Category: Kafka

There is no doubt that writing is a way to demonstrate our deepest feelings and beliefs; therefore, it is important to comprehend the background of our writing in order to understand and analyze diverse situations. The purpose of this essay is to develop a comparative analysis between the different works written by Franz Kafka: ‘The Metamorphosis’ and ‘In the Penal Colony’. Both readings are considered literary classics, and from my humble point of view, they cover complex issues like the lack of humanity and human dignity. Throughout this essay I will examine the background of the existential position of the main characters and the cruel reality that encompasses them. The importance of making this comparison lies in evaluating the similarities and differences of both readings and to understand the writing characteristics of this famous author. To support the main arguments, a brief explanation of the context will be made, the personality of the character will be analyzed, and a comparison will be elaborated between both texts.

It is important to emphasize the indifference of social injustice towards the human being. Our current world has witnessed various immoralities throughout the years, which is why Kafka emphasizes this vulnerability through his readings. Hence, to understand the perception of the author, it is compulsory to acknowledge the meaning of social injustice. In my personal opinion, I truly believe that social injustice can be understood as the integration and protection of the most vulnerable in order to establish a just and equitable society. Even when Kafka´s stories are settled in different environments (one in a prison and the other one inside of a house), both reflect a high degree of social injustice. To illustrate this, we can observe in ‘The Penal Colony’, the great inequality that the condemned person presents by not knowing directly the crime for which he has been punished. Kafka (1914) shows it in the following lines: ‘Does he know the sentence? No, said the Officer… but the traveler interrupted him: He doesn´t know his own sentence? No, said the Officer once more … it would be useless to give him that information”. On the other hand, in ‘The Metamorphosis’ we can witness the lack of fairness that is given to Gregor Samsa by his family. Despite the fact that this character transforms into an insect, he is unable to speak with his family members and face the reality in which he lives. Also, throughout the reading, the author narrates how Gregor is the one who financially supports the family but does not get any kind of recognition for it. By this, it is possible to understand that both characters are victims of the perceptions of others and neither is able to speak and fight for their rights.

Human dignity is a right which we have had since our origin; as a result, a human being should be recognized by the simple fact of being one. Frank Kafka, in his works delves into those details that demonstrate both the deterioration and the destruction of human dignity within his characters. For instance, the pure reality that is seen in ‘The Metamorphosis’ is nothing more than Gregor showing us our humanity. In this reading, it can be seen that the destruction of the character begins when he is only used for other purposes rather than his integrity as a person. His job is to feel compassion for the people around him and generate income despite suffering constant fatigue. When Gregor suffers his dramatic transformation, he stops being seen as a member of the family and becomes a ‘monster’ which comes to disturb the family stability. In this case, we can see the following statement that Gregor´s sister made in ‘The Metamorphosis’ (2015) “My dear parents… things cannot go on any longer in this way. If you don´t understand that, well, I do. I will not utter my brother´s name in front of this monster, and this I say only that we must try to get rid of it”. Similarly, in ‘The Penal Colony’ the chronicle of the events that are carried out mark the lack of dignity that is given to human beings when explaining the process that entails the machine to snatch life. This can be clearly observed when the Officer constantly describes the operation of the apparatus while emphasizing the power that the ‘old commander’ had to determine who is worthy to live and who to die. Because of this, it is possible to observe Kafka´s willingness to cover topics such as the deterioration and destruction of human dignity. Likewise, we should not deny the fact that within a society, the same inhabitants tend to foment their own destruction due to the own selfishness of the human being.

It is important to recognize that in spite of the cruel realism shown by Kafka in his readings, he also alludes moments of warmth in which he shows a sincere interest in the well-being of the characters. Therefore, it can be interpreted that, although we can have moments in which we can damage ourselves, we can also be compassionate, just and supportive. Hence, I believe that the author shows in both stories’ sensitive moments such as when Gregor´s sister tries her best to clean his room and feed him in spite of the feelings of regret and disgust. Kafka shows it in the second part of ‘The Metamorphosis’ (2015): “By the door, he first noticed what had really lured him there: it was the smell of something to eat. A bowl stood there, filled with sweetened milk… but he soon drew it back again in disappointment, not just because it was difficult for him to eat… but also because the milk, which had always been his favorite drink and which his sister had certainly placed there for that reason”. On the other hand, we can appreciate certain moments of compassion and justification between the traveler and the condemned. As far as I understand, ‘In The Penal Colony’, the story talks about the practice of penal punishment within the colony but also addresses issues of how barbarism, society and politics can shape judicial decisions. For this reason, Kafka shows us some moments in which justice and compassion can give a twist to the novel´s development. In order to support this argument, we can tan a look at the following statement (1914): “I am opposed to this procedure… I was already thinking about whether I was entitled to intervene against this procedure and whether my intervention could have even a small chance of success”. Above all, it is clear that even when we do not foresee moments of clarity, it is possible to grasp signs of affection that can make difficult moments more bearable.

As a conclusion, I would like to emphasize the characteristics that the author approaches in both readings. I firmly believe that although the stories seem a bit cruel and drastic, you can perceive the dynamics of human relations, the guilt that we bear, the verdicts imposed by external individuals, the different characters and personality that we create of ourselves, the vanity and the ego with which we act in front of others and finally the real suffering of human beings. Personally, I have no doubt about the great content behind these words. I know that every time that I read these texts again, I will be able to understand the author’s context more and with a different perspective.

In Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”, the term metamorphosis means a complete and profound change in structure and substance or a change from one stage to the next in the life of an organism. Gregor’s transformation causes remarkable changes in him and his family. Gregor’s physical transformation makes him a creature, stripping him of his humanity in the eyes of his family. Change is the essence of life, and the theme of change is organic to the action, dictating the unfolding of the plot and influencing the character’s behavior and destiny.

