metamorphosis of a person essay

Metamorphosis - Is it Your Time for Change?

Life is an adventure into the unknown where we should welcome metamorphosis..

Posted October 14, 2014

“We have not even to risk the adventure alone for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero-path.” And where we had though to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone we shall be with all the world.” ~Joseph Campbell

Metamorphosis refers to the process of transformation, whether it’s the changing of an immature insect into an adult insect, or the changes that occur in each of us throughout our life span. Metamorphosis was the theme of the Eurotas Conference I attended in Crete last week with my fellow transpersonal psychologists. The workshop topics were poignant and powerful; including everything from whether we need crisis to evolve, Kabbalistic psychology, mythology, metaphor and healing, transpersonal research, Mother Kundalini, astrology, awakening, and the art of dying, just to name a few. Yet whatever the topic, the overarching theme was the quest for transformation.

The idea of transformation and metamorphosis reminds me of my mother’s comment whenever someone says that they are aging. Without hesitation, she stops and says, “You start aging from the day you are born.” I take those words of wisdom one step further to say; we start transforming even before birth and if you believe in the afterlife, transformation continues even after our physical body dies.

As Crete is rich in mythological stories, the discussion of the hero’s journey brings a close connection to the idea of metamorphosis, reminding us of Joseph Campbell’s classic book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces . Campbell shares the structure of the “monolith,” otherwise known as the hero’s journey, with the premise that whatever your life’s journey or path, various forms of metamorphosis are inevitable along the way. In the same vein, he claims that during our lives, we all experience similar yearnings, fears, joys, trials and tribulations. Along the way, the connections we make and the encounters we have, in some way increase our awareness and/or growth. This ultimately leads to a better understanding of our inner landscape which in turn helps us on our path to transformation and empowerment. According to Campbell, the hero ventures from a common life into a supernatural world where there are challenges and victories. Then the hero returns from this mystical adventure, more powerful and aware of the self and others.

In essence, life is an adventure into the unknown and mysterious. When we are born, we follow a particular path, but as time goes on, we expand our quest, perhaps undertake an adventure or try something new and different; it is about stepping out of the box to discover something outside our comfort zone, and welcoming some sort of metamorphosis or change. We might respond to a particular calling, some pull in a different direction, and we are compelled to face the challenges offered on that path.

Along the way we meet guides, mentors or role models who help us and are available with love and support. While on the path of metamorphosis, we realize that there is no turning back, we are submerged in an adventure, one where new opportunities present themselves. Mythologically, a warrior or dragon might be awaiting us, guarding the entrance to new destination. This is what might be considered the crossroad of decision, the place where we have the chance to incorporate what we learned from our guides. Unfortunately, sometimes this comes with great consequences or risks. In the mythology of the hero’s journey, the hero reaches the Mysterium, a supernatural world with unknown rules. Here, the hero continues to learn and discover new things about him or herself and the surrounding world, growing and transforming and metamorphosing in the process.

In the final stage of the hero’s journey, there is the confrontation with death, sometimes called our primal or original fear . This is an opportunity to abandon all that we have carried that no longer serves us, thus offering the opportunity to begin a new life. In other words, this is the resurrection into a completely new life. During this time, the hero conquers the grail or treasure, which symbolizes what, was lacking in the former life. The hero is then given the choice whether to return to the former or ordinary life or stay on the new path (The Mysterium), enjoying its magic. When the hero is back to daily life, he or she realizes that he or she has attained a new sense of awareness about the self and openness to others. This results in the ability to live more happily and freely.

Note: While Campbell used the term “hero” instead of “heroine,” I would like to change this to “The Human Journey.” The fact that the Minoans paid a great deal of homage to women and the power of women, is indicative of the fact that equality of power between the sexes is an idea that goes way back.

For more on this, please read the blog of my friend and colleague, Steve Taylor, also in Crete, who offers a wonderful perspective on the feminine.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201410/if-women-ruled-the-world-0

Diana Raab, MFA, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, educator, and survivor. She’s written nine books of nonfiction and poetry, including the recent Writing for Bliss and Writing for Bliss: A Companion Journal.

• Find a Therapist
• Find a Treatment Center
• Find a Psychiatrist
• Find a Support Group
• Find Teletherapy
• United States
• Brooklyn, NY
• Chicago, IL
• Houston, TX
• Los Angeles, CA
• New York, NY
• Portland, OR
• San Diego, CA
• San Francisco, CA
• Seattle, WA
• Washington, DC
• Asperger's
• Bipolar Disorder
• Chronic Pain
• Eating Disorders
• Passive Aggression
• Personality
• Goal Setting
• Positive Psychology
• Stopping Smoking
• Low Sexual Desire
• Relationships
• Child Development
• Therapy Center NEW
• Diagnosis Dictionary
• Types of Therapy

Understanding what emotional intelligence looks like and the steps needed to improve it could light a path to a more emotionally adept world.

