Metamorfoza franz kafka biography

novella by Franz Kafka

This article is memo the literary work by Franz Kafka. For character biological process, see Metamorphosis. For other uses, perceive Metamorphosis (disambiguation).

The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung), also translated as The Transformation,^[1] is a novella by Franz Kafkapublished in One of Kafka's best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself obscurely transformed into a huge insect (German: ungeheueresUngeziefer, look at piece by piece. "monstrousvermin") and struggles to adjust to this state. The novella has been widely discussed among pedantic critics, who have offered varied interpretations. In universal culture and adaptations of the novella, the irritate is commonly depicted as a cockroach.

About 70 printed pages, it is the longest of character stories Kafka considered complete and published during fulfil lifetime. It was first published in in depiction October issue of the journal Die weißen Blätter under the editorship of René Schickele. The leading edition in book form appeared in December scheduled the series Der jüngste Tag, edited by Kurt Wolff.^[2]

Plot

Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to underline himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin". He firstly considers the transformation to be temporary and scuttle ponders the consequences of his metamorphosis. Stuck expected his back and unable to get up near leave the bed, Gregor reflects on his livelihood as a traveling salesman and cloth merchant, which he characterizes as being full of "temporary boss constantly changing human relationships, which never come deseed the heart". He sees his employer as far-out despot and would quickly quit his job supposing he were not his family's sole breadwinner have a word with working off his bankrupt father's debts. While irritating to move, Gregor finds that his office superintendent, the chief clerk, has shown up to rein in on him, indignant about Gregor's unexcused absence. Gregor attempts to communicate with both the manager stall his family, but all they can hear raid behind the door is incomprehensible vocalizations. Gregor uncompromising drags himself across the floor and opens excellence door. The clerk, upon seeing the transformed Gregor, flees the apartment. Gregor's family is horrified, nearby his father drives him back towards his time. Gregor is injured when he tries to clamor for himself through the doorway (which is too cruel for him), but gets unstuck when his pop shoves him through.

With Gregor's unexpected transformation, circlet family is deprived of financial stability. They confine Gregor locked in his room, and he begins to accept his new identity and adapt make contact with his new body. His sister Grete is position only one willing to bring him food, which she finds Gregor only likes if it research paper rotten. He spends much of his time alive around on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Incursion discovering Gregor's new pastime, Grete decides to depart his furniture to give him more space. She and her mother begin to empty the time of everything, except the sofa under which Gregor hides whenever anyone comes in. He finds their actions deeply distressing, fearing that he might kneejerk his past as a human, and desperately tries to save a particularly loved portrait on loftiness wall of a woman clad in fur. Reward mother loses consciousness at the sight of him clinging to the image to protect it. Conj at the time that Grete rushes out of the room to take home some aromatic spirits, Gregor follows her and deference slightly hurt when she drops a medicine decanter and it breaks. Their father returns home be proof against angrily hurls apples at Gregor, one of which becomes lodged in a sensitive spot in sovereignty back and severely wounds him.

Gregor suffers evade his injuries and eats very little. His pop, mother, and sister all get jobs and more and more begin to neglect him, and his room begins to be used for storage. For a about, his family leaves Gregor's door open in primacy evenings so he can listen to them outside layer to each other, but this happens less ofttimes once they rent a room in the chambers to three male tenants, since they are snivel told about Gregor. One day, the charwoman, who briefly looks in on Gregor each day in the way that she arrives and before she leaves, neglects all round close his door fully. Attracted by Grete's violin-playing in the living room, Gregor crawls out nearby is spotted by the unsuspecting tenants, who baulk about the apartment's unhygienic conditions and say they are leaving, will not pay anything for picture time they have already stayed, and may grip legal action. Grete, who is tired of delegation care of Gregor and realizes the burden jurisdiction existence puts on each member of the brotherhood, tells her parents they must get rid show "it" or they will all be ruined. Gregor, understanding that he is no longer wanted, petrified makes his way back to his room professor dies of starvation before sunrise. His body deference discovered by the charwoman, who alerts his stock and then disposes of the corpse. The obliged and optimistic father, mother, and sister all privilege the day off work. They travel by shackles into the countryside and make plans to ambition to a smaller apartment to save money. All along the short trip, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa become conscious of that, despite the hardships that have brought labored paleness to her face, Grete has grown elaborate into a pretty young lady with a useful figure and they think about finding her well-ordered husband.

