The Identity Crisis In Gregor Kafka's The Metamorphosis

In each of Kafka’s writings, there are prominent metaphors relating to anti-Semitic culture and sentiments before, during, and after World War I. Through absurd and irrational predicaments, the characters in Kafka’s stories illustrate the of Jewish people as “alien” and their various identity crises. In the beginning of the 20th century, a negative stigma of the Jewish population multiplied. They were seen as “alien” or inferior to the rest of the human race due to a perceived difference in physical and mental attributions. Also, there were many stereotypes surrounding Jewish people, like big noses or being stingy. In Kafka’s A Report to an Academy, he confronts the notion of Jewish people seen as a lesser race through Social Darwinism – the

For Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis, this is evident through his transformation from a human into a bug. Actually, in the original German it’s not a direct translation to any specific type of bug. When Gregor awakes from his sleep, he does not realize he has become a bug and for a long time refuses to acknowledge it. Even Samsa’s job reflects his identity crisis; he is a “traveling” salesman. (Similar to the explorer from In the Penal Colony, who explores other cultures.) When Gregor first awoke and touched himself, “he was invaded by chills” (Metamorphosis 12). The use of the word “invaded” illustrates the magnitude of crisis for Gregor that gives him the uneasy feeling. When something is invaded, usually it is taken over by something else; Gregor’s human body was taken over by a bug-like

Kafka shows this idea in In the Penal Colony through the machine which could represent an organized religion. Thus, the explorer rejects the idea of having a machine because possibly in Kafka’s eyes it is better to have no religion. In addition to the machine, the old governor, could represent God or a higher power. The tombstone of the old governor reads, “There exists a prophecy that after a certain number of years the governor will rise again…” (Colony 74). This is similar to the Biblical idea of Jesus’s Second Coming. Kafka is demonstrating the ideas of traditional religion through the officer, on the contrary, the explorer represents a modern view of the world. This coincides with the officers saying of “Be Just!” taken from the unintelligible blueprints of the machine which could be seen as the laws, like the Biblical ten commandments (Colony 70). Therefore, Kafka is critiquing the “organization” of religion and the laws associated with it. In the end, the machine breaks and the “promised redemption” can never be sought for the officer (Colony 74). Thus, for Kafka, taking full-fledged heed in your own religion can result in no promise in the afterlife – Kafka’s skepticism on