• Coronavirus Disease 2019
• Affective Forecasting
• Neuroscience

A Summary and Analysis of Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Metamorphosis’ is a short story (sometimes classed as a novella) by the Czech-born German-language author Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It is his best-known shorter work, published in German in 1915, with the first English translation appearing in 1933. ‘The Metamorphosis’ has attracted numerous interpretations, so it might be worth probing this fascinating story more closely.

You can read ‘The Metamorphosis’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Kafka’s story below.

Plot Summary

Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed into a giant insect. Although he briefly considers this transformation, he quickly turns his thoughts to his work and his need to provide for his parents (he lives with them and his sister) so that they can pay off their debts. He also thinks about how much he hates travelling.

He realises he is already late for work, but hesitates to call in sick because he has never had a day off sick before, and knows this might raise alarm bells. When he responds through the bedroom door after his mother calls to him, he realises that his voice has become different as a result of his metamorphosis into an insect. When his family try to enter his bedroom, they find the door locked, and he refuses to let them in.

Then there’s a knock at the door and it’s the chief clerk for whom Gregor works, wondering where Gregor has got to.

Still Gregor refuses to open the door to his family or to his visitor. The chief clerk is affronted and tells Gregor through the door that his work has not been good enough and his position at the company may not be safe. Gregor seeks to defend himself, and assures the clerk that he will soon return to work. However, because Gregor’s voice has changed so much since his transformation, nobody can understand what he’s saying.

Gregor opens the door and his mother screams when she sees him. He asks the chief clerk to smooth things over at the office for him, explaining his … sudden metamorphosis into an insect.

Later that evening, having swooned and dozed all day, Gregor wakes up at twilight and finds that his sister had brought him milk with some bread in it. Gregor attempts to drink the milk, but finds the taste disgusting, so he leaves it. He climbs under the couch so his family don’t have to look at him, while his sister tries to find him food that he can eat.

Gregor overhears his family talking in the other room, and discovers that, despite their apparent debts, his parents have some money stashed away. He has been going to work to support them when he didn’t have to.

As well as the changes to his voice, Gregor also realises that his vision has got worse since his transformation. He also discovers that he enjoys climbing the walls and the ceiling of his bedroom. To help him, his sister gets rid of the furniture to create more space for him to climb; Gregor’s mother disagrees and is reluctant to throw out all of Gregor’s human possessions, because she still trusts that he will return to his former state one day.

When he comes out of the room, his mother faints and his sister locks him outside. His father arrives and throws apples at him, severely injuring him, because he believes Gregor must have attacked his own mother.

After his brush with death, the family change tack and vow to be more sympathetic towards Gregor, agreeing to leave the door open so he can watch them from outside the room as they talk together. But when three lodgers move in with the family, and his room is used to store all of the family’s furniture and junk, he finds that he cannot move around any more and goes off his food. He becomes shut off from his family and the lodgers.

When he hears his sister playing the violin for the lodgers, he opens the door to listen, and the lodgers, upon spotting this giant insect, are repulsed and declare they are going to move out immediately and will not pay the family any of their rent owed. Gregor’s sister tells her parents that they must get rid of their brother since, whilst they have tried to take care of him, he has become a liability. She switches from talking about him as her brother and as an ‘it’, a foreign creature that is unrecognisable as the brother they knew.

Gregor, overhearing this conversation, wants to do the right thing for his family, so he decides that he must do the honourable thing and disappear. He crawls off back to his room and dies.

Gregor’s family is relieved that he has died, and the body is disposed of. Mr Samsa kicks the lodgers out of the apartment. He, his wife, and their daughter are all happy with the jobs they have taken, and Mr and Mrs Samsa realise that their daughter is now of an age to marry.

The one thing people know about ‘The Metamorphosis’ is that it begins with Gregor Samsa waking up to find himself transformed into an insect. Many English translations use the word in the book’s famous opening line (and we follow convention by using the even more specific word ‘beetle’ in our summary of the story above).

But the German word Ungeziefer does not lend itself easily to translation. It roughly denotes any unclean being or creature, and ‘bug’ is a more accurate rendering of the original into English – though even ‘bug’ doesn’t quite do it, since (in English anyway) it still suggests an insect, or at least some sort of creepy-crawly.

For this reason, some translators (such as David Wyllie in the one we have linked to above) reach for the word vermin , which is probably closer to the German original. Kafka did use the word Insekt in his correspondence discussing the book, but ordered that the creature must not be explicitly illustrated as such at any cost. The point is that we are not supposed to know the precise thing into which Gregor has metamorphosed.

The vagueness is part of the effect: Gregor Samsa is any and every unworthy or downtrodden creature, shunned by those closest to him. Much as those who wish to denigrate a particular group of people – immigrants, foreigners, a socio-economic underclass – often reach for words like ‘cockroaches’ or ‘vermin’, so Gregor’s transformation physically enacts and literalizes such emotive propaganda.

But of course, the supernatural or even surreal (though we should reject the term ‘Surrealist’) setup for the story also means that ‘The Metamorphosis’ is less a straightforward allegory (where X = Y) than it is a more rich and ambiguous exploration of the treatment of ‘the other’ (where X might = Y, Z, or even A, B, or C).