Gregor’s metamorphosis into a gigantic insect and the thoughts, reflections, and feelings profound change causing him on the first day. Gregor’s conscious awareness that he has become an insect and the thoughts and feelings this discovery evokes in him. “One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug” (Kafka 3). Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant beetle. After examining his new physiology, complete with many thin legs, a hardback, and a segmented belly, he wonders only momentarily what has happened to him. The familiar sights and objects in Gregor’s room and how these objects are contrasted to the extreme circumstances he finds himself in. Gregor’s chief concern is his job; the fact that he has missed his early morning train, and his fear that someone from his office may come to check on him. “’ My dear lady, I cannot explain it to myself in any other way,’ said the manager; ‘I hope it is nothing serious’” (Kafka 13). Gregor cannot understand why his sister is already crying, since he is not yet in danger of losing his job and only wants to be left alone. The chief clerk suddenly loses his temper and tells Gregor that he is shocked by his behavior. The response of the chief clerk and his parents as he shows himself to them for the first time. The familiar sights and objects in Gregor’s room and how these objects are contrasted to the extreme circumstances. Gregor’s chief concern is his job; the fact that he has missed his early morning train, and his fear that someone from his office may come to check on him. The chief clerk suddenly loses his temper and tells Gregor that he is shocked by his behavior. The response of the chief clerk and his parents as he shows himself to them for the first time.

The second change in Gregor’s life: is his adjustment to his new body, to his new life as an insect. Recognizing the limitations of his body; his loss of appetite for milk, and his private feelings for his sister. “Was he an animal that music so seized him? For him it was as if the way to the unknown nourishment he craved was revealing itself to him” (Kafka 64). Suddenly Gregor smells food, which his sister had left for him, near the door and moves toward it, discovering that it has bread floating in milk, which used to be his favorite drink. He discovers, however, that he finds milk repulsive and cannot drink it. Feelings of guilt and sorrow when he overhears his father discussing the family’s plight and financial situation. The effect the removal of his furniture has on his spirit; changes in Grete as she cares for him. “But perhaps the enthusiastic sensibility of young women of her age also played a role” (Kafka 45). Noticing this by the tracks he left, his sister decides to remove all his furniture to give him more room. Gregor’s mother suggests that if they were to remove all his furniture, it would look to him as though they had given up on his recovery. How Gregor’s helplessness affects Mr. Samsa and how this changes the balance of power in the house. Gregor’s futile attempt to placate his father’s anger and his hapless retreat to his room when he is being attacked with apples. Noticing this by the tracks he left, his sister decides to remove all his furniture to give him more room. Gregor’s mother suggests that if they were to remove all his furniture, it would look to him as though they had given up on his recovery.

The third change in Gregor’s life and in that of his family is a complete reversal of family roles, that is, the family no longer depends on Gregor for their support, while Gregor must now depend on his family for his survival. His mother’s desperate screams and pleas to spare Gregor’s life when she runs to her husband. “He slid back again into his earlier position” (Kafka 4). One of the apples sinks into Gregor’s back, causing him such pain that he cannot move. As he loses consciousness, Gregor sees his mother running to his father and begging him to spare her son’s life. The different jobs the family takes to earn money. Grete’s increasing ambivalence toward Gregor. “He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love” (Kafka 71). Grete tries to care for Gregor in the same way he used to care for her, but she seems driven by family duty rather than a true human bond, as we see from the fact that she never addresses Gregor directly except on one occasion when she turns to threaten him. Grete seems to think that Gregor cannot understand her, though he gives clear signals of his intelligence and concern for her. Gregor’s decline in health; his slide into disintegration and decay. Grete’s increasing ambivalence toward Gregor. Grete tries to care for Gregor in the same way he used to care for her, but she seems driven by family duty rather than a true human bond, as we see from the fact that she never addresses Gregor directly except on one occasion when she turns to threaten him.

The change in the family fortunes after Gregor’s death. The domino effects the three lodgers have on the plot and Gregor’s fate. “As he was thinking all this over in the greatest haste, without being able to decide to get out of bed there was a cautious knock on the door by the head of the bed” (Kafka 6). The family takes on three lodgers who bring their furnishings, so everything that is not needed is tossed into Gregor’s room. Hope and renewal are symbolized by the coming of spring, the warm sunshine on the train, and Grete’s youthful, attractive body. Grete getting all the responsibility from Gregor. “When the violin started playing, they became attentive, got up, and went on tiptoe to the hall door, at which they remained standing pressed up against one another” (Kafka 62 and 63). The lodgers, after listening for a short while, move over to the window and begin whispering to show they are no longer interested and are disappointed with the performance. The three lodgers were physically attracted to Grete because she was so young and beautiful as a woman.

Discuss Gregor’s death. Grete’s metamorphosis into a young, beautiful eligible bride. “The family was all caught up in the violin playing” (Kafka 64). Grete is beautiful as a woman and the three lodgers are attracted to her but not her music. Mr. Samsa replaces Gregor with Grete as his financial source. His thoughts about his family worried him till his last breath. “Then without willing it, his head sank, and from his nostrils flowed out weakly out his last breath” (Kafka 71). The old woman found him dead and objected to him as “it”. Discuss Gregor’s thinking mentality. Gregor thought about his family and how they going to survive without any source of income.

Change is the essence of life, and the theme of change is organic to the action, dictating the unfolding of the plot and influencing the characters’ behavior and destiny. The metamorphosis of Gregor is in five levels. Gregor’s father asks Gregor to open the door, while his mother is explaining to the chief clerk that Gregor must certainly be ill, or he would never be late since he only thinks of his work and never goes out.

Have you ever felt out of place in your workplace or community? Society as a whole has several negative aspects with the main being that people are very hollow. One prominent writer such as Franz Kafka laid out some of these critiques in his novel. In ‘The Metamorphosis’ by Kafka society is shown to be extremely materialist as a whole and value external appearances in excessive amounts.

In the novella ‘The Metamorphosis’, society and more specifically Gregor, are shown to be very materialist. For starters, Gregor is only motivated to work because of the fact that he is the only source of income for his family. This is shown by the quotation “If I didn’t have my parents to think about I’d have given in my notice a long time ago, I’d have gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him everything I would, let him know just what I feel. …once I’ve got the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to him – another five or six years I suppose – that’s definitely what I’ll do” (Kafka 6). In this quote we are told by Gregor himself says that the only reason he works is to pay his parent’s debt off and earn money for them to live from. Another aspect of materialism would be the importance given to money. Money is either mentioned or is a recurrent thought throughout the whole novella. Income has such an impact on people that Gregor, who has been turned into vermin and is no longer really human, thinks about his family’s financial issues. This shows how indispensable money is as even cockroach-like being understands its importance and impact shown by the quote “Whenever they began to talk of the need to earn money, Gregor would always first let go of the door and then throw himself onto the cool, leather sofa next to it, as he became quite hot with shame and regret” (Kafka 40). In this quote, we are shown that as Gregor is no longer really human (at least in appearance), he can’t provide any more money for his family despite knowing it’s a necessity (which is what makes him feel shame and regret).

