The Metamorphosis

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The Metamorphosis

The longer story The Metamorphosis, first published in 1971, was written by Franz Kafka. He was born in Prague in 1883 and lived until 1924, and he has written many other stories along with The Metamorphosis. The Metamorphosis appears to be a fantastic piece. After reading The Metamorphosis, I do believe that there are many similarities between magical realism and fantastic literature. Kafka showed many fantastic issues in The Metamorphosis.

While reading The Metamorphosis, I did not feel that it had any magical elements in the story, but had many fantastic elements. In my opinion, I think that the story did have some realist elements. For example, there was a lot of tension with the family. Although it had to do with Gregor Samsa who turned into the insect, that tension is still real. Families do have arguing along with tension, even if most of the time it was due to Gregor being an insect. Most of us should know that, when a person wakes up one day and is all of a sudden a bug, that change can not be magical. There is not any other way to look at that. A person just can not appear to be an insect one day and wake up with these enormous legs and be a bug.

A magical element in The Metamorphosis is that a person could see or picture this monstrous vermin or insect. The boy turning into an insect could be somewhat magical because here there is a human body lying on the bed, and then within the blink of an eye, it is a bug. I feel that magical elements and fantastic literature are similar. For example, Gregor's father was throwing apples at him and one got stuck in his back, and became infected. Then he eventually died. I can see that example as magical, but I could also see it as a fantasy.

Angel Flore...

... middle of paper ...

...c issues in The Metamorphosis. I felt that the fantastic elements were similar to some magical elements. If he or she needs to know more about how to compare magical elements to fantastic elements, I would recommend he or she to look up information on the internet or find books. There are many different things a person can find to relate to.

Works Cited

Franz Kafka Criticism. 31 Jan 2001. http://vtvt.essortment.com/franzkafkacrit_pbs.htm

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. N.Y.: Schocken Books, 1971.

Rabkin, Eric S. The Fantastic in Literature. Princeton, N. J: Princeton UP, 1976

The Metamorphosis. By Kafka, Franz. Summary. 31 Jan 2001.< http://mchip00.med.nyu.edu/lit-med-db/webdocs/webdescrips/kafka98-des-html.>

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Form. Cleveland: The Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1973.

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