Gregor’s subsequent treatment at the hands of his family, his family’s lodgers, and their servants may well strike a chord with not just ethnic minorities living in some communities but also disabled people, people with different cultural or religious beliefs from ‘the mainstream’, struggling artists whose development is hindered by crass bourgeois capitalism and utilitarianism, and many other marginalised individuals.

This is one reason why ‘The Metamorphosis’ has become so widely discussed, analysed, and studied: its meaning is not straightforward, its fantastical scenario posing many questions.  What did Kafka mean by such a story? Is it a comedy, a tragedy, or both? Gregor’s social isolation from his nearest and dearest, and subsequent death (a death of despair, one suspects, as much as it is a noble sacrifice for the sake of his family), all suggest the story’s tragic undercurrents, and yet the way Kafka establishes Gregor’s transformation raises some intriguing questions.

Take that opening paragraph. The opening sentence – as with the very first sentence of Kafka’s novel, The Trial – is well-known, but what follows this arresting first statement is just as remarkable. For no sooner has Gregor discovered that he has been transformed, inexplicably, into a giant insect (or ‘vermin’), than his thoughts have turned from this incredible revelation to more day-to-day worries about his job and his travelling.

This is a trademark feature of Kafka’s writing, and one of the things the wide-ranging term ‘Kafkaesque’ should accommodate: the nightmarish and the everyday rubbing shoulders together. Indeed, the everyday already is a nightmare, and Samsa’s metamorphosis into an alien creature is just the latest in a long line of modernity’s hellish developments.

So the effect of this opening paragraph is to play down, as soon as it has been introduced, the shocking revelation that a man has been turned into a beetle (or similar creature).

Many subsequent details in Kafka’s story are similarly downplayed, or treated in a calm and ordinary way as if a man becoming a six-feet-tall insect is the most normal occurrence in the world, and this is part of the comedy of Kafka’s novella: an aspect of his work which many readers miss, partly because the comedic is so often the first thing lost in translation.

And, running contrariwise to the interpretation of ‘The Metamorphosis’ that sees it as ‘just’ a straightforward story about modern-day alienation and mistreatment of ‘the other’ is the plot itself, which sees Gregor Samsa freed from his life of servitude and duty, undertaking a job he doesn’t enjoy in order to support a family that, it turns out, are perfectly capable of supporting themselves (first by the father’s money which has been set aside, and then from the family’s jobs which the mother, father, and daughter all take, and discover they actually rather enjoy).

Even Gregor’s climbing of the walls and ceiling in his room, when he would have been travelling around doing his job, represents a liberation of sorts, even though he has physically become confined to one room. Perhaps, the grim humour of Kafka’s story appears to suggest, modernity is so hellish that such a transformation – even though it ends in death – is really the only liberation modern man can achieve.

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading

Themes and Analysis

The metamorphosis, by franz kafka.

'The Metamorphosis' is a masterpiece on hitting important themes, such as transformation, alienation, and responsibility.

About the Book

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

Such themes in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis touch on what it means to be human and what happens when those around you stop regarding you as such.  

The Metamorphosis Themes  

Transformation  .

The first and most important theme in The Metamorphosis is transformation. There is the primary transformation in the novel, that of Gregor, a human man, into a large insect , but there are several others as well. As the novel progresses, Gregor struggles to hang onto his humanity, it slips from him as he turns to the things that bring him pleasure in his new form. He finds sanctuary in dark places, joy in crawling on the ceilings and the walls, and is only able to stomach rotten food.  

Additionally, there is the transformation that his family members undergo. It is seen most prominently in Grete, his sister . At first, she cares for Gregor’s needs, feeding and visiting him. But as time goes on, Grete grows older and her priorities change. It becomes easier for the family to ignore the fact that Gregor exists than to continue caring for him.  

Gregor’s transformation brings with it a series of emotional transitions and obstacles that he has to overcome. The main one being the separation from his family, job, and previous role as the main breadwinner. Gregor is alienated from his former humanity, generally, as well as his former personality and role, specifically.  

Gregor is also physically alienated in his prison cell-like room. It is from there, separate from the family, that he listens to their lives carry on without him.  

Responsibility

When Gregor first discovers that he’s no longer in his human body, his first thought is for his family. He worries immediately that he’s not going to be able to get to work on time and is going to lose his job. The first pages of the novel are devoted to Gregor’s struggle to force his new body to do what his old one could easily. He cares about the responsibility he has to his family, to pay off his father’s debts and support his sister and mother.  

A reader should also consider what responsibility his family has for him after his transformation and how they didn’t fulfill it. His generosity was not repaid.

Analysis of Key Moments in The Metamorphosis

• Gregor wakes up and discovers that he’s been transformed into a giant insect.  
• Gregor’s family and boss come to check on him.  
• The family is confronted by Gregor’s new form.  
• Grete feeds Gregor and he discovers he loves rotten food.  
• Gregor leans to climb the walls and they take the furniture out of the room.  
• Gregor tries to save the image of the woman in furs.  
• Mr. Samsa attacks Gregor believing he hurt Mrs. Samsa. Gregor is badly injured.  
• Lodgers move into the house and Gregor watches his family from his room.  
• Gregor decides his family will be better off without him and he dies.  
• The family feels relief now that Gregor is gone, they move on with their lives.