We are also shown in this novella that society puts excessive amounts of importance in regards to the physical appearance of people. This ends up causing the alienation of certain people, who are different in terms of what society deems normal, to be set in motion. A quote that demonstrates this is “…he must show patience and the greatest consideration so that his family could bear the unpleasantness that he, in his present condition, was forced to impose on them” (Kafka 32). In this quote, Gregor is depicted as a burden and unpleasant now that he is no longer deemed human. Gregor is now becoming even more alienated to society than he already was as he is imprisoned in his room by his own family (in spite of later being let around the house out of pure pity for embedding an apple in his back). The fact that he has to show ‘consideration’ for his transformation (despite not having any power over it) shows just how shallow society and the people that constitute it are.

In conclusion, society values physical appearances and are way too materialistic as shown by Kafka in his work. Society does try indeed to integrate and make everyone feel like they are a part of something yet we, as individual greedy humans, tend to deviate from these idealized versions of society. The hollowness of people drove the author to really integrate and engrain this side of human nature in his novel in order to show how flawed society is.

‘The Metamorphosis’ by Kafka it gives us a story about transformation, abandoned by parents, relationship with sister. Instead of receiving love Gregor is an outcast and trying to find his way to a human again. One would normally think of the home and family as a sanctuary; however the evidence is true for Gregor Samsa in Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’. Instead of receiving love from his family, Gregor is mistreated.

Gregor transformation into a bug started into his room waking up thinking it was a dream and to go back to sleep. And everything will be normal but it was really reality Gregor life was really over. He realized he was a bug when he couldn’t put on his clothes or walk as usual, unlock his room door. Gregor was more worried about his job and career then his life or how people looked at him he wanted to work and be successful i felt as if this wasn’t for Gregor why was he turned into a bug. his life was over he had to live his life ashamed and closed behind a door no job no career nothing to look forward to or no one to call on that really loved him. Gregor had grew more comfortable into his body he began to climb the walls for amusement. Grete was disgusted by her brother but she began to be her brother caretaker because nobody else would do it. Gregor parents they looked at Gregor as a bug instead of there son very mistreated so Grete stepped in and started to take care of her brother. Started to feed him milk and bread but he doesn’t have no care for it so his sister take away the milk and bread and gives him rotten food and he happily eats it. So Grete becomes tired of taking care of her brother and tells her parents that they must get rid of Gregor or they will be ruined and her father agrees that’s very bad to hear about to try to get rid of yr own very son. Gregor had it bad he turned into a bug, lost his job what he really like doing best, family was ashamed of him, wanted to get rid of him. it was already a lot pressure on him being a bug and didn’t know to be human again his parents couldn’t even come in to visit him in the first 2 weeks. Gregor spent his nights and days with hardly any sleep he was filed with sheer anger over the wrenched care he was getting and Gregor hardly ate anything anymore. No one paid him any attention anymore they was all caught up in the violin playing Gregor use to lay motionless the entire time in the spot where the lodgers had caught him. Gregor family takes a trolley ride out to the countryside they decide to move to a smaller apartment to further save money. an act they were unable to carry out in Gregor’s presence. Gregor understand them when they want him to leave or they will be ruined he move slowly back to the bedroom. There, determined to rid his family of his presence Gregor dies, though it is not clear whether the cause of the death was suicide or natural cause. the family finds out Gregor is dead and is beyond happy of his death so they want put up with him.

My experience from this story taught me alot how they brought Gregor a lot of pain. And didn’t care for him when he turned into a bug and i felt as if they was using Gregor for his money to keep they house so when Gregor turned into a bug and couldn’t do nothing for them anymore they thought he was worthless. It isn’t his fought he turned into a bug and couldn’t do anything for himself anymore. He knew his family wouldn’t be happy with him finding out they son is a bug but they could have took it better then they did i think Gregor died because of sadness from how his family treated him so he commited suicide.

Alienation is the state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be involved. Alienation is a central theme that Franz Kafka discusses in his story ‘Metamorphosis’ from the beginning all the way to the end when the main character, Gregor, dies alone in his room. Gregor’s guilt, being a work alcoholic, and the rejection from his family feed off the central core of alienation. There seems to be a demand in society where you must conform to social norms in order to be accepted and not face alienation.

The initial alienation for Gregor is the transformation from human to bug. As the story progresses it becomes clear that there is not much of a difference between Gregor’s human life and his new bug life. He is not fazed by this transformation and tries to get used to it and eventually he accepts who he has become. He notices his “numerous legs, which were pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk” Gregor does not seem to be emotional about this transformation, all he seems to focus on is how he cannot attend work anymore.

Gregor’s job is a traveling salesman and he has become so obsessed with his work that he is more mechanical than personal. He is just going through the motions day in and day out. He picks up “a prudent habit… acquired in traveling of locking all doors during the night”, which he takes into his home life and proves how distant he is from his family. It becomes clear that in reality Gregor hates his job. He thinks it is “exhausting… irritating work”, he doesn’t like to travel so much, meeting people that never become more than acquaintances, the mistreatment from his boss. He is only working to pay off a debt for his parents.

Since Gregor can no longer work, he becomes alienated from the money driven economy. The norm being if you are unproductive you become irrelevant and repulsive. Gregor’s insect form that stops him from earning an income to support his family, strengthens the circumstance that he is now seen as repulsive and disgusting in his family eyes and also in the eyes of society. His only value to his family is just a financial one, family relations have been reduced to economic worth.

The idea of Gregor just being a source of income further alienates him from the family. His family cares about the pay check Gregor hands them every month. Gregor’s was slowly changing into a hermit, but his family pays no mind to it because their only focus is in his delivery of funds for them. Some instances in the story it seems as if his family actually cares about Gregor’s well-being and condition, but that is easily seen through as their selfish desire for Gregor to continue being the breadwinner. When Gregor’s voice becomes distorted due to his insect form, his mom sends for the doctor which is most likely to ensure that he can still make it to work. Gregor assumes “people now believed something was wrong with him, and were ready to help him’.

