It is Kafka's most well-known piece of work and is considered to be one of the most influential stories of the 20th century.
The novella's first translation into English appeared in the 's. Since then, a number of translations have come into being - if you go into a library or bookshop, you're likely to find at least six different translations of the story, each with their own slight differences in language and phrasing.
The focus of the story is the sudden 'metamorphosis' of the lead character Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, into a unnamed insect-like creature. Kafka intentionally decided not to name Gregor as a specific insect, wishing to emphasis the emotional impact of the change on Gregor rather than the physical aspects.
Gregor is referred to in the original text as 'ungeziefer', which does not translate directly as 'insect' in English - its literal meaning is "unclean animal not suitable for sacrifice", leading to lots of speculation amongst readers as to what Gregor has been transformed into.
The Metamorphosis was banned under both the Soviet and Nazi regimes, with the Soviet Union describing the story as 'decadent' and 'despairing'. All of Kafka's work was also banned in his home country of Czechoslovakia now split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia because of Kafka's preference for writing in German rather than Czech.
If a minor figure, he nonetheless had a better class of admirer eg, Robert Musil. In the dramatist Carl Sternheim, winner of the prestigious Theodor Fontane prize, bestowed his prize money on Kafka as a mark of writer-to-writer respect. Legendarily, though, Kafka had no bigger fan than his university friend Max Brod , who decided early on that Kafka was a genius, and duly ended up saving his works from incineration.
Brod disobeyed Kafka, claiming that his friend had intimated his wish some years earlier, whereupon Brod had made it clear he would do no such thing. In other words, we may infer that Kafka was playing hard to get.
Why does Gregor work so hard? Five years ago his father lost a lot of money and Gregor took a job with one of the creditors. His sister Grete was too young to work, his mother too poorly with asthma, his father rather a broken man. Gregor, then, is the man of the house: his wages keep the family. As the story begins he has, for a change, slept overnight in the flat. And then he awakens. No English translation disputes that Gregor wakes from troubled dreams to find himself transformed in his bed.
But into what, precisely? But Kafka wished for readers to approach his creation with rather more tact. Metamorphosis is a story in which a man suffers a terrible and inexplicable misfortune, is reduced to an abject and alien state, then is made to suffer doubly by the attitude of his ostensible loved ones, who make clear they would be better off without him — a verdict that he, with a passivity that seems culpable, accepts.
He struck this Faustian pact, knowing it was not in his favour it never is , but that it would suffice. Certainly Kafka had what we nowadays call commitment issues with women. It became Amerika. Worse, during he was much beset by having agreed to help his father with an interest in an asbestos factory — an investment Kafka had encouraged him to make, resulting in hassles and unhappiness. Kafka was instantly drawn to her and began to woo her with a daily torrent of letters.
There is, of course, an obvious distancing effect in epistolary courtship, and Kafka could be promiscuous even with those disembodied affections. He also went to enormous trouble to ensure that none of the women engaged with him was ever happy or satisfied.
She was perhaps cheerier than our now standard image of aKafka fan. Prague boasted a large Jewish population that included the Kafkas, though the family had little daily concern for the faith and rarely attended synagogue.
Kafka regarded his bar mitzvah as a meaningless joke. Kafka knew both languages but was most comfortable with German. Being a German speaker in a predominantly Czech-speaking area and a Jew with little connection to Judaism, Kafka struggled his entire life with a sense of alienation from those around him.
Kafka underwent a rigorous and strict education that placed great emphasis on the classics. In , he enrolled in Charles-Ferdinand University now known as Charles University , intending to study chemistry but harboring literary ambitions. After two weeks, he abandoned chemistry for law, then switched to German literature, only to return to law.
He never liked law, however, and said he chose it because it required the least amount of mental energy. After graduation, he worked for a year in the judicial system before leaving for a job in insurance. Despite this attitude, he was evidently a conscientious employee. It is obvious that all of these descriptions are painful and the whole basis of the novel revolves around a human being who is dyeing a slow, painful death.
The Samsa family is a middle class family much like the one Kafka grew up in. Rather than Gregor dying an immediate death, the story is of a long, slow death.
If he had just died then it would have been a shock to his family members, but instead he started to become an inconvenience so that it was almost a relief to his family. Throughout The Metamorphosis, Kafka uses Gregor to make constant reference to the slamming doors in the background. Kafka lived with his parents most of his life even when he was able to support himself. They lived in a small apartment and Franz could not concentrate on writing because of the yelling, screaming and slamming of doors.
Maybe Kafka makes reference to slamming doors, which seem to have no relevance to the story, because it happened so often during the times he was trying to write, it happened unknowingly. When comparing Franz Kafka and his personal life to The Metamorphosis it is obvious in more ways than one that he was writing a twisted story of his life. The emotional and physical abuse Gregor goes through are similar to what Kafka went through in real life.
They were both abused and neglected by their fathers when they were disappointed with them. Kafka uses Gregor transforming into a bug as a way of exaggerating himself, trying to express his feelings and point of view. When writing, Kafka felt as if he was trapped in his room which he referred to as "the noise headquarters of the apartment". Gregor was an exaggeration of this because he could not leave the house to escape the noises and abuse.
0コメント