Point of View and Poetic Techniques in The Metamorphosis

Narrative point of view.

As a modernist novel, there are several techniques that will likely be familiar with in The Metamorphosis. These are related to the point of view, language, and poetic techniques. The point of view employed by Franz Kafka in the novel is third-person/limited omniscient. This means the main perspective of the story comes from Gregor Samsa. The reader is within Gregor’s mind, hearing his thoughts and discovering what happened to his body at the same time as he does. Information is given to the reader when it’s available to Gregor, we are not aware of anything he isn’t. For example, Gregor struggles with eating and what it is, after his transformation, that he’s interested in.  

The reader doesn’t become aware until he is that he wants to eat rotten foods. All that being said, there are a few moments in the novel in which Kafka moves outside Gregor’s mind to give the reader a bit of information from the perspective of the other characters. These are rare moments and are reserved for occasions that benefit from the change in perspective.

Poetic Techniques

The Metamorphosis was originally written in German and titled Die Verwnadlung, this means that some poetic techniques will be lost or devised in the translation into English. Within the novel, a close reader can find examples of metaphor, irony, and symbolism. The first on this list, metaphor, is a comparison between two unlike things that does not use “like” or “as” is also present in the text.  

When using this technique a writer is saying that one thing is another thing, they aren’t just similar. It’s quite important in this novel and immediately confronts the reader. The theme of imprisonment is woven throughout the story. Metaphors reveal to the reader that Gregor is at once a prisoner of society, money, his family, and the most obvious, his new bug body. He’s trapped, in one way or another, but his prison varies.  

Another less obvious example is the weather. One moment, in particular, comes to mind at the beginning of the story when Gregor is waking up. He notes that he’s waking up late, feels poorly, and there is “still such a fog” outside. The fog lays heavy on the city. Its dreary, dark, and it obscures warmth and light. It is used as a metaphor and allusion to what is to come. His future lies within the house, not without, and it’s going to be just as dark as the weather that morning.  

Symbols in The Metamorphosis  

The picture of the woman  .

One of the most poignant symbols in The Metamorphosis is the picture of the woman on the wall of Gregor’s room. In the photo, she’s wearing furs, a hat, and a boa. It’s unclear who she’s supposed to be, but she’s there as a reminder of Gregor’s lost future, the warmth of human company, and his own distant humanity. More than anything else, the fact that he acquired, hung, and admired the photo while he was still human is important to him.  

When the furniture is removed from his room Gregor begins to panic. Gregor turns to the picture as the single thing he’s going to fight to keep. He’s desperate at this moment, and through his actions, a reader should interpret a need to hang on to some piece of his humanity.  

Gregor as an Insect  

The creature Gregor turns into, sometimes referred to as a giant insect, bug, or vermin, is representative of the life that Gregor led before he was transformed. His human day-to-day life was made physical. Once transformed, the toll that his job, family, colleagues, and money worries had on him is realized in the real world.

Food  

Food is a symbol of the Gregor’s family’s remaining regard for their son. Grete, the most important secondary character in the novel takes on the responsibility for feeding and checking on Gregor. It is due to Grete that he’s able to eat and maintain a shred of his humanity. At first, they believe he’s going to eat the same things he did when he was human, but they soon discover that he’s only able to eat rotten food. As time passes, the family loses interest in Gregor and become exhausted from remembering that he’s there. They stop feeding him and he is forced to suffer, starving, as the new lodgers eat in his kitchen.  

About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka is best remembered as the Existentialist author of novellas and short stories such as ' The Metamorphosis ' and ' The Trial '.

Kafka Facts

Explore ten of the most interesting facts about Kafka's life, habits, and passions.

Kafka's Best Books

Explore the ten best books and stories Kafka wrote.

Kafka and Absurdism

What was absurdism and how does it relate to Franz Kafka's literary works?

You will get to know me better; there are still a number of horrible recesses in me that you don’t know . Franz Kafka

Cite This Page

Baldwin, Emma " The Metamorphosis Themes and Analysis 🪳 " Book Analysis , . Accessed 12 April 2024.

There was a problem reporting this post.

Block Member?

Please confirm you want to block this member.

You will no longer be able to:

• See blocked member's posts
• Mention this member in posts
• Invite this member to groups

Please allow a few minutes for this process to complete.

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Experimental Novels › Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 1, 2023

“As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” So begins The Metamorphosis , a sinister allegory of dehumanization and hopelessness in the modern world by Franz Kafka (1883–1924). Once rendered an insect, Gregor becomes a functionless and embarrassing eyesore in a household, whose members grow to resent and neglect him to the point of death. There is no place in domestic, social, and professional life, Kafka’s tale suggests, for the unproductive and the nonconformist.

Written in 1912, The Metamorphosis was one of the few works Kafka published in his lifetime. Owing to the author’s general reluctance to publish and editorial reservations about the story’s bizarre content, The Metamorphosis did not go to press until 1915.

