The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka

Kafkaâ??s Metamorphosis in one of those texts many will have heard of and, indeed, many will have read. Its high state within the literary hierarchy stems from its concept of human transformation; the metamorphosis of the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, from a human being into an insect; seen as repellent and ugly. Although the concept appears intriguing, this review seeks to iterate my feelings on why Kafka is one of those marmite figures in the literary world: it seems that you either love him or hate him. Franz Kafka was born in Prague (then part of Austria) on July 3, 1883 to Jewish parents and died at an early age in 1924 as a result of the tuberculosis he ...  Read the complete review

I first read this text back when I was all of about seventeen, and I wept bitterly for the futility of it, for the anguish of the main character and for the utter pointlessness of existence. When you are an angst ridden teenager, it is hard to look beyond the agony in this short tale and to see anything else that is hapening. Looking at it now, I see that this book has a lot more to offer. The tale is simple, if strange. Gregor is a hard working young man who supports his two parents and his little sister. His father does not work, and without Gregor, the family would not survive. One morning, Gregor wakes to find that he has turned into a beetle. He can no ...  Read the complete review

I first read this book when I was 15 years old, I am 20 now and I fully understand it and appreciate it by leaps and bounds more than I did then. This is not so much a simple story about a bloke who wakes up one morning turned into an insect or whatever, this is an epic meditation on the dark recesses of our mind and levels of depraivity humanity is capable of reaching in the depersonalization of men in society. It is the loveliest letter ever written on isolation I have read besides Dostoyevesky's 'Notes from the Underground' and, being a classic of world literature, naturally is stigmatized as perhaps being too mainstream and passe. However, ...  Read the complete review

Metamorphosis is itself a very strong word. As it has been derived from greek word metamorph which means transformation. This work was orginally written by Kafka in german language and its original title Die Verwandlung. kafka is considered a modern writer of existentialism. He believes the sheer and bare existance of the man. Most of his work is very dark, grim and dense. Metamorphosis is a very hard physical novella with which you feel a certain kind of detestation for the creature that the protagonist was converted into. Gregor Samsa woke up one evening to find that he was converted into a bug. The novel starts with this very simple decleration. He thought that ...  Read the complete review

Gregor. Beloved son in a family of four. Selflessly hard-working. Reliable. Trustworthy. Eager to please. On the day the story begins, he wakes up as a BEETLE. But this is no sci-fi story or cheap horror tale. Instead, Kafka, in his inimitable style, blends fantasy and reality in carefully-measured quantities. The result is a sobering view of the uglier side of human nature, a perspective drawn directly from Kafka's own life experiences. Kafka came from a family which expected a lot of its elder son. Once an adult, he was to take on his father's carefully-built business, provide for his parents, maintain his standing amongst ...  Read the complete review