Gregor does not understand that his mom’s motive is not for what he thinks it is, which is making sure he makes it to work on time. His family does not realize something is seriously wrong until Gregor exits his room as a bug, which is unsuitable for work. The reaction of his dad goes from fist clenching to sobbing, which would have been the same if Gregor said he quit his job. Family life for Gregor after his transformation does not change that much since he does not have a strong relationship with his family from the start. This only takes his alienation to a whole new level.

Gregor is now not only mentally detached from them but physically as well. He is seen as a burden and is no longer the center of attention since he is no longer obtaining the grain (making money). As a result of his transformation, his family locks him up in his room. Grete, trying to help, brings Gregor rotten food and takes all the furniture in his room out. This really drives home the idea that Gregor is no longer human.

As time continues, his family starts to slowly become strangers to him. One point his father throws apples at him to try and kill him. Gregor finally realizes just how much he is alienated from his family when he finds out that his dad got a job to fill the role that Gregor played. His dad is now a bank official and dresses in “a smart blue uniform with gold buttons”. Grete also gets a job and starts a new life for herself. Gregor’s family moves on without him, essentially forgetting that he even exists, this understanding brings about his self-alienation.

Grete’s character to him changed from an emotional little girl to a bitter mature stranger, she was the first in the family to suggest the extermination of Gregor. This news does not shock Gregor however since his father already tried doing that. The fact that his own sister suggested the idea hurts more and brings about his self-alienation, which eventually causes his death. Gregor then realizes since his family can no longer communicate with him they push him away, and his transformation makes him open his eyes and he know now that his family has always set him apart way before he turned into a bug.

Gregor dies broken-hearted and alone. He is excluded from society and his family, ultimately, forcing him to become a hermit. His job also brings about alienation from what mattered more in life, like building a strong familial relationship, having supportive friends that will be there through thick and thin, and true love. His metamorphosis brings him to the final stage that his life was meaningless and held no purpose.

Gregor accepts his job thinking it would have led to more self-fulfilling future. This is prevalent among most people in today’s society. People experience similar disappointments in the economy today, they make goals and rarely reach them to gain satisfaction and along the way they forget what is really important in life. They don’t stop to smell the roses. People who do not obey this way of life find themselves alienated and excluded. ‘Metamorphosis’ teaches us to keep balance between work and family, and family should not be tied to economic power.

A major problem confronting readers of Kafka’s short stories is to find a way through the increasingly dense thicket of interpretations. Among the many approaches one encounters is that of the autobiographical approach. This interpretation claims that Kafka’s works are little more than reflections of his lifelong tension between bachelorhood and marriage or, on another level, between his skepticism and his religious nature. While it is probably true that few writers have ever been moved to exclaim, ‘My writing was about you [his father]. In it, I merely poured out the sorrow I could not sigh out at your breast’, it is nevertheless dangerous to regard the anxieties permeating his work solely in these terms. Kafka’s disenchantment with and eventual hatred of his father were a stimulus to write, but they neither explain the fascination of his writing nor tell us why he wrote at all.

The psychological or psychoanalytical approach to Kafka largely ignores the content of his works and uses the ‘findings’ of the diagnosis as the master key to puzzling out Kafka’s world. We know Kafka was familiar with the teachings of Sigmund Freud (he says so explicitly in his diary, after he finished writing ‘The judgment’ in 1912) and that he tried to express his problems through symbols in the Freudian sense. One may therefore read Kafka with Freud’s teachings in mind. As soon as this becomes more than one among many aids to understanding, however, one is likely to read not Kafka, but a text on applied psychoanalysis or Freudian symbology. Freud himself often pointed out that the analysis of artistic values is not within the scope of the analytical methods he taught.

There is the sociological interpretation, according to which Kafka’s work is but a mirror of the historical-sociological situation in which he lived. For the critic arguing this way, the question is not what Kafka really says but the reasons why he supposedly said it. What the sociological and the psychological interpretations have in common is the false assumption that the discovery of the social or psychological sources of the artist’s experience invalidate the meaning expressed by his art.

Within the sociological type of interpretation, one of the most popular methods of criticism judges Kafka’s art by whether or not it has contributed anything toward the progress of society. Following the Marxist-Leninist dictum that art must function as a tool toward the realization of the classless society, this kind of interpretation is prevalent not merely in Communist countries, but also among the New Left critics this side of the Iron and Bamboo Curtains. Marxist criticism of Kafka has shifted back and forth between outright condemnation of Kafka’s failing to draw the consequences of his own victimization by the bourgeoisie and between acclarnations stressing the pro-proletarian fighting quality of his heroes. That Kafka was the propagator of the working class as the revolutionary class has been maintained not only by official Communist criticism, but also by Western ‘progressives.’ And it is true that Kafka did compose a pamphlet lamenting the plight of workers. Yet in a conversation with his friend Janouch, he spoke highly of the Russian Revolution, and he expressed his fear that its religious overtones might lead to a type of modern crusade with a terrifying toll of lives. Surely a writer of Kafka’s caliber can describe the terror of a slowly emerging totalitarian regime (Nazi Germany) without being a precursor of communism, as Communist criticism as often claimed. One can also read The Trial as the story of Joseph K.’s victimization by the Nazis (three of Kafka’s sisters died in a concentration camp); it is indeed one of the greatest tributes one can pay to Kafka today that he succeeded in painting the then still latent horror of Nazism so convincingly. But one must not neglect or ignore the fact that Kafka was, above all, a poet; and to be a poet means to give artistic expression to the many levels and nuances of our kaleidoscopic human condition. To see Kafka as a social or political revolutionary because his country doctor, for instance, or the land surveyor of The Castle seeks to change his fate through voluntary involvement rather than outside pressure is tantamount to distorting Kafka’s universal quality in order to fit him into an ideological framework.