Like much of Kafka’s fiction, The Metamorphosis expresses dominant themes in the author’s own life. In a letter, Kafka mentioned the similarity between Samsa’s name and his own; both writer and character, furthermore, were pressured to take on largely pointless office jobs. Kafka’s anxieties about ill health and fear of physical collapse play out in the unfortunate Gregor, who dies from a wound inflicted on him by his father. But the story resonates most profoundly with the real circumstances of Kafka’s family life. Like his creation, Gregor, Kafka was continually berated by his imposing father, who considered his only son to be an unmitigated failure. Gregor, likewise, cowers in fear of his father, who finds him repulsive and attacks him at every turn. Although Kafka had earned a law degree in part to appease his father, he would remain an object of patriarchal disdain and repudiation—particularly in light of his fictional work, which his father deemed “a waste of time.” Kafka’s mother, like her alter ego in the story, was ever-deferential to her husband and offered little solace to her son; his sister, Ottla, was normally a compassionate ally, but on one occasion she joined the parents in insisting that Kafka increase his hours at the office; shortly thereafter, Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis, in which Gregor’s sister betrays him by insisting that the family get rid of him.

In addition to these autobiographical references, The Metamorphosis alludes to a number of literary works, including the Russian Nikolay Gogol’s The Nose, in which a man wakes up to find his nose missing; preposterously, the nose goes on to attain a high-ranking position in the civil service. Kafka’s text was also inspired by a Yiddish play, Gordin’s The Savage One. Kafka wrote extensively about the play in his diaries. All of the characters in The Metamorphosis find analogues in The Savage One. Gregor Samsa’s counterpart is an idiot son, who is unable to communicate with his family, stays locked in his room, and fears the wrath of his father. The Metamorphosis, furthermore, resembles Gordin’s drama in its entirely domestic setting and episodic narrative structure. All three texts connect materialism and status consciousness with the degradation of humanity.

In alignment with Kafka’s largely cynical philosophical views, The Metamorphosis supports a decidedly pessimistic interpretation of human nature. Speaking to his friend Max Brod, Kafka once explained that he thought human beings were God’s nihilistic thoughts. Brod asked whether there was hope elsewhere in the universe. To this, Kafka replied, “plenty of hope, for God—only not for us.” This dismal prognosis, a sense of terminal confinement, is represented by Gregor, whose only alternative to the world in which he has unintentionally entered is death. There are glimmers of hope in the concluding lines of The Metamorphosis, as the Samsa family sets about reconstructing itself, but this might also be seen to indicate the unfortunate perpetuation of the worst human qualities. In any case, after the story’s publication Kafka said that he regretted this ending, insisting that it was “unreadable.”

Along with the bleak determinism of The Metamorphosis , the surrealistic scenario depicted—its particular mixture of the impossible and the real—is typically “Kafkaesque.” In several works, Kafka posits an unlikely situation and portrays its development in realistic detail, both psychologically and materially. In his novel The Trial , for example, a man is accused and found guilty of a crime without ever being informed of the charge’s precise nature; in “Before the Law,” a man passes decades waiting to enter the gates of Justice, only to have the guardian, finally, close them in his face. The realist aspect of these texts encourages the reader to probe beyond the specific circumstance—a man, for example, literally becoming an insect—to uncover its symbolic and allegorical implications.

The image of the insect is evocative on several levels. As early as 1907, Kafka described the best part of his creative self as a “beautiful beetle”; he imagined his body moving around in the world while his “true writing self”—a beetle—remained behind. In later years, when his idealism faded, this authorial image was replaced by “filth and slime,” a phrase he applied to his piece “The Judgment” (it tells of a rebellious son condemned to suicide by his father). Gregor Samsa, a giant insect who becomes progressively more and more filthy, may be interpreted as a metaphor for disillusionment.

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Novels

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Stories

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bridgewater, Patrick. Kafka’s Novels: An Interpretation. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003. Greenberg, Martin. The Terror of Art: Kafka and Modern Literature. New York: Basic Books, 1968. Stach, Reiner. Kafka: The Decisive Years. Translated by Shelley Frisch. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2005. Stern, J. P., ed. The World of Franz Kafka. New York: Holt, Rinehard, 1980. Weinberg, Helen. The New Novel in America: The Kafkan Mode in Contemporary Fiction. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1970.

Share this:

Categories: Experimental Novels , Literature , Novel Analysis

Tags: Analysis of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Appreciation of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Essays of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Franz Kafka , Guide of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Notes of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Plot of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Review of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Story of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Structure of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , Summary of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis , The Metamorphosis , Themes of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis

Related Articles

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Metamorphosis — The Metamorphosis: An Analysis of Isolation, Identity, and Symbolism

The Metamorphosis: an Analysis of Isolation, Identity, and Symbolism

• Categories: Kafka Metamorphosis

About this sample

Words: 510 |

Published: Feb 7, 2024

Words: 510 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

• 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
• Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

Dr. Karlyna PhD

Verified writer

• Expert in: Literature

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

1 pages / 670 words

1 pages / 1000 words

3 pages / 1326 words

2 pages / 887 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka's novella, The Metamorphosis, published in 1915, is a well-known work that explores dramatic actions and transformations, evoking both emotion and expression. It delves into the themes of grief and the stages [...]

