narrators: A Study of His Stories and Sketches. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. 189-230.
Kafka felt that “the powerful, self-righteous, and totally unselfconscious personality of his father had stamped him with an ineradicable conviction of his own inferiority and guilt” (Sokel 1). He felt the only way to ever be successful was to “find a spot on the world’s map that his father’s enormous shadow had not reached—and that spot was literature” (Sokel 1).... ... middle of paper ... ...
Pawel, Ernst. A Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. 2nd ed. New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1984.
Murakami uses the easily penetrable veil that separates the dream world from reality, the shore, to enhance Kafka’s relationship with Ms. Saeki. Ms. Saeki, a woman in her mid-forties, is the owner of the library that Kafka is staying at for the duration of his escape from home. Kafka is attracted to Ms. Saeki in her teenager-ghost form, whic...