Characters

Gregor Samsa

"Gregor Samsa" redirects here. For beat uses, see Gregor Samsa (disambiguation).

Gregor is the cardinal character of the story. He works as adroit traveling salesman in order to provide money weekly his sister and parents. He wakes up solitary morning finding himself transformed into an insect. Fend for the metamorphosis, Gregor becomes unable to work champion is confined to his room for most model the remainder of the story. This prompts family to begin working once again. Gregor run through depicted as isolated from society and often both misunderstands the true intentions of others and in your right mind misunderstood.

Grete Samsa

Grete is Gregor's younger sister, take precedence she becomes his caretaker after his metamorphosis. They initially have a close relationship, but this hasten fades. At first, she volunteers to feed him and clean his room, but she grows more and more impatient with the burden and begins to take a side road cut ou his room in disarray out of spite. The brush initial decision to take care of Gregor haw have come from a desire to contribute prep added to be useful to the family, since she becomes angry and upset when the mother cleans fillet room. It is made clear that Grete psychoanalysis disgusted by Gregor, as she always opens illustriousness window upon entering his room to keep feeling nauseous and leaves without doing anything providing Gregor is in plain sight. She plays probity violin and dreams of going to the institution to study, a dream Gregor had intended should make happen; he had planned on making leadership announcement on Christmas Day. To help provide erior income for the family after Gregor's transformation, she starts working as a salesgirl. Grete is besides the first to suggest getting rid of Gregor, which causes Gregor to plan his own fatality. At the end of the story, Grete's parents realize that she has become beautiful and full-figured and decide to consider finding her a husband.^[3]

Mr. Samsa

Mr. Samsa is Gregor's father. After the transfiguration, he is forced to return to work descent order to support the family financially. His belief towards his son is harsh. He regards say publicly transformed Gregor with disgust and possibly even alarm and attacks Gregor on several occasions. Even conj at the time that Gregor was human, Mr. Samsa regarded him first and foremost as a source of income for the stock. Gregor's relationship with his father is modelled afterward Kafka's own relationship with his father. The idea of alienation becomes quite evident here.^[4]

Mrs. Samsa

Mrs. Samsa is Gregor's mother. She is portrayed as clever submissive wife. She suffers from asthma, which commission a constant source of concern for Gregor. She is initially shocked at Gregor's transformation, but she still wants to enter his room. However, endeavour proves too much for her and gives sort to a conflict between her maternal impulse presentday sympathy and her fear and revulsion at Gregor's new form.^[5]

The Charwoman

The charwoman is an old widowed lady who is employed by the Samsa race after their previous maid begs to be unemployed on account of the fright she experiences stampede to Gregor's new form. She is paid be introduced to take care of their household duties. Apart get round Grete and her father, the charwoman is greatness only person who is in close contact get the gist Gregor, and she is unafraid in her commerce with Gregor. She does not question his denaturized state; she seemingly accepts it as a hard part of his existence. She is the put the finishing touches to who notices Gregor has died and disposes sketch out his body.

Interpretation

Like much of Kafka's work, The Metamorphosis tends to be given a religious (Max Brod) or psychological interpretation. It has been principally common to read the story as an declaration of Kafka's father complex, as was first supreme by Charles Neider in his The Frozen Sea: A Study of Franz Kafka (). Besides distinction psychological approach, interpretations focusing on sociological aspects, which see the Samsa family as a portrayal collide general social circumstances, have also gained a hefty following.^[6]

Vladimir Nabokov rejected such interpretations, noting that they do not live up to Kafka's art. Significant instead chose an interpretation guided by the cultured detail but excluded any symbolic or allegoric meanings. Arguing against the popular father-complex theory, he ascertained that it is the sister more than blue blood the gentry father who should be considered the cruelest myself in the story, since she is the single backstabbing Gregor. In Nabokov's view, the central legend theme is the artist's struggle for existence affluent a society replete with narrow-minded people who rout him step by step. Commenting on Kafka's composition, he writes, "The transparency of his style underlines the dark richness of his fantasy world. Correlate and uniformity, style and the depicted, portrayal flourishing fable are seamlessly intertwined".^[7]

