Kafka Essay Thesis Example For Students

Kafka Essay Thesis And Reality Of ChangeThe Reality of Change What is reality? Every person has his or her ownreality or truth of their existence. For some it may be a dead-end job dueto their lack of education while to others it may be the carefree life of asuccessful person. The true reality of any situation is that whatever directionis chosen in life a person brings the same inner self, motivational levels andattitudes. Unless they are willing to change the way they perceive and react toa situation they are forever trading one set of problems for another. As readersof literature we too seek to escape our reality and experience lifethrough an authors imagination while gaining valuable knowledge aboutourselves. In Franz Kafkas Metamorphosis, the nature of Gregor Samsasreality changes insignificantly in spite of his drastic physical changes. Gregors life before the metamorphosis was limited to working and caring forhis family. As a travelling salesman, Gregor worked long, hard hours that leftlittle time to experience life. He reflects on his so-called lifeacknowledging the plague of traveling: the anxieties of changing trains, theirregular, inferior meals, the ever changing faces, never to be seen again,people with whom one has no chance to be friendly (Kafka 13). Gregor, workingto pay off his familys debt, has resigned himself to a life full of nopleasures only work. Kafka himself paralleled this sentiment in a quote takenfrom his diaries noting that no matter how hard you work that work stilldoesnt entitle you to loving concern for people. Instead, youre alone, atotal stranger, a mere object of curiosity (Pawel 167). Gregor submergeshimself in work and becomes a stranger to himself and to life. Any type ofsocial contact beyond porters, waitresses or bartenders was non-existent. He hadonce met a cashier in a hat shop, w hom he had pursued earnestly but tooslowly (Kafka 76). There was no room in Gregors life for people other thathis family and as a result was condemned to a life without love or caring not tomention basic companionship. He worked diligently to provide for his family andthat remained his only goal in life. Gregors family relied on him to be thebreadwinner of the family, but gave him nothing in return. The life thathe had led until now was one fully of obligations and loneliness; he came hometo empty hotel rooms or his apathetic family. His parents and their dominancethus extends to the system which deprives him of creative life and marriedlove (Eggenschwiler 54). So concerned with ensuring his parents and sisterwere taken care of, he forgot his own needs. It was apparent to everyone that hewas no longer thought of as a son or an extension of the family, but merely as asupport system. The tragic fact is that everyone had grown accustomedto it, his family as much as himself; they took t he money gratefully, he gave itwillingly but the act was accompanied by no remarkable effusiveness (Kafka48). It appears that in the course of his hectic work schedule, he overlooksthat in return for dedication to his family, he remains unloved andunappreciated. Yet Gregor still believed he had to provide his family with apleasant, contented, secure life (Emrich 149), regardless of how they treatedhim. Gregors existence before the metamorphosis was much like after it;limited to work and family, he went unnoticed by both. After changing into acockroach one night, Gregor is forced to live a life of isolation with a familywho is appalled by him. He is placed in a dark bedroom, in the jumble ofdiscarded furniture and filth a monstrous vermin, a grotesque, hiddenpart of the family (Eggenschwiler 211). Shock and terror, resulting in Gregorbeing locked away, marked his familys reaction to his metamorphosis. Hissister is the only one that, while frightened, would tend to Gregors room andme als. She even took the responsibility so far as to get angry with anyone whowanted to help. Gregor was not allowed any contact or association with thefamily and no one attempted to understand him, no one, not even his sister,imagined that he could understand them (Kafka 45). So Gregor was left tooccupy his time, alone, and contemplate the situation he had been thrust into. Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) EssayDo we feel like Gregor, beaten down and alone? Are our daily struggles fornaught? And, if so, would we fair better as a cockroach? The answer is, ofcourse, no but, through the Metamorphosis we observe as one mans lifeis proven to be in vain and no better as a human than a cockroach. Gregorsfamily is a burden that he respectfully accepts and carries but the familyreciprocates by neglecting him and longing for his demise. Can anyone be surethat their lives are good and perfect and that their families would understandand accept any change that could arise? The fact is that above and beyond allthings a person must consider themselves first, however selfish it might appear. Sense of self will keep you through all the adverse times in life and be acompanion to rely on when no one else cares. BibliographyEggenschwiler, David. The Metamorphosis, Freud, and the Chains ofOdysseus. Franz Kafka: Modern Critical Views. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York:Chelsea House Publishers, 1986. 199-219. Emrich, Wilhelm. Franz Kafka: ACritical Study of His Writings. New York: Ungar, 1968. Kafka, Franz. Metamorphosis. Trans. A.L. Lloyd. New York: Vanguard Press, Inc., 1946. Pawel,Ernst. The Nightmare of Reason. New York: Vintage Books, 1984.