Uncanny In Kafka's Metamorphosis

Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, and Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth” all share a few consistent themes. The uncanny gives the reader a glimpse of fiction in the stories, where the characters are manipulated by this lack of realism. Ultimately, this fact of the uncanny leads the characters to act as in the monstrous, transforming their lives into something they had never expected. Thus, this transformation, in certain cases, leads them to experience the person or monster they were searching for in the first place. Also, the uncanny and transformation work together to take away the protagonists’ freedoms and pollute their lives with fictional experiences. In fictional stories, realism is usually a fairly nonexistent
Also, many of the narrator’s experiences come across as uncanny and horrifying overall. The integration of the uncanny and loss of realism begins with the description of the Deep Ones. “I saw a band of uncouth, crouching shapes loping and shambling in the same direction. The gait of this figure was so odd that it sent a chill through me—for it seemed to me the creature was almost hopping” (Lovecraft 332). This passage is full of examples of the uncanny and the loss of realism like the use of the word “uncouth.” While Robert never acts like a monster in this story, it is important to note that he is turned into one. Just by the uncovering of one truth, his life is changed completely to a fictional story. The uncanny also comes into play, because the narrator at first does not believe the story of the old man by the sea. He thought the concept of the Deep Ones was ridiculous. Not only did this end up becoming true, but this truth changed the narrator’s life
However, it is easy to see that even though Oedipus doesn’t physically change like Robert or Gregor, he is certainly a monster. One of the reasons for the monstrous in Oedipus is the fate given to him and his family by the gods. The first time the curse on the family and the city is ever brought up is on page two when the Priest says “He, the God with spear of fire, Leaps on the city, a cruel pestilence, And harries it; whereby the Cadmean home Is all dispeopled, and with groan and wail The blackness of the Grave made opulent” (Sophocles 2). The city and the Cadmean family have been cursed because of a past action by Cadmus. This curse manifests itself in Oedipus throughout the entire story, but it really shows at certain points when we can see the monster come out in