Franz Kafka's novella, The Metamorphosis, tells the story of Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. The story delves into themes of isolation, alienation, and [...]

Have you ever wondered about the role of Gregor's father in Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis"? As we delve into the analysis of Gregor's father's metamorphosis, we uncover layers of complexity in this enigmatic character that [...]

Franz Kafka's novella, The Metamorphosis, is a work that delves deep into the complexities of human nature and the human condition. One of the most striking aspects of the novella is Kafka's use of direct characterization, which [...]

In Franz Kafka's stories "The Metamorphosis", "In The Penal Colony", and "The Fasting-Artist", the protagonists, Gregor Samsa, the officer, and the fasting-artist, each make apparent sacrifices. These characters give their lives [...]

Throughout the ages, the theme of impossible love in literature has prevailed. Impossible love is an overall broad theme; generally speaking, it is a love that is forbidden, unrequired, or unable to flourish. Somewhere between [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

• Instructions Followed To The Letter
• Deadlines Met At Every Stage
• Unique And Plagiarism Free

The Metamorphosis

Franz kafka, ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

After Gregor 's transformation, he becomes entirely reliant on his family, in the way that they, before his transformation, relied on his wages. His feelings of duty and responsibility toward his family concern him much more than his bizarre physical predicament. Yet his sister Grete , mother , and father are unable to think of him or treat him in the same way as before. Much of their change in attitude is due to their profound interest in conforming to the norm of the society around them. Grete is the most thoughtful, putting aside her preconceptions to bring him the rotten food he likes. But, though Gregor imagines guarding the family, he's unable to repay her for her help. When he becomes a cockroach, his relationship with his family becomes unequal, about dependence rather than cooperation. His lack of freedom to act, as well as his family's growing frustrations toward him, are factors that play into his listlessness and eventual death.

Gregor's father may bear the major responsibility for his death because of injuring him with the apple, but no one in the family is blameless. At the story's end, Grete, the mother and father feel happier and freer once they no longer have to worry about Gregor. In the world of the story, even close family bonds can't triumph over the unequal relationship (and the disgust) caused by having a cockroach as a son.

Family ThemeTracker

Family Quotes in The Metamorphosis

You amaze me, you amaze me. I thought you were a quiet, dependable person, and now all at once you seem bent on making a disgraceful exhibition of yourself.

The chief clerk must be detained, soothed, persuaded and finally won over; the whole future of Gregor and his family depended on it!

"What a quiet life our family has been leading," said Gregor to himself, and as he sat there motionless staring into the darkness he felt great pride in the fact that he had been able to provide such a life for his parents and sister in such a fine flat. But what if all the quiet, the comfort, the contentment were now to end in horror?

…He must lie low for the present and, by exercising patience and the utmost consideration, help the family to bear the inconvenience he was bound to cause them in his present condition.

If he could have spoken to her and thanked her for all she had to do for him, he could have borne her ministrations better; as it was, they oppressed him.

Do let me in to Gregor, he is my unfortunate son! Can't you understand that I must go to him?

The serious injury done to Gregor, which disabled him for more than a month—the apple went on sticking in his body as a visible reminder, since no one ventured to remove it—seemed to have made even his father recollect that Gregor was a member of the family, despite his present unfortunate and repulsive shape, and ought not to be treated as an enemy, that, on the contrary, family duty required the suppression of disgust and the exercise of patience, nothing but patience.

We must try to get rid of it. We've tried to look after it and to put up with it as far as is humanly possible, and I don't think anyone could reproach us in the slightest.

But how can it be Gregor? If this were Gregor, he would have realized long ago that human beings can't live with such a creature, and he'd have gone away on his own accord.

He thought of his family with tenderness and love.

And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and excellent intentions that at the end of their journey their daughter sprang to her feet first and stretched her young body.

Gig workers are writing essays for AI to learn from

• Companies are hiring highly educated gig workers to write training content for AI models .
• The shift toward more sophisticated trainers comes as tech giants scramble for new data sources.
• AI could run out of data to learn from by 2026, one research institute has warned. 

As artificial intelligence models run out of data to train themselves on, AI companies are increasingly turning to actual humans to write training content.

For years, companies have used gig workers to help train AI models on simple tasks like photo identification , data annotation, and labelling. But the rapidly advancing technology now requires more advanced people to train it.

Companies such as Scale AI and Surge AI are hiring part-timers with graduate degrees to write essays and creative prompts for the bots to gobble up, The New York Times reported . Scale AI, for example, posted a job last year looking for people with Master's degrees or PhDs, who are fluent in either English, Hindi, or Japanese and have professional writing experience in fields like poetry, journalism, and publishing.

Related stories

Their mission? To help AI bots "become better writers," Scale AI wrote in the posting.