Closely connected with the quasi-religious quality of Marxist interpretations of Kafka’s stories are the countless philosophical and religious attempts at deciphering the make-up of his world. They range from sophisticated theological argumentation all the way to pure speculation. Although Kafka’s religious nature is a subject complex and controversial enough to warrant separate mention, the critics arguing along these lines are also incapable, as are their sociological and psychological colleagues, of considering Kafka simply as an artist. What they all have in common is the belief that Kafka’s ‘real meaning’ lies beyond his parables and symbols, and can therefore be better expressed in ways he himself avoided for one reason or another. The presumptuousness of this particular approach lies in the belief that the artist depends on the philosopher for a translation of his ambiguous modes of expression into logical, abstract terms. All this is not to dispute Kafka’s philosophical-religious cast of mind and his preoccupation with the ultimate questions of human existence. It is just that he lived, thought, and wrote in images and not in ‘coded’ conceptual structures. Kafka himself thought of his stories merely as points of crystallization of his problems: Bendemann, Samsa, Gracchus, the hunger artist, the country doctor, Josef K., and K. of The Castle — all these men are close intellectual and artistic relatives of Kafka, yet it will not do to reduce his deliberately open-ended images to a collection of data.

Interpretations are always a touchy matter and, in Kafka’s case, perhaps more so than in others. The reason for this is that his works are 1) essentially outcries against the inexplicable laws that govern our lives; 2) portrayals of the human drama running its course on several loosely interwoven levels, thus imparting a universal quality to his work; and 3) very much imbued with his high degree of sensitivity which responded differently to similar situations at different times. Particularly this last aspect suggests incohesion and paradox to the mind which insists on prodding Kafka’s stories to their oftentimes irrational core. Kafka’s pictures stand, as Max Brod never tired of pointing out, not merely for themselves but also for something beyond themselves.

These difficulties have prompted many a scholar to claim that Kafka rarely thought of anything specific in his stories. From this view, it is but a short step to the relativistic attitude that every interpretation of Kafka is as good as every other one. To this, one may reply that ‘to think of nothing specific’ is by no means the same thing as ‘to think of many things at the same time. ‘Kafka’s art is, most of all, capable of doing the latter to perfection. Paradoxical though it may seem at first, viewing Kafka’s work from a number of vantage points is not an invitation to total relativism, but a certain guarantee that one will be aware of the many levels of his work.

Despite the many differences in approaching Kafka’s writings, all of them must finally deal with a rather hermetically sealed — off world. Whatever Kafka expresses is a reflection of his own complex self amidst a concrete social and political constellation, but it is a reflection broken and distorted by the sharp edges of his analytical mind. Thus the people whom his heroes meet and whom we see through their eyes are not ‘real’ in a psychological sense, not ‘true’ in an empirical sense, and are not ‘natural’ in a biological sense. Their one distinctive mark is that of being something created. Kafka once remarked to his friend Janouch, ‘I did not draw men. I told a story. These are pictures, only pictures.’ That he succeeded in endowing them with enough plausibility to raise them to the level of living symbols and parables is the secret of his art.

Kafka’s stories should not tempt us to analyze them along the lines of fantasy versus reality. An unchangeable and alienated world unfolds before us, a world governed by its own laws and developing its own logic. This world is our world and yet it is not. ‘Its pictures and symbols are taken from our world of phenomena, but they also appear to belong somewhere else. We sense that we encounter people we know and situations we have lived through in our own everyday lives, and yet these people and situations appear somehow estranged. They are real and physical, and yet they are also grotesque and abstract. They use a sober language devoid of luster in order to assure meaningful communication among each other, and yet they fail, passing one another like boats in an impenetrable fog. Yet even this fog, the realm of the surreal (super-real), has something convincing about it. We therefore have the exciting feeling that Kafka’s people say things of preeminent significance but that it is, at the same time, impossible for us to comprehend.

Finally, the reader seems to be left with two choices of how to ‘read’ Kafka. One is to see Kafka’s world as full of parables and symbols, magnified and fantastically distorted (and therefore infinitely more real), a world confronting us with a dream vision of our own condition. The other choice is to forego any claim of even trying to understand his world and to expose oneself to its atmosphere of haunting anxiety, visionary bizarreness, and — occasionally — faint promises of hope.

Introduction to Bureaucracy in “The Trial”

Written at the beginning of the 20th century “The Trial” depicts “the rise of bureaucracy, the power of law, and the atomization of the individual”, which are allegorically reflected in a story about Joseph K., a bank employee who is accused of unspecified crimes. This rather surreal and pessimistic narrative begins when two guards show up on K.’s 30th birthday and put him under arrest. Even though K. is allowed to continue living his life “normally”, he is trying to make sense of his trial until being executed without any progress or clarity in his case. K.’s death, perhaps, was the only way for him to escape the bureaucracy web he found himself caught up in. There is no single interpretation of “The Trial”, however, the essay will only focus on the mindless bureaucratic processes the protagonist has to face. Franz Kafka himself was, in a sense, a member of the bureaucratic world as his official profession was a lawyer; presumably, his writings were inspired by his formal day job. “The Trial” lets a reader to have a deep look into the chaotic, senseless and confusing hierarchical chain of the bureaucracy, which imprisons its victims in often unreasonbale circle of formalities and businesses.

The Judicial System’s Complexity and Instability

From the beginning of the novel it is strongly felt how bureaucracy interferes with people’s lives making them meaninglessly complicated and what a multilayered and unstable phenomenon is judicial system. The moment official guards showed up, the usual order of K.’s life was interrupted and bound to change. His daily routine was disturbed and it was one of the first signs of the anxiety, tension and misunderstandings he was about to face in the future. The information about the arrest, which no reason or explanation was given for, was immediately followed by a couple of other events that only confirmed the shadiness and dirtiness of the court: the officers made it quite clear (almost insisted) that bribing is welcome (even though it would not benefit K. in any way), besides, the men who were sent by the court to arrest K. were junior officers who admitted themselves they were non-professionals and “hardly know one end of an ID card from another”. The officers were only taking the authorities’ orders without any knowledge about the situation – in the court‘s eyes the accused people are not important enough to deserve direct communication with the authorities; such attitude only declares how distant is the judicial system from any personal relation with an accused individual and confirms bureaucracy being some kind of hierarchical web where the closest possible contact with the court is a touch of “the lower orders who cannot take ultimate responsibility for anything they do”. This is a reflection of how the whole system works – a lot of officially necessary but fruitless formalities which only get one as close to the end as a labyrinth without an exit. The officers who came for K. are described as “significantly bigger”. In the novel it is some kind of pattern – people directly related to the court actually were (or at least K. felt they were, or a visual illusion was created) physically bigger. For instance, during one of his meetings with a lawyer, Joseph K. gets to see a portrait of a judge, who “has himself painted in this awe-inspiring manner because he is as vain as everybody connected to the court”. Although the picture clearly demonstrates the court’s tendency to self-aggrandisement, Leni’s deconstruction of its representational illusion is of little concrete help to K.” and at work kazkokie random vyrai neprisimenu). This shows the difference in status and power of K. (+other people in similar situation). They are more powerful, and their decisions are significant, and K. was helpless against them (and the system as well as those officials were sistemos atstovai).

