Preview

Capitalism In Franz Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
282 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Capitalism In Franz Kafka's 'Metamorphosis'
Enjoying all of the literature we read this semester, it is difficult for me to choose only one favorite. With his connections to capitalism, depression, and the use of absurdity, Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” has to be my favorite piece of literature of this semester, possibly even of all time. Initially what got me hooked on the “Metamorphosis” was how easily I could connect to the existentialist views of Kafka. I believe that nearly every American today can relate to the concept of capitalism throughout this piece. Each day we get up at the same time, get dressed in the same uniform, take the same route to work, do the same task once at work, and come home to the same thing. Doing the same thing day in and day out is mentally and physically

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the Metamorphosis,Gregor must work to support his family after they lost the company and lost all their money. One morning he wakes up and discovers he is a vermin. The first thing that occurs to him when he discovers this is how will he get to work and that his boss will come to his house and demand that Gregor come to work, meanwhile Gregor is locked in his room unable to get out of bed because he is a bug. Finally he is able to get out of bed, but the boss is gone the time he gets up. His family sees him and is disgusted and shocked by his transformatio. His sister brings him food and cares for him like no one in his family ever has, but even she becomes disgusted with him after a while. They all ignore Gregor. At one point Gregor is…

    • 329 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In “The Metamorphosis” By Franz Kafka, the style enhances the nightmarish quality of the work in many ways. This quote from line 304-306 can be used to illustrate this when Gregor says, “I’ll open up immediately, just a moment. I’m slightly unwell, an attack of dizziness. I haven’t been able to get up.” These lines from the text show that Kafka describes this nightmare in a simple style. Gregor has completely transformed from a human into a vermin yet he treats the situation as if it could happen to anyone, and he still attempts to complete his normal responsibilities. Gregor thinks his transformation is simply a cold, and Kafka describes it very blankly, leaving it open to interpretation by the reader which in turn shows how horrifying the…

    • 254 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Kafka shows how humans will adapt to fit their roles in society without any complaints, which was also shown in the Stanford Prison Experiment. Kafka shows this by having his characters fit into roles that they were assigned by physical features. In “the Metamorphosis,” Gregor is turned into a bug, and his transformation slowly begins to affect more than just his physical appearance. Within the story, we can see Gregor begin to change first with his acquired tastes for rotten food (26.8-27.4) to his newfound interest in crawling around all over the room (32.8). Kafka does a similar role fulfilling in the story “In the Penal Colony” with the condemned man. In this story, the condemned man is chained up like an animal and is even described as…

    • 233 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Statistics show that 1 in 10 Americans have suffered depression, depression often being a result of isolation and alienation from society. In the short story “Metamorphosis”, Franz Kafka utilizes point of view and anthropomorphism to develop the theme of alienation.…

    • 305 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    During the era that "The Metamorphosis" was written, many families relied on their husbands and sons to work and support the family. This story illustrates this concept and also shows how a family can fall apart with the slightest change of the family workman. Many of the points and details of this story show how a modern day family in this era lived and adapted to necessary change to support their needs. It also points out the dependability of men and their perception as the main supporter of the family. Family comes first, and then he can think about doing or buying things for himself. Reality does set in though and the man will become worn out and lifeless to world because he has not been able to enjoy life and its perks.…

    • 746 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Fear, jolting, trapping in a sense, and awakening in a more literal one, a nightmare is a dream forged from the inner reality of yourself. In "The Metamorphosis" by Kafka a traveling salesman named Gregor is mysteriously turned into a dung beetle, which not even his family can learn to accept let alone understand. His family is now faced with a lack of money, since Gregor was the only person working, leaving him to feel worthless and like a disappointment as opposed to the importance that he once held. Kafka 's tone and overall style according to Russian author Vladimir Nabokov makes The Metamorphosis a "striking contrast to the nightmare of the tale." Enhancing this nightmarish quality of this novella are Kafka 's limited third person perspective, a matter-of- fact tone and clear black and white preciseness.…

    • 847 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    What would you do if the only person who provided for the family suddenly turned into a bug? In the novella, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the relationship between Gregor and his younger sister, Grete, was incredibly strong before Gregor turned into a bug. Throughout the story, Gregor talks about how much he loves his sister and how strong of a bond they have with each other, but after Gregor turned into a bug, that bond eventually came to an end. Before their bond officially ended, there was a time where Gregor developed feelings for his younger sister, Grete. As the novella grows, Gregor’s love for his sister goes from caring to becoming an obsession. After his bug transformation, Gregor transitions from having human thoughts to thinking…

    • 1276 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Who is the head of the family? Would it be the oldest one, or rather the one who provides the most for the family? In some cases, it could be the father even though someone else is earning and providing for the rest of the family members. In The Metamorphoses by Franz Kafka readers are exposed to Gregor who lives a relatively dull life. Some would agree that his family depends on Gregor too much and don’t appreciate him. The Metamorphoses is a classic example of how family dynamics change when the roles and responsibilities differ as well.…

