A work that represents existentialism
Introduction
Since his year of publication in 1915, Franz Kafka’s metamorphosis has been considered a work that represents existentialism, presenting man in his solitude, condemned to live prisoner of his own freedom. Being a story built in Germany, at an era that faces the problem of relations between modern man and his world. It is evident because in this and many more works the real world is rebuilt, creating an arbitrary and even strange reality in contrast to the clear and logical world. Gregorio Samsa is a victim of a gradual dehumanization process that is evidenced in three key moments, this also led to the general release of the family. In the story, Samsa, a traveler merchant, awakens a morning turned into an insect, the novel focuses on this fact that takes place for three months to the death of the protagonist.
Developing
It also happens that in metamorphosis, there is a richness of meanings where existential anguish prevails, where the relationship between Kafka and his father is reflected in Gregorio’s and his parent. Expressing this, it is important to note that Franz wrote a letter addressed to his father, which he never sent, manifesting the anguish that his father caused him, feeling crushed under his demand and contempt. Thus, in this letter, his lack of trust accused of his father’s tyranny is evidenced. Together this is related to the work, since he presents himself to a protagonist unable to do things alone to his transformation, where as in the author’s life, the character of the character makes him feel miserable in more than an occasion. Gregorio Samsa, just said Franz Kafka. Metamorphosis is a destiny that dehumanizes the human being until it becomes nothing.
It is at the beginning of the work, where Gregorio’s dehumanization is first evident, when he woke up, he notices his new form, that of an insect, not in a dream, but in the real world, when Gregorio Samsa woke up a morning , he found himself in his bed turned into a horrible bug. After this, Gregorio continues to analyze his body, but without surprise, which returns to his animality in a common fact, his only concern was to go to his work.
Throughout the work, Samsa suffers physical and mental deterioration. He is an animal voice said the main. Exemplifying what has been said, this shows in his voice that is incomprehensible to the human ear, which is deformed and unintelligible. When his mainness threatens his work, Gregorio responds endless things, ensuring that he will go to work immediately. There is a consequence, Gregorio’s first attempt to continue clinging to his humanity. At this time, the ignorance he has before his limitations is evident, since he plans to do everything normally, however the only normal thing that remains of his situation is his conscience.
Like him, he cares little about his physical appearance, so he simply wants to follow his life as he does every day, what he wants most is communicating, but in reality nobody listens to him. He thinks and analyzes each situation, he wants to express everything that happened. However, they never answer him, they only act assuming the facts but not to hear his reasons, this is how the insect becomes an icon of the inability of communication against the outside world that rules it and abandons.
Kafka describes in his work what we can call the ethos of the humiliated, that is, the way of being or the character possessed by the individuals who occupy the lower levels of the hierarchy is evident in the work, since those around him Gregorio, he is trapped in the insect body involuntarily, they care little if he still thinks or feels like a human. This reaches such a point, that he even feels guilty about the discomfort he has caused them.
The second key stage where you can see an advance in the dehumanization of it is when seeing the foods that he used to fascinate him, he disgusts them and develops an attraction that neither he explains himself by rotten food. This clearly exemplifies how his humanity fades and how the animal instinct begins to prevail, although he does not realize. As well as when he bored he begins to entertain with his insect body. This fact would be a lot to say that he accepted the fact of being an insect, but in this phase he can appreciate how he feels much more comfortable in his new skin.
Likewise, Greta begins to be aware of Gregorio’s behaviors, she decides with her mother, remove everything inside the room. But Gregorio does not agree, when he withdrew from his room, he followed his animal instinct and headed towards a picture of his wall, and covered it with his body. This seems to be one of the final moments where he tries once again to hold on to his humanity outline, but this does not last long, since after this he enjoys even more of the space in his room. Gregorio understood that the lack of any direct human relationship, together with the monotony of the existence that he had among his own, due to disrupt his mind in those two months. Him’s animality predominant to the human again,
This whole dehumanization process is influenced after its body transformation. With the passing of time Gregory acquired more physical and emotional beetle characteristics, you can see how your family also begins to change even more, giving little importance to this being, which you don’t even consider family.
Finally, what really defines the last stage of his humanism occurs when even the sister, who was the one who cared the most at him at the beginning, tells her mother that it is pertinent to forget that the insect is really Gregory. By saying this, Greta suggests that this is the root of all his problems and that they should leave everything behind. So much so that the excessive fury that her father feels towards him, makes him throw an apple behind her son, which would inevitably lead to death. It was embedded in his body for a month, as a reminder of the end of compassion by everyone in his family. This demonstrates how people can be dehumanized by society only by the change of their physical features and their behavior.
Gregorio’s death is a relief for all family members. Thus the dehumanization process was in parallel, a humanization process for them. They went from being unable beings, a family maintained by a single person, to be self-sufficient people who begin to work, even contributing to Gregorio isolation. The death of this being leads them to a complete release. When they became self-employed, they improved the one in which he met for several years, and could forget those overwhelming three months.
Throughout the work, resources can be seen as the rhetorical question to emphasize what is expressed, just as to encourage the questioning of why things happen. There is also an extensive use of metaphors, but the main one is the story itself. Metamorphosis represents the metaphor of compressed man after the injustice of others, thus becoming a reflection of reality. Not being able to recognize themselves in that portrait built by themselves, they disgust and exile.
conclusion
It is concluded that a whole family could break a cycle of dependence and monotony only when the irreversible of Gregorio’s transformation was accepted and assimilated by its members. In turn, Gregorio’s metamorphosis highlights some dark aspects of human nature such as prejudices based on physical appearance. The metamorphosis that led to the gradual dehumanization of the central character, leaves in the reader an ambivalent sensation of disagreement due to the abuse of which he was a victim, a being whose act was focused on the work and maintenance of his family; and of satisfaction to know that only following his death the petty family of his was liberated until he got self-sufficiency.
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