Suffering In Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis

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

In the story, Gregor’s father is typically much less involved with him than his sister, but when he was featured, he was often having outbursts that Gregor felt were unprecedented. After Gregor inadvertently makes his mother pass out, his father threatens to squash him until he retreats to his room. Even though the vermin adheres to its father’s warnings, its father goes as far as to launch apples at Gregor until one lodges itself into his son’s back painfully and permanently (Kafka 37). Gregor craved the approval of his father, but instead suffered rejection. The relationship between Gregor and his father severely parallel that of Kafka and his father. Kafka’s father was tyrannical and discouraged his writing. The insecurities developed by the author as a result of his father could never be repaired (“Franz Kafka Biography”). His insecurities even went so far as for him to denounce his own book in entries to his diary, where he called his piece unreadable and imperfect (Kafka 109). Kafka also created a piece entitled “Kafka to His Father”, where he spoke to himself from his father’s point of view in which he told himself “you are unfit for life…I have deprived you of all your fitness for life and put it into my pockets” (Kafka 109), which clearly shows Kafka’s view of his father, and his perception of how his father views him. Not only does Kafka take away feelings of being inadequate from his father, but also feelings of being unfit for life on the most fundamental