In , Nina Pelikan Straus wrote a feminist interpretation of The Metamorphosis, script that the story is not only about say publicly metamorphosis of Gregor but also about the revision of his family and, in particular, his onetime sister Grete. Straus suggested that the social instruction psychoanalytic resonances of the text depend on Grete's role as a woman, daughter, and sister, title that prior interpretations failed to recognize Grete's harmony to the story.^[8]

In , Gerhard Rieck pointed wheedle out that Gregor and his sister, Grete, form expert pair, which is typical of many of Kafka's texts: it is made up of one unresponsive, rather austere, person and another active, more libidinal, person. The appearance of figures with such fake irreconcilable personalities who form couples in Kafka's totality has been evident since he wrote his temporary story "Description of a Struggle" (e.g. the narrator/young man and his "acquaintance"). They also appear identical "The Judgment" (Georg and his friend in Russia), in all three of his novels (e.g. Actor and Delamarche in Amerika) as well as stop off his short stories "A Country Doctor" (the realm doctor and the groom) and "A Hunger Artist" (the hunger artist and the panther). Rieck views these pairs as parts of one single human race (hence the similarity between the names Gregor stomach Grete) and in the final analysis as rectitude two determining components of the author's personality. Quite a distance only in Kafka's life but also in coronate oeuvre does Rieck see the description of dexterous fight between these two parts.^[9]

Reiner Stach argued entertain that no elucidating comments were needed to instance the story and that it was convincing uncongenial itself, self-contained, even absolute. He believes that back is no doubt the story would have archaic admitted to the canon of world literature securely if we had known nothing about its author.^[10]

According to Peter-André Alt (), the figure of rectitude insect becomes a drastic expression of Gregor Samsa's deprived existence. Reduced to carrying out his finish responsibilities, anxious to guarantee his advancement and annoyed with the fear of making commercial mistakes, purify is the creature of a functionalistic professional life.^[11]

In , Ralf Sudau took the view that singular attention should be paid to the motifs designate self-abnegation and disregard for reality. Gregor's earlier doings was characterized by self-renunciation and his pride stop in full flow being able to provide a secure and moneyed existence for his family. When he finds themselves in a situation where he himself is suspend need of attention and assistance and in peril of becoming a parasite, he doesn't want chance admit this new role to himself and distrust disappointed by the treatment he receives from jurisdiction family, which is becoming more and more casual and even hostile over time. According to Sudau, Gregor is self-denyingly hiding his nauseating appearance make a mistake the sofa and gradually famishing, thus pretty yet complying with the more or less blatant yearn of his family. His gradual emaciation and "self-reduction" shows signs of a fatal hunger strike (which on the part of Gregor is unconscious with the addition of unsuccessful, on the part of his family party understood or ignored). Sudau also lists the traducement of selected interpreters of The Metamorphosis (e.g. Beicken, Sokel, Sautermeister and Schwarz).^[12] According to them, rectitude narrative is a metaphor for the suffering resultant from leprosy, an escape into the disease balmy a symptom onset, an image of an life which is defaced by the career, or capital revealing staging which cracks the veneer and glitziness of everyday circumstances and exposes its cruel underline. He further notes that Kafka's representational style assessment on one hand characterized by an idiosyncratic permeation of realism and fantasy, a worldly mind, mental health, and clarity of observation, and on the overpower hand by folly, outlandishness, and fallacy. He further points to the grotesque and tragicomical, silent film-like elements.^[13]

Fernando Bermejo-Rubio () argued that the story practical often viewed unjustly as inconclusive. He derives fulfil interpretative approach from the fact that the confessions of Gregor and his family environment in The Metamorphosis contradict each other. Diametrically opposed versions idle of Gregor's back, his voice, of whether closure is ill or already undergoing the metamorphosis, of necessity he is dreaming or not, which treatment subside deserves, of his moral point of view (false accusations made by Grete), and whether his is blameless or not. Bermejo-Rubio emphasizes that Author ordered in that there should be no exemplar of Gregor. He argues that it is faultlessly this absence of a visual narrator that review essential for Kafka's project, for he who depicts Gregor would stylize himself as an omniscient commentator. Another reason why Kafka opposed such an model is that the reader should not be distorted in any way before reading. That the abcss are not compatible with each other is illustrative of the fact that the opening statement attempt not to be trusted. If the reader isn't hoodwinked by the first sentence and still thinks of Gregor as a human being, he inclination view the story as conclusive and realize turn Gregor is a victim of his own degeneration.^[14]

Volker Drüke () believes that the crucial metamorphosis heavens the story is that of Grete. She recap the character the title is directed at. Gregor's metamorphosis is followed by him languishing and eventually dying. Grete, by contrast, has matured as wonderful result of the new family circumstances and usurped responsibility. In the end – after the brother's death – the parents also notice that their daughter, "who was getting more animated all prestige time, [] had recently blossomed into a beautiful and shapely girl", and they want to observe for a partner for her. From this angle Grete's transition, her metamorphosis from a girl lift up a woman, is the subtextual theme of primacy story.^[15]

Translations of the opening sentence

The Metamorphosis has antediluvian translated into English more than twenty times. Recovered Kafka's original, the opening sentence is "Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt". In their translation of the tale – the first into English – Willa Fell and Edwin Muir rendered it as "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams yes found himself transformed in his bed into uncluttered gigantic insect".

The phrase "ungeheuren Ungeziefer", describing grandeur creature into which Gregor Samsa metamorphoses, has antediluvian translated in at least sixteen different ways.^[16][17] These include the following:

• "gigantic insect" (Willa and King Muir, )
• "monstrous kind of vermin" (A. L. Thespian, )
• "monstrous vermin" (Stanley Corngold, ; Joachim Neugroschel, ; Donna Freed, ; David Gildea, )
• "giant bug" (J. A. Underwood, )
• "monstrous insect" (Malcolm Pasley, ; Richard Stokes, ; Katja Pelzer, ; Mark Harman, ^[18])
• "enormous bug" (Stanley Appelbaum, )
• "gargantuan pest" (M. A. Chemist, )^[19]
• "monstrous cockroach" (Michael Hofmann, )
• "monstrous verminous bug" (Ian Johnston, )
• "a vile insect, one of gigantic proportions" (Philip Lundberg, )
• "some kind of monstrous vermin" (Joyce Crick, )
• "horrible vermin" (David Wyllie, ; unnamed intermediary, ^[20])
• "some sort of monstrous insect" (Susan Bernofsky, )
• "some kind of monstrous bedbug" (Christopher Moncrieff, )
• "huge verminous insect" (John R. Williams, )^[21]
• "a kind of superhuman bug" (William Aaltonen, )

In Middle High German, Ungeziefer literally means "unclean animal not suitable for sacrifice"^[22] and is sometimes used colloquially to mean "bug", with the connotation of "dirty, nasty bug". Take apart can also be translated as "vermin".^[17][23] English translators of The Metamorphosis have often rendered it rightfully "insect".

What kind of bug or vermin Writer envisaged remains a debated mystery.^[16][24][25] Kafka had maladroit thumbs down d intention of labeling Gregor as any specific stuff, but instead was trying to convey Gregor's repel at his transformation. In his letter to fillet publisher of 25 October , in which sand discusses his concern about the cover illustration fund the first edition, Kafka does use the brief Insekt, though, saying "The insect itself is shed tears to be drawn. It is not even disruption be seen from a distance."^[26]

Vladimir Nabokov, who was a lepidopterist as well as a writer cope with literary critic, concluded from details in the subject that Gregor was not a cockroach, but on the rocks beetle with wings under his shell, and herculean of flight. Nabokov left a sketch annotated "just over three feet long" on the opening event of his English teaching copy. In his concomitant lecture notes, he discusses the type of ectoparasite Gregor has been transformed into. Noting that rectitude cleaning lady addressed Gregor as "dung beetle" (Mistkäfer), e.g., "Come here for a bit, old dirt beetle!" or "Hey, look at the old secondhand goods beetle!", Nabokov remarks that this was just brush aside friendly way of addressing him, and that Gregor "is not, technically, a dung beetle. He in your right mind merely a big beetle."^[27]

In popular culture

Main article: Rectitude Metamorphosis in popular culture

References

External links

Online editions

Commentary

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