The Hierarchical Web of Bureaucracy

Very important episodes of the novel are K.’s conversations with a painter Titorelli, who paints portraits for the court, and a lawyer Dr. Huld, who was introduced to K. by his uncle. They both revealed a lot of details of how the court works, which were really illustrative. For example, the lawyer told K. how important the first submitted documents were, even though, the court might not even read them (jei isvis nepameta). To put it briefly, submitting documents is important but usually they do not have any impact at all. Besides, the accused and his defence are not allowed to get any information about the court records, therefore, the actual process remains unknown to them. Even the conditions of the courthouse could be interpreted as a symbol of all the bureaucratic proceedings – there is always a risk to get trapped, “In the floor of this room – to give yet another example of the conditions there – there is a hole that’s been there for more than a year, it’s not so big that a man could fall through, but it is big enough for your foot to disappear through it.” (Kafka, 1925). It is also learnt from the conversation with the lawyer about the importance of personal connections. It is one more proof the system is corrupted. “This is where most lawyers will push their way in, this is where bribes are paid and information extracted, there have even, in earlier times at least, been incidents where documents have been stolen. The only things of real value are honest personal contacts, contacts with higher officials, albeit higher officials of the lower grades, you understand. That is the only way the progress of the trial can be influenced,” heuhfefheoh (Kafka, 1925). Also, personal disagreements with court officials might, and usually will, have a bad impact on the proceedings – profession and personal life are not separate sections. It could be stated that the trial is more of a business than a tool to empower justice. K. buys some paintings from Titorelli, which also have a quite symbolic meaning. First, he buys 3 paintings of the same landscape, what shows that no matter how much you do, you are still in the same place. The landscape painted is moorland – again trap in which you eventually will drown. “By flaunting their inauthenticity and non-mimetic techniques, all these pictures suggest what K. has been fearing all along. There may indeed be no substance, no legal justice or moral truth behind the court’s pitifully self-important representatives and their (pseudo-)legal, endlessly proliferating arguments.”

The Textualized Labyrinth of the Court

“If for Benjamin Paris resembled a vast book to be read, a multilayered assemblage of signs which the flaneur ˆ ’s sympathetic eye read as expressions of rich cultural traditions, reminiscences, and historical echoes, the machinery of the court presents itself to K. as a textualised labyrinth. He can only accuse it of corruption, immorality, and illegal persecution. The soiled, pornographic books that K. finds on the examining magistrate’s desk in chapter 3 reflect in his eyesthe overwhelming moral depravity of the court’s hierarchy.”

The Endless Process of the Trial

In the novel it is not clear how much progress had K. done by the time he was executed but a lot of information about never ending processes is learnt from another encounter whom K. met at the lawyer’s house – businessman Block. His trial has already been going for 5 years and it seems he is stuck between documents, hearings, lawyers etc. Block reveals that “it’s only very rare that you see any progress in these proceedings at all.” (this statement basically summarizes how the court works and predicts K.’s future). “Justice must be considered a fundamental and inescapable form of force. Justice (as force) is distinct from violence (as force). Justice attracts and coheres rather than repelling and dividing. Indeed, justice is the remedy to violence. Force does respond to force; but the qualities of justice and violence as force are by no means equivalent. Justice as force seeks to recognize the realities and limitations of our being with others:violence seeks to close down this commonality in difference. In this sense, legislating that is motivated by, and seeks to, establish justice can be seen as a force against force — but not necessarily a violence against violence.” However, K. does not experience this kind of behavior from the lawyer which could probably be explain again by contacts etc because K.’s uncle is the lawyer’s friend.

Conclusion: The Absurdity of Bureaucracy

“K. never has a formal trial, yet the novel is called The Trial: evidently, K.’s fruitless effort to learn what he is accused of is his trial. “ It is worth to discuss the title of the novel as well. The German title “Der Prozeß” has the meaning of both “trial” and “process”. K. has to go through a lot of investigations and legal work which makes the arrest of K. and his trial the whole journey through bureaucratic formalities (pokalbiai su painteriu ir advokatu), which in the end seem to have no point; the word ‘process’ does imply a multilayer, dynamic event but does not declare is it regress or progress (it is easily associated with progress but as it is seen in the novel – it is more like regress or at least stagnation). “K. never has a formal trial, yet the novel is called The Trial: evidently, K.’s fruitless effort to learn what he is accused of is his trial.

“ The process of the trial sort of controls K.’s life and is so niekur nevedantis, that K.’s mind was always occupied with it, it made him to rethink his life, he even considers to hand in to the court a written defence in which he explains his life and choices to the court. “While being considered guilty K. protests that he is not — and yet, K. cannot protest that he is innocent, because he does not know that of which he is innocent.”

It is important to pay attention to the way the book was written – the language is ironic, satirical, there are many situations which make no sense, and that makes the depicted absurdity even more clear and strengthens the idea of bureaucracy being pointless.

There is sadness that force you to sleep, sadness that force you to cry, but the deepest kind of sadness the one you can’t let go of that forces you to write. Writing sometimes is a silent scream to all the buried words and repressed feelings inside of us but it’s the strongest sensations that reaches all hearts and then the sentences written will shake all your senses. That’s the hero of my story one the most influential literary characters in this century.

