“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself. ” ? Franz Kafka. The story “The metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka is a short story that contains a far deeper meaning about society, internal conflict, and human behavior. To begin with, metamorphosis is about a young man named Gregor Samsa that leads an average life but took a drastic turn one morning when he man discovers he has shifted to a beetle.
Throughout the novel, Gregory’s and his family struggle for months financially and emotionally due to his shift. Sadly, Gregory’s shift has taken a toll on his overall health so he passes away. In the end, the family uses the compensation money they received from his death and move on with their lives happily ever after. Kafka uses this short story about a protagonist and his family and creates a deeper meaning about several struggles individuals faces internally and externally.
Overall, I will discuss three out of the several themes in Kafka’s the metamorphosis. hemes such as isolation/alienation, the capitalist society, In addition to relation to the Freud’s theory of the conscious, Marx’s notions of alienation, false consciousness or theory of values, and Lacan’s three orders of relations (the imaginary, the symbolic and the real). It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. ” ? Karl Marx. Karl Marx’s theory of alienation and also consciousness can be applied to Franz Kafka’s the metamorphosis.
The theory relates to the story mainly because of the emotions the protagonist Gregor face in the story. Gregor despises his job as a salesman and is depended on for his family’s income. Isolation and alienation can be inferred throughout the text. To begin with, Karl Marx’s theory of alienation states “Karl Marx’s theory of alienation describes the estrangement of people from aspects of their species-essence as a consequence of living in a society of stratified social classes”. in addition, the theory can be applied to several aspects of society such as economic, social class, gender, race, and etc.
In the story Gregor is alienated by society economically because society values having an income over well being. To explain, Gregory loathes his job as a salesman and the only reason he works is to provide his struggling family and income. Gregory income is more valuable than his good being. This is still relevant to today’s society because likewise, money is more important than any individual. To conclude, the Marx’s theory of alienation is related to the theme of isolation and alienation the protagonist deals with.
The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water. -Sigmund d Freud. lastly, I will be relating Sigmund Freud’s iceberg theory of the human conscious to Franz Kafka the metamorphosis. Freud’s theory is the relation of the iceberg to the human conscious. an iceberg reveals a small amount of ice on the surface but the greater portion of ice is at the bottom underneath the water. Freud states that there are 3 levels of consciousness the consciousness, preconscious and the unconscious. the conscious is the surface of the iceberg that is revealed and it is a knowledge that humans are aware of.
The precociousness and it is the part we are sometimes aware or experience doubt, lastly is the unconscious, and that is where all feelings, desires, motives, and conflicts stem from, overall the unconsciousness is the part we remain unaware of. in relation to Franz kafka’s metamorphosis, the protagonist can be analyzed using the Freudian iceberg of human conscious. Gregor felt worthless in his family therefore in his unconscious shifted to a beetle, a small bug to represent his feeling. Gregor Samsa’s father can relate to the preconscious also known as ego.
He repressed his feeling of wanting Gregory dead, which was in his unconscious instead, he listened to his precocious and got a job to make the family a living. lastly, Gregor sister can be a relation to the ego also known as the unconscious which is rational thinking. Despite being disgusted by Gregor she continued to care for him because they are siblings. Symptoms, those you believe you recognize, seem to you irrational because you take them in an isolated manner, and you want to interpret them directly. -Jacques Lacan. Lacan had an ideology that is called the three orders of relation.
The Lacan theory determines that someone’s ego is dependent on others and objects. The symbolic, the real, and the imaginary all have different definitions but all relate to something important to our understanding of the world. We either look or avoid the Real World, we have all Imaginary people in our lives, and we experience Symbolic Memoires. All three definitions relate to each other and how we look at things. In Franz Kafka “The metamorphosis”, Gregor Samsa Suffers from the lack of physical separation through the loss of imagery.
Gregor was separated from his family before the metamorphosis and after when he woke up as a vermin one morning. to start off, Gregor is a traveling salesman who is always so busy at work because he is trying to provide for his family so at his workplace Gregor is a subject of abuse. Gregor’s world is unchanging due to the many unfortunate events that happened. The main character must reside with the fact that his family wasn’t there for him when he needed them the most and he clearly doesn’t fit in with his family and his death proved it, Gregor’s family responded to his death as relief and symbolic of hope.
With him out of the picture his mother no longer has to fear him and money would no longer be a problem. Gregor was the one who used to provide for his family but after he turned into a beetle he couldn’t work, so his dad had to get a job to support the family. The family couldn’t afford their apartment so they had to move out, but with Gregor gone his family claimed his compensation money and moved on with their lives like Gregor never existed. In conclusion, Franz Kafka the metamorphosis is a short story that has a lot of representational meanings that define the notion of ideology.
To begin with, ideology is a system of ideas and ideals, belonging to a group of people. Within this story, the author Franz Kafka expresses ideologies about society, politics, individual and more. Furthermore, Kafka uses a simple story about a man that turns into a beetle and his family’s struggle and unconsciously relates it to several ideologies. The themes in the literature consciously remind the reader of the deeper social commentary in the story.
Moreover, the conflicts that occur in the story such as the issues the Family has with the protagonist Gregor Samsa and the internal conflict Gregory had with his job. This relates to the issues and conflicts that ideologies have. For instance, every ideology has an ideology that disagrees thus having two opposing ideologies. An example of this in modern society includes liberal vs. conservative, and capital vs. socialist. Overall, the metamorphosis has a figurative plot which makes a deeper meaning of ideology.