And an army of workers are needed to do this kind of work. Scale AI has as many as tens of thousands of contractors working on its platform at a time, per the Times.

"What really makes the A.I. useful to its users is the human layer of data, and that really needs to be done by smart humans and skilled humans and humans with a particular degree of expertise and a creative bent," Willow Primack, the vice president of data operations at Scale AI, told the New York Times. "We have been focusing on contractors, particularly within North America, as a result."

The shift toward more sophisticated gig trainers comes as tech giants scramble to find new data to train their technology on. That's because the programs learn so incredibly fast that they're already running out of available resources to learn from. The vast trove of online information — everything from scientific papers to news articles to Wikipedia pages — is drying up.

Epoch, an AI research institute, has warned that AI could run out of data by 2026.

So, companies are finding more and more creative ways to make sure their systems never stop learning. Google has considered accessing its customers' data in Google Docs , Sheets, and Slides while Meta even thought about buying publishing house Simon & Schuster to harvest its book collection, Business Insider previously reported.

Watch: Nearly 50,000 tech workers have been laid off — but there's a hack to avoid layoffs

• Main content

• Share full article

Advertisement

Supported by

Guest Essay

You Don’t Just See a Total Solar Eclipse. You Feel It Completely.

By Ryan Milligan

Dr. Milligan is a senior lecturer in astrophysics at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Almost one year ago, in the middle of the night, I drove from my hometown, Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Dublin to catch an early morning flight to Munich. From there I caught another plane to Bangkok, another to Singapore and yet another to Perth in Western Australia. There, I rented a camper van and began a drive of more than 750 miles north to the town of Exmouth on a remote peninsula on the northwest coast of the continent.

This was the only reasonably accessible location on the planet with decent weather prospects from which to view the total solar eclipse on April 20, 2023. The entire event lasted 62 seconds. It was the 10th total solar eclipse I’d traveled to witness.

Even as a professional solar physicist, I find it difficult to convey why eclipse chasers like me go to such extraordinary lengths to witness such a fleeting phenomenon, again and again. I was extra determined to make the pilgrimage last year after I was thwarted by clouds in Chile in December 2020, and I couldn’t afford the eye-watering cost of traveling to Antarctica in 2021. I needed to whet my appetite before embarking on another expedition to see the totality of the April 8 eclipse in Mazatlán, Mexico.

It may sound absurd, but there is no other celestial event that anyone I know would devote so much time and effort to seeing. If you wish to see the northern lights, you can hop on a plane to Iceland or Norway and have a fairly decent chance of seeing them in the winter months. If you are on the nightside of the planet during a lunar eclipse and the skies are clear, you just need to go outside and look up to see it happening. But unless you are fortunate enough to live within or close to the path of totality, witnessing a total solar eclipse will probably require meticulous planning and marshaling time and money to get you to an optimal location and a bit of luck to make sure the weather forecasts you’ve pored over hold true.

Believe me, it is worth the effort.

A total solar eclipse is not something that you see — it’s something that you experience. You can feel the temperature around you begin to drop by as much as 15 degrees over the five to 10 minutes that lead up to the eclipse. The birds and other animals go silent. The light becomes eerie and morphs into a dusky, muted twilight, and you begin to see stark, misplaced shadows abound. A column of darkness in the sky hurtles toward you at over 1,000 miles per hour as the moon’s shadow falls neatly over the sun, turning day into temporary night — nothing like the calming sunset we take for granted every day. Sometimes, a few stars or planets begin to appear faintly in the sky as your eyes get used to the new darkness.

The hairs stand up on the back of your neck and the adrenaline kicks in as your brain tries to make sense of what is going on. But it cannot. It has no other point of reference to compare these sensations to. A total eclipse elicits a unique, visceral, primeval feeling that cannot be evoked by a photograph or a video or a newspaper article, and that can be experienced only within the path of totality when the moon completely obscures the disk of the sun.

And then of course there is the crowning glory: the sun’s corona, the pearly white outer atmosphere of our nearest star that we can otherwise see only using a fleet of dedicated solar-observing spacecraft. It has an ethereal beauty that is challenging to articulate.

For those brief few moments when the corona appears bright in the sky, all the effort made to experience the totality becomes worth it. You want to soak up every second of it and process every feeling, because it is over all too soon. Once the moon’s shadow has passed you feel both exhilarated and deflated because the next opportunity to experience this sensation again could be years away and on the other side of the world. And it is something that you will crave.

There is also, of course, the professional motivation for me to gaze upon the subject of my research with my own eyes. Most other astrophysicists only get to look at exploding stars or distant comets through gargantuan telescopes, where they appear as mere pixels on a computer screen or a squiggle on a graph. It’s easy to get detached from the beauty of astronomy when your job becomes more focused on securing grant funding, teaching, administrative duties and bureaucracy. Eclipse chasing reminds me why I chose this field of work in the first place and reignites my passion — and I want to inspire my students with that same passion.

