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Agarwal 2
the first line will immediately try to interpret the story in a metaphoric way and conclude that
perhaps modern man has become an insect.
Literary review
The story has been read as part of the movement called Expressionism which tries to
describe the way we experience the world, not what it looks like in a representational way. In
an Expressionist way, perhaps Kafka is showing what it feels like to be human in the 20th
century. Marxist critics have read the story as a metaphor for human beings who are alienated
and deformed by mechanical work processes. Gregors metamorphosiswhether deliberate
or notallows him to escape from an inhuman way of life. Some critics interpret this novella
and simply read that Gregors awful work situation has already turned him into an insect; the
metamorphosis merely makes outward what was already true on the inside.
As the relationship between Kafka and his father is not on good terms, freudian and
psychoanalytic critics see the story as primarily about the relationship between father and
son.
Norman N Holland in his essay Kafkas Metamorphosis in Modern Fiction Studies
wrote that Kafka mixes unrealism into realism. And he described the genre of the novella as
allegory, surrealism and symbolism.
Robbie Batson in his essay Reality through Symbolism wrote that the unusual story
makes the genre itself unusual.
Research Problem
Agarwal 3
Research Objective
To analyse the transformation of Gregor Samsa and his family in Franz Kafkas The
Metamorphosis
Work Cited
The Teaching Company lecture series The History of World Literature- lecture no.
38