The Metamorphosis Essay | Critical Essay #2

The Metamorphosis Critical Essay #2

The following essay explores Kafka's presentation of various characters and their traits as "vermin" in "The Metamorphosis."

While the young businessman Georg Bendemann is condemned to death in Kafka's metaphorical world, the young commercial traveler Gregor Samsa in "Die Verwandlung" ( "The Metamorphosis") must live out the last months of his life in the same world changed as a giant bug, which resembles a cockroach.

Compared with "Die Verwandlung," the little prose piece "Grosser Larm" appears like a first sketch for the larger story. The characterization of father and son is the same: the father is the mighty master of the family, and the son, living helplessly in their midst, frightens them in his monstrous shape. "Grosser Larm" appeared in October, 1912, in a Prague magazine; and on November 11 Kafka sent a copy to Felice. The little prose piece was fresh in his mind when, six days...
(read more)