Franz Kafka on the Web
Background: Franz Kafka, one of the most influential writers of the early twentieth century, was born in Prague in 1883 and died in 1924. He was Jewish in Catholic Czechoslovakia, the son of a German-speaking shopkeeper. His father pushed him into business but he was interested in literature. Kafka lived with his parents most of his life although he felt neglected by his mother and pressured by his father. He earned a law degree and worked in a large accident-insurance corporation until he died of tuberculosis in 1924. Before his death he published a number of short stories and two novellas, including The Metamorphosis (1915). His executor Max Brod ignored Kafka's instructions to burn his manuscripts, instead publishing three novels that were nearly completed at his death. The predicaments and terrors described in his writing have been considered relevant to modern readers since Kafka's early death. He did not live to see his three sisters die in concentration camps, but some of his works seem to predict conditions of the World War II Holocaust. In his personal writings and fiction, Kafka reveals the torment and frustrations of his life: his illness, lack of success in love, unhappiness with his family, resentment of his beaurocratic job and an indifferent or oppressive society, and general feelings of inferiority.
His characters' lonely search for the meaning of individual existence in a meaningless or indifferent world reflects Kafka's existentialist views of life. People who are not dependent on older belief systems or institutions have freedom that also brings anxiety and guilt with the responsibility for constructing the meaning of one's own existence. Kafka had no association with Surrealist writers or artists, who saw hidden miracles of existence behind everyday reality. Kafka's works are sometimes called surreal because of his blend of matter-of-fact everyday reality and dream or nightmare images, but his vision of the ordinary person's impossible struggles to control life is quite different from the views of the Surrealists who came after him. Like absurdist writers of the mid-twentieth century, Kafka depicted irrational, anguished people in nightmarish situations, unable to form significant relationships with(in) their environment. Later in the twentieth century, the development of magic realism might also be compared with Kafka's writing, as fantastic events are depicted as if they are a part of everyday reality.
Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man.
—British poet W. H. Auden
Kafka certainly does not provide an interpretation of the world. . . . What he
provides is an image of how experience looks when all interpretations are called in doubt.
—British critic Anthony Thorlby
It would have turned out much better if I had not been interrupted at the time by the business trip.
—Franz Kafka, writing about
The Metamorphosis in his diary
1) Source -http://www.glencoe.com/
Metamorphosis Text
Vocabulary
servile
superfluous
contingency
anteroom
petulant
civil
squalor
facade
flagrant
inadvertence
peremptory
presumptuous
Metamorphosis: Study Guide
I.
- Metaphorically, what does it mean to be a "bug"? Provide several examples.
- What was Gregor’s job before his transformation?
- What does Gregor struggle to do on the first morning he is a bug?
- Who comes to visit Gregor on the first morning he is a bug?
- Make a listing of some of the humorous scenes. Why do you think they are humorous?
- Describe Gregor's room. What is the picture hanging on the wall?
- Describe Gregor's own attitude and his reaction to his new predicament.
- Describe what life was like for Gregor before his metamorphosis, at home and on job.
- Describe everyone's reaction as they see Gregor come out of his room.
- In what ways do you think Gregor was like a "bug" even before his metamorphosis?
- What circumstances in Gregor’s life might have caused him to feel dehumanized even before the metamorphosis took place?
- Russian author Vladimir Nabokov once commented that the straightforward style of The Metamorphosis is in “striking contrast to the nightmare of the tale.” React to this statement.
II.
- Describe how and what Gregor eats.
- What is his family situation like?
- How does Gregor's sister treat him differently from the way he is treated by his parents?
- How does Gregor entertain himself?
- Why doesn't Gregor want his furniture moved out?What conflicting feelings does Gregor have about having the furniture taken out of his room? Why does he try to save the picture? What might Kafka's intention be in stressing that it is on this occasion that Grete calls Gregor by his name for the first time since his metamorphosis?
- What kind of changes does Gregor notice in his father?
III.
- How does Gregor's family try to make life seem "normal" for themselves?
- What prevents the family from moving to a smaller apartment?
- How do they try to manage financially?
- How has Gregor's attitude toward his family changed?
- How has Grete's treatment of Gregor changed? Give some examples.
- What changes take place in Gregor's room?
- What is Gregor's attitude toward the roomers? Why?
- How does Gregor respond to his sister’s violin playing? What might Kafka be implying about Gregor by describing this reaction? What is Gregor’s”unknown nourishment”?
- Why do the roomers threaten to leave?
- Describe the scene of Gregor's death.
- Describe how each family member reacts when they hear that Gregor is dead.
- How do they celebrate Gregor's death?
- What effect does Gregor’s metamorphosis ultimately have on his family? What does this effect suggest about his relationship with his family?
Which character are you ?
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