He is a novelist from Czech origin and one of the most important novelists who wrote in German. Born in July 3rd, 1883, he lived under the Austro-Hungarian Empire until his death in 1924, a young man with pulmonary tuberculosis, which he suffered from early in life. Franz Kafka was born to a Jewish family, and he lived in an emotional dependence on his parents, growing up in the shadow of his businessman domineering father Herman, who’s described as a tyrant. Kafka’s troubled relationship with his father led him to feel both love and resentment towards him because he simply felt incomplete, as if there were two people fighting inside him and he was suffering from their conflict. Especially that his father was against his tendency toward writing. Yet, that didn’t stop Kafka from perusing his passion. He went and earned a law degree in 1906. Later, that allowed him to focus on writing. Kafka generally presented in his literature a vivid picture of his inner horror and guilt, and he tried to bring this to the public. In his famous letter to his father, titled ‘Letter to a Father’. in which he broadcast all his feelings and suffering published in 1949, he documents the irrationality he suffered in the house of a powerful authoritarian father. And he is an educated, sensitive artist. This letter is one of the most important approaches to a deeper understanding of his personality in his messages

At the beginning of autumn in September 1919, in a cafe in Prague, the first meeting happened between Franz Kafka and the young Milena Jezinska, where she suggested directly to translate his work from the German in which he was writing to the Czech language, thus an extension of it, as if another « Kafka » wandering the streets of Vienna. After their meeting. Kafka wrote nearly 149 letters and postcards. Of these, 140 were written within a period of no more than 10 months, from March to December 1920, sometimes at more than one message per day. Late letters date back to 1922 and 1923.

As we read Kafka’s messages that have reached us, we find a noticeable gradation in the intensity of emotions and their tendency to cool with each new message. From a happy lover to a desperate lover. At first it is clear Kafka’s sense of strange relief – strange to those like him in his misery and anxiety to feel – it is perhaps for the first time removed all his sorrows and refreshed the spirit of tired despite his physical illness.

His letters to her were collected in “Letters to Milena”, while all her letters were lost; which constituted a huge loss and disconnection of these unique messages between two moody anxious souls. I present the thrust of this argument between this great writer and his characteristic lover Milena, which is not destined to end with a happy ending. These letters are heartbreaking and deeply moving, they are written by a great genius who’s speaking to women he longs for and yet knows he cannot have. Because Milena was a married women. But in a way she made his isolation a little bit more endurable. They are in one sense study in torment and anxiety and another literary document of power and beauty. Milena was a great soul and translator for Kafka who understood that she was connected with an extraordinary genius. The impossibility of their love and yet the great sense of meaning in their meetings make these letters so powerful and great. Kafka could describe the most everyday reality and turn it into a work of wonder and this too, in relation in his own feelings towards Milena.

In one of his letters he says.

“Melina, you are for me, you are not a woman, you are a girl, a girl I have never seen before, I do not think I would dare to give you my hand, a contaminated, sweaty, fragile, hesitant, which rotates hot and cold. You know, Melina, that when you go to him (he means her husband), you bend a big step in terms of your level, but if you move towards me, you will go down the abyss. Do you realize that?”

In Kafka’s letters, a kind of strange and rare love appears, love that transform you, it is the one that makes you discover yourself, and you see it for what it is, as if you stood Infront of a mirror. This kind of love is a double-edged sword. At the same time, your imperfections are manifested in front of you all clear, as opposed to the other qualities of the finest beauty.

Those unique letters reveal to us the metal of this lover, who did not pass on the temple of women as his ancestors passed and his successor of lovers, he was a special case. Despite the end that seems familiar in such stories, but their events were not ordinary and familiar, the fact that the weaving of the threads of a strange person, loving, miserable, the collection of contradictions in his personality, he left us wonderful messages we enjoy reading to this day.

In the novel, Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami, the protagonist Kafka Tamura, a fifteen-year-old Japanese, runs away from home intending to escape his father’s curse, which is that he will sleep with his sister and mather, then kill his father. During the escape, Kafka ran into multiple chaotic situations, and he managed to solve all of them at the end. The boy named Crow appears throughout the novel and plays a big role in Kafka’s decisions. He always comes out when Kafka does not know what to do and gives him advice. In Kafka on the Shore, the boy named Crow played a role of guidance and logic before, during, and after Kafka’s journey.

When Kafka was about to run away, the boy named Crow was trying to tell him that running away will not help him to gain the initiative of his life, and running away will not change his fate. He should face the problem and face his fear, not avoid them. Crow was playing the role of guiding Kafka to think logically and not to be overwhelmed by his emotion during his journey. It was not wise to run away, and Crow used a sandstorm to symbolize that fate is inevitable. In the text, fate is described as “a small sandstorm that keeps changing directions”, and Crow said to Kafka that “you change direction but the sandstorms chase you”. The message which Crow is trying to convey to Kafka is that fate is inevitable, and no matter what Kafka does and how hard he tries to escape from it, he can not run away from it. However, Kafka was not mature at that time and he was dealing with a lot of emotions, therefore, he can’t fully understand what Crow said to him. Kafka feels the sense of escaping the community, from the situation he is trapped in, and he feels the need for escaping in order to be “the world strongest fifteen-year-old”. But he failed to realize that fate will always chase him to wherever he goes, and he has not reached the realization that he should deal with the problems he is facing at present and solve the problems with his father and his isolation at school. He intended to show his strength by running away, however it wasn’t the right way which can helps him to be free. Moreover, Crow warned Kafka that the storm “will cut through flesh like a thousand razor blades”, as it foresees the danger associated with running away. Because Kafka did not realize that he can be in so many troubles and problems, Crow was trying to help Kafka and guide him by stopping Kafka and telling him the hidden danger in the world by referring to the metaphors of the sandstorm. Compare to Kafka, Crow has a clearer logic and is more mature. He knows Kafka should face problems directly and that running away would not solve the problem.

During Kafka’s journey, he runs into a lot of chaotic situations, and Crow helps Kafka to solve them. For example, when Kafka wakes up in a bush with no memory of what had happened and feels overwhelmed by fear and confused when he sees the blood on his T-shirt, he could not think properly. In the book, he says “I am scared, and my teeth won’t stop chattering”. The boy named crow appeared and remind Kafka that he is “the toughest fifteen-year-old on the planet”, and Kafka should “take some deep breaths and start using your brain”. Crow encouraged Kafka to be the world’s toughest fifteen years old when he found himself in a difficult situation. This helped Kafka to stay positive and try to find his way out. When Kafka read about the death of his father, he starts to realize that he is not avoiding fate. The boy named Crow again told Kafka that “distance won’t solve anything”. This relates to Crow trying to tell that fate is inevitable at the beginning, and this further shows that Crow is more logical and can foresee things better than Kafka can. Crow is always trying to guide Kafka to the right track. This concept also draws out one of the other meanings of the name “Kafka”, as it means “Crow” in Czech. The most prominent reference to the Crow in Japanese culture is in the Legend of Yatagarasu, where the Crow is deemed as a guidance figure sent from Heaven, which encompasses the role of the Boy Named Crow, who guides Kafka through his journey. Crows are an embodiment of the wisdom that Kafka possesses but to which he does not always have full access. Kafka begins his sexual relationship with Miss Saeki, dreams of raping Sakura, and enters into the deepest part of the forest, a crow caws ominously in the distance as if trying to warn him.

