Analysis of “The Metamorphosis”

According to Sokel, he refers to this as an intrinsic drive that comes from someone. One must work hard and be determined on everything that he anticipates to realize. He should not entirely depend on the external forces or commands from external sources to make him go through. He highlights the Marxist idea that someone only appears to be a true human being who can be recognized in the society when he can be positively rewarded by the works of his hands. Whenever he is imposed by the economic necessity, the work cannot actually make him became alienated because he would be engaged with other people, which is already an agent of socialization. He does not become himself as an individual; rather, he is alienated from his humankind. In this short analysis, the metamorphosis, the protagonist might become a wrong person. When Gregor works as a salesperson, he has a lot in his mind. Things might not be adding up according to him because he has to travel long distances to get customer, he has to pay his bills; he also has to take good care of this family. All these burden mounted on him does not make him happy. For this reason, he has to remain alone and except himself from the company of many. The paper will look into this issue through citation of Kafka`s depiction on the way in which the protagonist react to the idea leading his family into the misfortune. He eventually suffer the guilt of conscience which by all means dismisses Marx`s assertion that loss of humanity can also come from external sources like work mates and family members. International Journal of Arts and Sciences CD-ROM ISSN: 1944-6934 2017 Volume 09, Number 04From the journal, Palvos states that dangling among the vicissitudes in the world without harmony accomplishes a great blow to one`s moral identity. In life, every turn a fatality that has nothing to do with an incorrigible personal law and ethical countenance. If this happens, ones hope and determinations are all shuttered and his life remains without a meaning. Gregor`s self alienation and humiliation is suggestive of the modern dilemma of human beings in the technological period of machines who brute facts and information systems. This analysis points through and through to the reality of material existence and the possibilities of its fall, consequently moves toward the complete subversion of an ethical universe. From a responsible man who could take good care of his family to someone who is mentally tortured and only feels comfortable when he isolates himself from other people. Gregor's metamorphosis from a civilized man into a horrific and monstrous vermin, an instinctual underworld character with an almost automatic nature, and finally to a simple bit of matter, turns him into an antagonist who upsets all the instincts of life. Indeed, Kafka's criminal world vermin gives rise to a deep and stifled impulse in modernity, to the gradual spiritual death of the human, a metamorphosis par excellence of the human substantiate that overrides all instinctual and hermeneutical bound. When the mental capability of human being fails to reason, he is recognized as a worthless being that is at par reasoning with all animals. Henceforth, the humiliated modern human -uprooted beyond bound. When one is stripped of all ethical purposefulness, he no longer possesses the moral entity given to thinking and questioning. He is called to de facto accept and obey the mastermind of pretence techno capital reality, and, the geophysical enterprise of its dully respect.Miyamoto, Kaori. â€Å"Erich Fromm's theory of alienation.†University of Massachusetts Amherst, February 2014, pp. 1-47. Positive factors of freedom sometimes blind many people. Myamoto emphasized on this statement by saying that most of the rich and modernized societies today have a lot of freedom and they enjoy it extremely without sensing the side effects associated with the freedom. The societies have failed in looking at the two sides of the coin. He goes by saying that alienation is a side effect associated with the freedom which most of us have failed to look into with a lot of concern. He support his claim by citing Enrich Fromm`s concept of alienation. He says that the relation of human being is very pivotal especially to those who are alienated. Those alienated should be put close to other people. Being alone to people is not enough, but it should be in all dimensions, through feelings, thoughts and even actions. This source identifies alienation as one of the side effect of identification of human being. Kafka`s protagonist, Gregor is very potential and cooperative in providing to the family. He shows all the ability of taking care of his parents. However, at some points, he alienates himself from the family, an aspect of perpetuated by the ended gratitude and concordat he previously got from them. Because of the isolation, he cannot be identified as someone who is financially stable and can take good care of the family.Nicolae, Cristina. â€Å"Franz Kafka's metamorphotic prison: the door and the window.† Studia Universitatis Petru Maior, Philologia 18, 2015, p. 143- According to Nicolae, he makes his argument to the modern family where one appears to be insignificant or cannot realize his life dreams. He argues that the fact that Gregory stays benevolent makes him appear someone who is finally alienated and spends most of his time alone even without the family knowing his whereabouts. Gregor is portrayed as one who cannot be recognized in the society and he struggles with his loneliness at work place where he decided to seek new identity. At one point, the protagonist identifies himself with a creature which does not make him associate in the light; he rather has to hide himself in the darkness. Actually, being rejected makes one loose his value and becomes worthless before other people. In this regard, this source proves resourceful in identifying the change in Gregor which is from metal to physical level because of the challenge he gets while dealing with his family. From the outlook, Gregor does no change his moral standing irrespective of all the humiliations that he comes across. According to this source, morality is a factor in Gregor`s alienation after being neglected by the family. The social strength which is acquired by the family proves a lot of dehumanization as they draw the attention they originally had for Gregor. Yaron, Idan and Herzog, Omri (2013). â€Å"Kafka's ruins in popular culture: A story of Metamorphosis.† Journal of Popular Culture 46:5, 1092-106.According to Yaron, maintaining culture in the society is very important. Culture helps in preserving the codes of conduct that governs good stay in the community. One who alienates himself from the culture has no positive contribution to the society. According to him, Gregor commits no crime towards anyone only that he was not true to himself and there was nothing that amazing that could make him alienate himself the other people. The split that he experiences in his personality, his deepest struggle and abandoning the culture includes everything taking place within him. However, most people who do not experience such things do not know about it. They can either choose to ignore or deny it. Gregor out rightly bears no illusion about the metaphysical chasm that encircles him and the isolation it brings from those around him who are his equals but do not know it. This gulf is not alienation from his family and the hypocrisy of his relations to them both prior and after the metamorphosis, but is the isolation where a disillusioned man who awakens to a radical awareness of his own mortality suffers the awful experience of separation from others. The separation is actually against the culture. The culture does not allow one ton separate from others irrespective of the situation, however, this takes place because of what he feels in his innermost heart. His corporeity points to his mortality which makes the inhuman world his master. Gregor's inhuman world is as incomprehensible to human reason and sensibility as is death; it is far more human and humane than the reality of the people surrounding him who have denied their own mortality. Modernity and the existential metaphysics of life and death in kafka's metamorphosis pavlos e. michaelides (2017) university of nicosia, CyprusFollowing the customs of our world, and according to the laws of habit and self-complacency, it would be beyond the bounds of scientific innovation for us to wake one morning and find ourselves transformed into colossal insects. Grego`s metamorphosis touches a deep, unappreciated, and anguishing reality in life. This is nourished by sources which are deeper than those of cogent reflection and scientific knowledge. Our personal existence can sometime lead us to horrifying and most anguishing discovery. This points out that the transitory nature of our lives and places can absolutely have great demand on our moral nature to reconcile with its true temporal dimensions. In this plinth, Gregor is doomed from the beginning. His far-reaching transformation into vermin is just physical and irrevocably. Later, it fully becomes impossible for him to reconcile the radical discontinuity between his newly discovered physical structure and his prior human self. The sudden awakening to the devastating discovery of his metamorphosis even brings backfire of his daily expectations with a terrifying inability not to achieve them again. His former self remains qualitatively unchangeable, indeed throughout the story is mostly baffled helplessly trying to adjust to radical change. Despite the tremendous effort that he puts, he ultimately finds it impossible to cope or bridge the gap between an unbridgeable void, which makes his insect like physical structure and the retaining of meaningful human identity.