Each eclipse is different. The shape and structure of the solar corona varies over the course of each solar cycle. The longer the duration of the eclipse, the darker one’s surroundings are likely to seem. And sandwiched between the sun’s “surface” and the corona is the crimson red chromosphere, the layer of the sun’s atmosphere that I have been researching for almost 20 years to understand its relationship to solar flares. In Australia the briefness of totality meant that this region was exceptionally bright and distinguished, and one could even spot some solar prominences (clouds of hydrogen gas suspended above the chromosphere) with the naked eye. That may also be the case on Monday.

People mistakenly think that a partial eclipse is good enough. It is not. When outside the path of totality, the visibility of even 1 percent of the sun’s disk is enough to outshine the entire corona. The buzz around this year’s eclipse through North America has reached a fever pitch not seen since the “Great American Eclipse” of 2017. The duration of totality will be almost twice as long — almost four and a half minutes. (Whether the weather will cooperate is still an open question .)

This is far from the first time I’ve tried to cajole people into experiencing the totality in full. In 2017, I persuaded several of my friends in the United States to join me in Nebraska to enjoy the spectacle without forcing them to traipse halfway across the globe. They later told me that they at first thought I may have been somewhat exaggerating the experience because of my professional bias, but when the eclipse was over, I knew that they finally got it. Their faces were overcome with emotion and they struggled to articulate how they were feeling. Because it wasn’t just about what they had seen — it was about what they had experienced.

Ryan Milligan is a solar physicist at Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He has held research fellowships at NASA and the Science and Technology Facilities Council in Britain and was affiliated with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center for over a decade.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on Facebook , Instagram , TikTok , WhatsApp , X and Threads .

The Metamorphosis: Essay Samples - Links & Descriptions

To write an exceptional essay on The Metamorphosis , you need an extraordinary example. In this article, our team collected relevant samples that will help you compose the paper on any topic. Besides, you’ll see the ideas for your own The Metamorphosis essay.

📝 The Metamorphosis: Essay Samples

• The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Genre: Essay Words: 2281 Focused on: Society and individuality, human and material values Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa, Grete Samsa
• Kafka’s The Metamorphosis Analysis Essay Genre: Analytical Essay Words: 1654 Focused on: Modernism perspective and symbolism Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa, Mr. Samsa
• The Limited Third-Person Narrator in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis Genre: Essay Words: 1546 Focused on: The role of the omniscient narrator Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa
• Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Genre: Essay Words: 1319 Focused on: Dreams in The Metamorphosis , the father-son relationship Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa, Mr. Samsa, Grete Samsa
• “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka Genre: Essay, Book Review Words: 699 Focused on: The author’s message and the predicament of the modern man Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa
• Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’ and Joseph Conrad’s ‘The Heart of Darkness’ Genre: Critical Essay Words: 1494 Focused on: Theme of colonization Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa
• Gregor’s Relationship with His Father in “Metamorphosis” Genre: Essay Words: 1983 Focused on: Father-son relationship Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa, Mr. Samsa
• Kafka’s Stories “Metamorphosis and A Hunger Artist” Genre: Research Paper Words: 2214 Focused on: Existential and social alienation Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa
• Kafka’s Stories “A Hunger Artist”, “Jackals and Arabs” and “The Metamorphosis” Genre: Essay Words: 1093 Focused on: Theme of self-sacrifice Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa, Grete Samsa
• Alienation Theme in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis Genre: Research Paper Words: 1402 Focused on: Alienation and isolation theme Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa
• The Metamorphosis, a Novel by Franz Kafka Essay Genre: Essay Words: 897 Focused on: Symbolism in The Metamorphosis Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa
• Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”: Social Aspects Essay Genre: Essay Words: 1234 Focused on: Social issues Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa, Mr. Samsa
• Decisions of the Samsa in Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” Genre: Essay Words: 664 Focused on: Gregor’s family from the perspective of Saint Leo’s core values Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa, Grete Samsa, Mr. Samsa, Mrs. Samsa
• Writing Techniques in Stoker’s Dracula and Kafka’s The Metamorphosis Essay Genre: Essay Words: 1128 Focused on: Writing techniques used in The Metamorphosis Characters mentioned: Gregor Samsa

Thank you for reading the article! We hope our samples will help you with your own The Metamorphosis essay. You can consider our original topics as well.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to LinkedIn
• Share to email

Study Guide Menu

• Short Summary
• Chapter III
• Characters Analysis
• Symbols & Literary Analysis
• Important Quotes
• Essay Samples
• Essay Topics
• Author’s Biography‌
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, August 13). The Metamorphosis: Essay Samples - Links & Descriptions. https://ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/essay-samples-links-descriptions/

"The Metamorphosis: Essay Samples - Links & Descriptions." IvyPanda , 13 Aug. 2023, ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/essay-samples-links-descriptions/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Metamorphosis: Essay Samples - Links & Descriptions'. 13 August.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Metamorphosis: Essay Samples - Links & Descriptions." August 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/essay-samples-links-descriptions/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Metamorphosis: Essay Samples - Links & Descriptions." August 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/essay-samples-links-descriptions/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "The Metamorphosis: Essay Samples - Links & Descriptions." August 13, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/essay-samples-links-descriptions/.