More handpicked essays just for you.
Existentialism in the novels of Franz Kafka
Existentialism in the novels of Franz Kafka
Philosophies of kafka work
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Franz Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis, is a novella about Gregor Samsa, a man who devotes everything to fulfilling the needs of his family. Kafka’s existentialist perspective on the meaning of life is illustrated through the use of the protagonist of Gregor Samsa. Existentialism is a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility (Existentialism). Gregor is unable to fulfill the existentialist view of finding meaning in one’s life; he acted according to what his family wanted. Kafka’s belief that there is no meaning to life and that the individual has to create his own meaning in life is entirely missed by Gregor. Kafka uses the juxtaposing mindsets of Gregor and his family members to express the importance of an individual fulfilling his own needs.
The protagonist of Gregor is meant to resemble Franz Kafka. Out of sense of duty to his parents, Kafka took jobs that he did not enjoy. His relationship with his father remained strained throughout his life; his father’s impact can be seen in much of Kafka’s writing (Kafka Birthday: A Letter From Franz Kafka To His Father). Gregor’s relationship with his father is similar to Kafka’s relationship with his father. For most of Kafka’s life, he did not live to fulfill his own needs; Kafka was living under his father’s expectations. He was under enormous pressure to become a successful businessman like his father, but Kafka had a profound love for literature which went against his father mindset; hence, the strained relationship between Kafka and his father (Kafka Birthday: A Letter From Franz Kafka To His Father). Franz Kafka had two younger brothers, Georg and Heinrich; unfortunately they both died leaving Kafka as the only...
... middle of paper ...
... treated wrong, he becomes “filled with anger over the wretched care that he was getting” (Kafka 71). Gregor realizes that he can’t rely on anyone but himself. Everything that one does in his or her lifetime is should be to achieve self-fulfillment. An individual fulfilling his or her own needs is essential for them to live a satisfied life and meaningful life. No one else can bring meaning into a person’s life
Works Cited
"Existentialism." AllAboutPhilosophy.org. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 May 2014.
"Franz Kafka - Biography." Franz Kafka. N.p., n.d. Web. 08 May 2014.
Kafka, Franz, and A. L. Lloyd. Metamorphosis. New York: Vanguard, 1946. Print.
"Kafka's Life (1883-1924)." The Kafka Project. N.p., n.d. Web. 07 May 2014.
Triska, Zoë. "Kafka Birthday: A Letter From Franz Kafka To His Father." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 03 July 2013. Web. 08 May 2014.
... 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.
Working a job, you hate just to support your family is a big sacrifice and is the real meaning of love, this reality is made clear in frank Kafka’s excerpt from his story call The Metamorphosis. In this story, a traveling salesman, wakes up in his bed to find himself transformed into a large insect. He hates his life as a traveling salesman and wishes he could quit only if his parents and sister did not depend so much on his income. he spends his time listening through the wall to his family members talking. They often discuss the difficult financial situation they find themselves in now that their son can’t provide for them. The father wishes their insect son would just leave. However, he understands and goes to his bedroom. There, determined to rid his family of his presence, he dies. Both the son and his family have a difficult time accepting his transformation from
Kafka wants the readers to feel sympathy for Gregor because of the reactions of the parents and the chief clerk. He wants the readers to pity Gregor because no one else will. Gregor hears ‘the chief clerk em...
In The Metamorphosis Kafka illustrates a grotesque story of a working salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking up one day to discover that his body resembles a bug. Through jarring, almost unrealistic narration, Kafka opens up the readers to a view of Gregor’s futile and disappointing life as a human bug. By captivating the reader with this imaginary world Kafka is able to introduce the idea that Gregor’s bug body resembles his human life. From the use of improbable symbolism Kafka provokes the reader to believe that Gregor turning into a bug is realistic and more authentic compared to his unauthentic life as a human.
“The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, not only tells the troubling story of Gregor Samsa but of the underlying autobiographical influences of Kafka himself. The first similarity is the unhappiness in both men’s careers, both induced by their strong-willed fathers. In the short story, when Gregor awakes he realizes the problem is not that “he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” but that he will be unable to do his job, that pays for his parent’s debt (1156). Franz spent his life, unhappy but successful just like Gregor. Franz majored in law to please his father. Both men strived for similar family duties, Gregor to pay off his father’s debt and Franz for a false sense of hope that one day his father would love him (1157; Sulkes).
Everyone goes through stressors in life, the effect of stress doesn’t always have the same effects on a person and every person has their own ways of dealing with stress. People who hold their stress to the point of where their is pressure and tension in their lives. This build up of stressors can cause a person to transform to something different than what they once were. My stressors has never gotten to the point of changing the person I am but it has made me change and grow as a person. As for Gregor Samsa of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, his stressors did transformed him to become a creature that is lower than himself. Gregor and I deal with the same stressors that focus on work, family, and social life, but we handle them differently.
Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is a masterfully written short story about Gregor Samsa, a man who devotes his life to his family and work, for nothing in return. Only when he is transformed into a helpless beetle does he begin to develop a self-identity and understanding of the relationships around him. The underlying theme of The Metamorphosis is an existential view that says any given choice will govern the later course of a person's life, and that the person has ultimate will over making choices. In this case, Gregor?s lack of identity has caused him to be numb to everything around him.
In Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa's sudden transformation into a cockroach is appalling to all that encounter him, but none attempt to cure him of his affliction. The acceptance of his condition by Gregor and those around him highlights the underlying existentialist and absurdist perspective within the characters' attempt to come to terms with this circumstance. In the face of this dramatically absurd metamorphosis, Gregor does not blame a higher power, nor himself. As time wears on, he not only refrains from questioning his transformation but, at times lavishes in it and embraces it. His adjustment, and the adjustment of his family members, is not one of questioning his new life, but rather attempting to accept it for exactly what it is. In this way, Gregor and his family, particularly his father and sister, epitomize rationalization and freedom of choice in the face of absurdity.
his father incurred, Gregor has had to suppress his rebellious wish. Kafka alludes to the
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 ...
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 Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka manifests naïveté of Gregor Samsa by prolonging his realization of societal banishment due to underexposure. Revelations made by Samsa later prove his ignorance of his purpose in the eyes of his family. In addition to the many instances in which Gregor is trialed, Kafka’s continuous stream of distractions mimic Gregor’s persona.
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.
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.
Isolation and alienation of one's own choice and others can lead to the dehumanization of a human. In Kafka’s short novel, The Metamorphosis, the character Gregor Samsa experiences isolation and alienation. Gregor is never recognized by his family for his efforts, but is instead taken for granted. The moment he becomes a bug, his family begins to realize that they could no longer rely on him for support. Due to Gregor’s loss of usefulness and his hideous outer appearance, it leads to isolation and alienation. Through the characterization of Gregor Samsa, Kafka is sending the message that isolation can lead to the dehumanization of a person.