    • 523 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    yippies

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages

    But first in order to venture on a literary journey such as this one must first look at the man who started this revolutionary event. Abbot Hoffman was raised as a normal child and lived in a relatively nice family, but this soon changed during his 2nd year of high school by then he had already developed a reputation of a troublemaker when he started stealing cars for fun. He defended these actions by saying “What America got, she stole.” and “Capitalism” is just a polite schoolbook way of saying: “Stealing.”(Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman's “A Yippies Manifesto”). After graduating high school Abbot attended Brandeis University for four years, and during that time he developed a taste for psychology and that is what triggered his distaste for American society.…

    • 565 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Metamorphosis: A Glimpse of Franz Kafka “His mother caught site of the gigantic brown blotch on the flowered wallpaper, and before it really dawned on her that what she saw was Gregor, cried in a hoarse, bawling voice: ‘Oh, God, oh, God!’” (34) Franz Kafka’s, The Metamorphosis, is a story about Gregor Samsa who wakes up one random morning transformed into what is called a “monstrous vermin.” (1) The Metamorphosis is a story that not only describes his new life, but also shows how the modern world is not a very understanding place in times of need. This novella reflects the negative -both mental and physical- conditions of Franz Kafka’s personal life.…

    • 958 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Franz Kafka’s talent for existentialist writing can be captured in his story The Metamorphosis. The main character’s physical metamorphosis and ensuing social transformation represents many important facets of existentialist ideology. His character, Gregor, has built his life experience through choices; Gregor is thrust into an absurd situation, representing the absurdity of the world; and (add another theme). The Metamorphosis is a prime example of existentialist philosophy.…

    • 1113 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The novella The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, has themes and characters which parallel some of those in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. One of the main themes in both books is the empty pursuit of materialism and money in society. Both books also have characters who are similar and whose appearances give them trouble. Although the characters in The Metamorphosis and The Great Gatsby are thrown into different situations, the themes that are intricately interwoven into both books shed light on their similarly empty worlds and hopeless situations.…

    • 352 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    To make true the desires of the ancient philosopher Socrates we now live in a world that dares us to think for ourselves. We are now in a position to shape our own destinies more so than ever before due to the greater social mobility which we now have at our disposal. As a whole the world has gone from agrarian to a much more capitalist age in which people are never satisfied with their lot and as a consequence are constantly looking for the fastest, cheapest and most efficient way to do things, concerned primarily with profit, profit and more profit. We live in an industrial age, one of much exploitation on a grand and often obscene scale where the rich get richer and the poor stay where they are. A recent article from the Irish times compounds this fact informing us that “Global inequality has increased to the extent that the €1.2 trillion combined wealth of the 85 richest people is equal to that of the poorest 3.5 billion”. (P,A “Wealth of 85 richest people equal to that of poorest 3.5bn”The Irish Times, Jan20th,2014). We are now so concerned with making money as efficiently as possible it has even prompted one sociologist, George Ritzer to publish a book entitled “The Mc Donaldization of Society” The book is not concerned with Mc Donald’s itself but more so how the methods and principals used by the fast food corporations have come to dominate all of society. We know that this is where we are at but before we can even attempt to understand society and how it got here we must be first able to understand the individual. This is of paramount importance as it is the individual or rather individuals who make up society as a whole. The purpose of this essay will be to understand how we in the western world have been socialised into this “Capitalist way of Living”, how this mentality and model for living has impacted the rest of the world…

    • 1821 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Weber argued that capitalism was closely linked this to the protestant work ethic (Calvinism). He said that Calvinism formed capitalism over a period of time. The strong work ethic lead to an accumulation of wealth due to the lack of spending Calvinists performed. It was seen that greed/spending money was a challenge to God and as the Calvinists wanted Gods ‘approval’ they did not spend. Calvinists believe in predestination which means you are chosen to go to or not to go to heaven, before you were born. There was no way to prove if you were or not, only that the people who where predestined to go to heaven had a strong, hard work ethic. This high accumulation of wealth led to the Calvinists investing their money back into their businesses instead of spending it. This led to and formed capitalism. However, Capitalism existed before Calvinists in some areas, which goes against Weber ’s theory that Calvinists work ethic formed Capitalism. Also, Scotland developed capitalism much later then many other countries despite being strongly Calvinist.…

    • 1080 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The twentieth century has been marked as a time of great suffering and advancement in human history. One product of this dynamic time is the theory of postmodernism. According to Thomas McEvilley, postmodernism happened in America after people started to realize that history was cruel and that people were not really progressing much. This directly discredited the pre-existing theory of modernism which took its ideology from the three pillars: progress, hierarchy of cultures, universals. McEvilley believes that the modernist ideals are just a way of creating a false reality, a world where no one is suffering and everything is beautiful. In his novel The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka uses the dramatic transformation of his character, Gregor, to mock the societal construct of the twentieth century. This very act of mockery goes against the three pillars of modernism, making this a postmodern work of literature.…

    • 1114 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays