4. Brief Biography
Kafka was born in Prague, a large provincial
capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire that
was home to many Czechs, some Germans,
and a lesser number of German-cultured,
German-speaking Jews. His father, Hermann
Kafka, of humble rural origin, was a hard-
working, hard-driving, successful merchant.
His mother tongue was Czech, but he spoke
German, correctly seeing the language as an
important card to be played in the contest for
social and economic mobility and security.
5. As a youngster, Kafka, like his father, has no more than the most
perfunctory relationship with Judaism. He dutifully memorized what
was necessary for his bar mitzvah, but he was already an atheist
Writing early became an issue in the antagonism between Kafka and
his father; the latter continued to disdain writing as an unworthy
occupation long after Kafka became a published author.
He received his doctorate in law on 18 June 1907.
Kafka found a new job with the Workers' Accident Insurance Institute
for the Kingdom of Bohemia. He worked there until her retired in
1922.
In August 1914 the thirty-one-year-old Kafka, having completed the
novella In der Strafkolonie (1919; translated as "In the Penal Colony,"
1941) and begun working on the novel Der Prozeß (1925; translated
as The Trial, 1937), finally moved out of his parents' home.
He suffered a series of failed engagements. Much of Kafka's personal
struggles, in romance and other relationships, came, he believed, in
part from his complicated relationship with his father.
After horrible suffering, he died on 3 June 1924 of tuberculosis of the
larynx.
6. Franz Kafka is one of the founders
of modern literature.
His claim to greatness includes his service in completely collapsing the
aesthetic distance that had traditionally separated the writer from the
reader. In what is probably his most famous work of fiction, Die
Verwandlung (1915; translated as "Metamorphosis," 1936-1938), the
protagonist, Gregor Samsa, is presented to the reader as a man who has
become an insect; Gregor's condition is never suggested to be an illusion
or dream (although many critics have commented on its dreamlike
qualities). In his shock at the result of Kafka's unmediated aesthetic
distance, the reader is led to forgo his usual reflective and explicative
function. Kafka has his characters perform that explicative function--
hectically, repeatedly, self-contradictorily, and with a new kind of irony
that has come to characterize modern literature. Finally, in an age that
celebrates the mass, Kafka redirects the focus to the individual. His
characters stand for themselves as individuals; in the case of the male
protagonists--and almost all of his protagonists are male--they stand for
Kafka himself.
7. Historical Content
For most of Kafka's lifetime, his home town of Prague was a Czech
city within a German-speaking empire, the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. Only at the end of World War I did that Empire disappear,
leading to the creation of an independent Czechoslovakia. But in
1912, when Kafka was writing The Metamorphosis, the Czechs had
not yet won their independence, and despite its Czech majority,
Prague was dominated by a German-speaking elite. Recognizing
where the power lay in the city, the Jews of Prague tended to identify
with the German minority rather than with the Czech majority; the
Czechs therefore considered the Jews to be part of the German
community, but the Germans themselves did not. As a result, it was
easy for the Jews to feel that they did not fit in anywhere.
In general, Prague was a city of ethnic tensions, primarily between
Czechs and Germans and between Czechs and Jews. In 1897,
when Kafka was fourteen, the tensions erupted into anti-Semitic riots
started by the Czechs. Thus Kafka would have grown up knowing
hatred and hostility as well as the difficulty of fitting in.
9. Third Person/Limited Omniscient
The story is mainly told through the
perspective of Gregor Samsa, as if the
narrator were planted with Gregor's human
consciousness inside Gregor's insect body.
We discover aspects of Gregor's body as he
himself discovers them. If he itches, we don't
know why until he looks to see what's making
him itch. If he's hungry, we don't know what he
likes to eat until he discovers his preference
for rotten foods.
The narrator does break out of Gregor's
perspective on occasion and weaves into the
minds of other characters, most notably in the
last few paragraphs of the story after Gregor
dies.
Who is the narrator, can she or he read minds, and,
more importantly, can we trust her or him?
10. Technique
This novella is an extended literalization of the
implications of the metaphor used in its initial
sentence. Gregor is metamorphosed into an insectlike
species of vermin, with Kafka careful not to identify
the precise nature of Gregor’s bughood. German
usage applies Kafka’s term, Ungeziefer, to
contemptible, spineless, parasitic persons, akin to
English connotations of the work “cockroach.”
Gregor’s passivity and abjectness before authority link
him with these meanings, as Kafka develops the fable
by transforming the metaphor back into the
imaginative reality of his fiction. After all, Gregor’s
metamorphosis constitutes a revelation of the truth
regarding his low self-esteem. It is a self-judgment by
his repressed and continually defeated humanity.
11. Critical Overview
Kafka today is a household word around the world, one of the few
writers to have an adjective named after him (‘‘Kafkaesque’’),
describing the dream-like yet oppressive atmosphere characteristic
of his works. When his writings first appeared, however, some
reviewers found them baffling, tedious, or exasperating; and the two
extreme ideological movements of the twentieth century both found
his message unacceptable. The Nazis banned him, and Communist
critics denounced him as decadent and despairing.
But fairly quickly Kafka began to be praised by a host of influential
writers and intellectuals. The English poet W. H. Auden compared
him to Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe. The German writer
Thomas Mann, quoted by Ronald Gray in his book Franz Kafka,
said that Kafka's works are "among the worthiest things to be read
in German literature." And the philosopher Hannah Arendt, writing
during World War II, said (also as quoted by Gray) that "Kafka's
nightmare of a world ... has actually come to pass.’’
12. Questions for Section 1
1. Discuss the details Kafka uses to establish Gregor’s life
before his metamorphosis into an insect. How do these
familiar details and objects define Gregor’s character
and life?
1. The relationship between Gregor and his father is at
the core of the story. Describe this relationship both
before and after Gregor’s metamorphosis.
1. Much of this part of the story, focuses on Gregor’s
inner life. Describe Gregor’s private thoughts and
emotions; use psychoanalytic theory to discuss his
attitudes toward his family and outside world.
13. Questions for Section 2
Grete’s character undergoes a dramatic change in
section two. Trace the changes that highlight the
changes in her attitude, character, and personality. Can
feminist theory help explain her behavior?
Gregor refuses to part with the picture of the woman
wrapped in furs on the wall. Why is it important?
Explain its symbolic meaning.
In section two of the story, Gregor’s sense of guilt is
highlighted. Use Psychoanalytic theory to explain
Gregor’s guilt. Consider how his lingering guilt affects
his state of mind and his feelings toward his family.
14. Questions from Section 3
Discuss the three bearded lodgers. What is their
purpose in the story?
It is clear from the outset of Part 3 that Gregor is
dying. How much of his physical decline is his own
doing, and how much of it is caused by outside
factors?
Contrast Gregor’s state of mind at the beginning of
this section to right before his death. What incidents
or events cause a change in Gregor’s attitude and
thinking? Are Gregor’s thoughts rational and clear,
or are they blurred and irrational?