At the end of the novel, Crow guides Kafka into a new life. Crow in Japanese culture symbolizes guidance. The most famous crow-god is Yatagarasu. This crow was sent from heaven to guide Emperor Jimmu on his initial journey from the region which would become Kumano to what would become Yamato. At the end of Kafka’s journey, he has experienced and grew a lot. He was overwhelmed by all of those things. He was not sure if he had grown and become more mature or not. Crow also suggested that Kafka should get some sleep, and when he woke up, he will be “part of the brand-new world”. The boy named Crow came out and said: “you did the right thing” to help Kafka to accept what he learned from this journey and remember them. Crow has confirmed Kafka’s growth and guides him into his more mature self.

In the novel, Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami used the boy names Crow as a more logical and mature Kafka. He served as guidance and support throughout Kafka’s journey. Crow helped Kafka on his way to grow, and without Crow’s support, Kafka could not fulfill his fate.

Franz Kafka is is largely known for his early 20th century works that have been coined for the literary term Kafkaesque, inspired by a nightmarishly bleak reality with disoriented and confused protagonists who must come to terms with existential questions. Kafka’s most well-known novel is The Metamorphosis, which deals with a narrator in Gregor Samsa who is a traveling salesman who wakes up one morning to find he has been transformed into a disgustingly large insect and must deal with how his transformation impacts his family and their economic status.

Margaret Atwood, on the other hand, is known for her later 20th century works about gender and identity, religion and fairy tales and the impact words can have on society and politics, including novels such as The Handmaid’s Tale and the poem Half-Hanged Mary, which follows a narrator in Mary Webster who is being hung for the alleged crime of being a witch. While both of their most well-known works were written nearly seven decades apart, several similarities and differences can be drawn in their core themes and messages; these comparisons can be made based on the fact that both of the narrators are emotionally isolated and can be differentiated on the grounds that the narrators reach two very different conclusions from their experiences during the plot.

Half-Hanged Mary and The Metamorphosis are similar due to the fact that both of the narrators must face emotional isolation as the plot progresses. In the case of Half-Hanged Mary, Mary Webster must deal with the fact that she has fallen from good graces with the other women who live in her village now that she has been accused of being a witch. “The bonnets come to stare, the dark skirts also, the upturned faces inbetween … you were my friend, you too. I cured your baby, Mrs., and flushed yours out of you, non-wife, to save your life,’ she writes in the third stanza, describing how the same practices that she used to help save these women’s lives (a cure for ailments like warts and being able to help deliver children) are now the practices that have her hanging from a rope for witchcraft (Atwood 2).

On the same note, in The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa must deal with not being able to go to his job as a traveling salesman, where he sees new people to interact with every day, due to his transformation and seeing the same faces of disappointment on his family members and the same four walls of a room he doesn’t even feel comfortable in much longer. “Although Gregor could get no news directly, he overheard a great deal from the neighboring rooms, and as soon as he heard voices he would run over to the corresponding door and press his entire body against it,” he describes in the second chapter to depict how Gregor longs to see new people because his family begrudgingly takes care of him and only talks about him in reference to what a huge burden he is. He tries desperately to hear news about the world around him and stay connected with others but cannot communicate this desire because he is a large insect confined to his room (Kafka 33).

Overall, the characters in both stories deal with an alienation with their environment and worry about their circumstances of their existence during the two plots. Half-Hanged Mary and The Metamorphosis are different due to the fact that the two narrators come to very different conclusions about their transformations at the end of the plots of both stories. For example, in Half-Hanged Mary, the narrator feels empowerment at the end of the story due to the fact that the law prohibits her being hung again due to the fact that she is still alive; and while this does confirm the fears of those who strung her up in the tree to begin with, Mary explains that this makes her feel an emancipation from her previous self, proclaiming “Before I was not a witch, but now I am one,” (Atwood 5).

Mary feels that she now has an obligation to use her voice for those who cannot because they were falsely accused of witchcraft and now that she is fully an outcast, surviving on flowers, feces and mice, she sees feels she can do anything she wishes unabridged and unhindered, and ironically the town has created the monster that they wished to destroy by hanging her to begin with. She concludes with the statement that, “Having been hanged for something I never said, I can now say anything I can say … my audience is God, because who the hell else could understand me?” and believes that she now transcends the qualms of the townspeople who tried her for witchcraft (Atwood 6). Meanwhile, in The Metamorphosis, the narrator feels a different sentiment, as after Gregor’s sister Grete turns on him and tells their parents that they have to stop acting like the insect he has transformed into is the same boy who they once loved and cared for, he decides that he must relieve his family of the burden that he has become and he dies as dawn breaks. Grete says that if Gregor could understand the suffering he inflicts upon them due to his transformation, he would have left long ago, and this hits home for him and he reaches a sense of despair that he cannot recover from. “He remembered his family with deep feeling and love. In this business, his own thought that he had to disappear was, if possible, even more decisive than his sister’s. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection,” Kafka describes his protagonist’s final moments of sadness and introspection (Kafka 71).

While in Half-Hanged Mary the narrator’s transformation has led to positive change that sees her accept herself as she truly is and no longer be constrained by the beliefs of those around her, in The Metamorphosis the transformation, while Kafka depicts it as inevitable, comes off as negative and something that leads to the narrator sacrificing himself to save his family’s economic circumstances. In summation, Margaret Atwood’s poem Half-Hanged Mary and Franz Kafa’s novel The Metamorphosis depict two very different time periods between the 1680’s and the era of New England witch trials for women and the late-19th century struggles of Jews in Europe such as Kafka who had to deal with persecution and being seen as a burden to those around them due to their religion. With that being said, there are many similarities that can be drawn between the two mediums, including the emotional isolation and alienation that the narrators experience and their status as oppressed minorities as well as differences that can be seen in the eventual catharsis that the protagonists arrive at and the different circumstances surrounding their persecution that include both gender and religion.