![]() ![]() Some of this period’s painters and sculptors-including the Italian Futurists and the Russian Constructivists-celebrated the dynamic, revolutionary potential of city architecture and transportation systems. Yet metropolitan commerce, technology, and living conditions evoked very different reactions from the various writers and artists of the modernist era. Modernism Art and the Modern City: “The Metamorphosis” is but one of many early 20th-century works that depicts city life. Since I am nothing but literature and want to be nothing else, my job will never take possession of me.” To quote another Kafka letter, this time from 1913: “My job is unbearable to me because it conflicts with my only desire and my only calling, which is literature. ![]() Not by my office but by my other work.” While Gregor gradually forgets his professional habits and discovers the power of art as “The Metamorphosis” progresses, Kafka was firmly convinced for much of his adult life that art was his true calling. This has a very simple cause, that I am completely overworked. ![]() As he wrote in a 1910 letter, highlighting the daily difficulties that devotion to writing can bring: “When I wanted to get out of bed this morning I simply folded up. But even though Kafka remained at the Company until a few years before his death, he viewed another kind of activity-his writing-as his most important and most challenging life’s work. Kafka wrote “The Metamorphosis” in 1912, at a time when he was employed by the Workers’ Accident Insurance Company of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Kafka’s Own Professions: Like Gregor Samsa, Kafka himself was caught up in the world of money, commerce, and day-to-day bureaucracy. The two elder Samsas are now confident that Grete will find a “good husband, and watch hopefully and optimistically as “at the end of their journey their daughter sprang to her feet first and stretched her young body” (139). Samsa on an excursion “into the open country outside the town” (139). Gregor’s father confronts the three lodgers and forces them to leave, then takes Grete and Mrs. And with Gregor’s death, the rest of the family is reinvigorated. The dead Gregor is quickly removed from the premises. He feels “relatively comfortable.” In the early morning, his head sinks “to the floor of its own accord and from his nostrils came the last faint flicker of his breath” (135). After this latest conflict, Gregor retreats to the darkness of his room. After seeing Gregor, the lodgers react angrily to the “disgusting conditions” in the Samsa household, while the anguished Grete declares that the Samsas must, despite their past efforts at accommodation, finally get rid of Gregor (132-133). He emerges from his room, feeling as if “the way were opening before him to the unknown nourishment he craved” (130-131). But one night, Gregor hears his sister playing the violin. Gregor himself has stopped eating, and his room is becoming dirty and crowded with unused objects. The servants are dismissed, Grete and her mother find jobs of their own, and three lodgers-“serious gentlemen” with “a passion for order”-come to stay in one of the Samsas’ rooms (127). Over time, the Samsas become resigned to Gregor’s condition and take measures to provide for themselves. This attack on Gregor makes “even his father recollect that Gregor was a member of the family, despite his present unfortunate and repulsive shape” (122). In the midst of this chaos, Gregor’s father arrives home from work and bombards Gregor “with fruit from the dish on the sideboard,” convinced that Gregor is a danger to the family (122). He rushes out of his usual hiding place, sends his mother into a fainting fit, and sends Grete running for help. But when Grete forms a plan to remove Gregor’s bedroom furniture and give him “as wide a field as possible to crawl in,” Gregor, determined to hold on to at least a few reminders of his human form, opposes her (115). He also feels grateful for the caring attention of his sister, Grete, who “tried to make as light as possible of whatever was disagreeable in her task, and as time went on she succeeded, of course, more and more” (113). He develops a taste for rotten food and forms a new hobby-scurrying all over the walls in his room. Soon enough, Gregor’s parents and sister start adapting to a life without Gregor’s earnings, and Gregor adapts to his new insectoid form. Back in his room, Gregor reflects on the fine life he had once provided for his family and wonders “if all the quiet, the comfort, the contentment were now to end in horror” (106). ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |