An Echo of a Modernist Voice in Reference to Kafka’s The Metamorphosis: Change as Constant and Humanity as Memory

Sulagna Panda

doi:10.24113/ijellh.v9i3.10940

Abstract

This paper intends to place Kafka as a modernist by identifying certain aspects in The Metamorphosis. Kafka as a voice of modernism came into prominence mostly with his posthumous publications where he made a metaphorical representation of the deep seated realities of time. The Metamorphosis is about a commercial traveller, fatigued by the tiresome journey, who turns into monstrous vermin and the respite comes to his family and himself once he is eliminated. Kafka as usually does not clearly come up with the details of the gigantic insect that Gregor has turned into, rather he keeps it for the readers to find out by talking to each other, against each other and to themselves. Gregor is monstrous in appearance as he is perceived by others and himself but within, he is a victim who has been crushed under the monstrous wheels of capitalist world. It is only after becoming a gigantic insect, Gregor reveals everything about himself and his surrounding either in form of reminiscence or with his observation. One may find some sort of umbilical cord existing between Kafka and Gregor as Kafka himself was a poor creature whose back leg is stuck in the Judaism while his front leg, in vain, quested for a new ground, but that idea cannot be the only guiding beacon in comprehending Kafka and his works. Writing in the first half of twentieth-century in the rapidly changing world, the story The Metamorphosis carries in itself all that makes it worth considering among all other Kafka’s work.

Highlights

Writing in the first half of twentieth century in the rapidly changing world, the story The Metamorphosis carries in itself all that makes it worth considering among all other Kafka’s work
To delimit Kafka’s work on the basis of homogeneity and certain inclusiveness, it is an explicit failure on the part of the scholars as it has engaged thousands since its conception. His short stories as well as his longer posthumous publications show a tinge of absurdities, his inner dilemmas and label him as an experimenter of emerging literary phenomena of twentieth century
A change there was, ; and, since one must be arbitrary, let us date it about the year 1910.(Virginia 4) Avant-gardism was the trend of the time and the independent artists tried their hands to go beyond the photographic realism of nineteenth century

Summary

Introduction

Writing in the first half of twentieth century in the rapidly changing world, the story The Metamorphosis carries in itself all that makes it worth considering among all other Kafka’s work. In the world of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, transformation occurs at different levels pushed forward by the time and conditions. As an outsider from the beginning, the transformation is indispensible with the hope of anchoring to something that is very much like Gregor, who clutches to the photo frame in the story itself.

Results

Conclusion