INTRODUCTION “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka’s Life (influential Czech writer of 20 th century). Born into a middle-class, German-speaking Jewish family in Prague (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)

Trained as a lawyer; obtained employment with an insurance company. Began to write short stories in his spare time. Regretted having to devote so much attention to his Brotberuf ("day job", literally "bread job"). Kafka’s Employment

Father-Son Relationship He had a complicated and troubled relationship with his father that had a major impact on his writing. Father = "huge, selfish, overbearing businessman” Both parents were absent from the home & worked as many as 12 hours each day to manage the family business.

Racy Details… Kafka's life was full of "incessant womanizing.” He visited brothels & had several relationships with women throughout his life but never married. Political views: socialist an economic & political philosophy characterized by co-operative management & social ownership of the economy

Kafka’s Death Died: 1924 Laryngeal tuberculosis worsened. Returned from Berlin to Prague, where members of his family, Esp. his sister Ottla, took care of him. Cause of death seemed to be starvation: the condition of Kafka's throat made eating too painful for him.

Legacy Kafka's writing inspired the term "Kafkaesque” Ex: instances in which people are overpowered by bureaucracies, often in a surreal, nightmarish milieu which evokes feelings of senselessness, disorientation, and helplessness. Characters = lack a clear course of action to escape the situation. Real-life occurrences and situations = incomprehensibly complex, bizarre, or illogical.

The World during the 1900’s? What was happening in the world during Kafka’s life ( )?

2 nd Industrial Revolution- 1840’s-1870’s Freud Publishes His Theory of Sexuality-1905 Chinese revolution Armenian Genocide Easter Rising in Ireland-1916 WWI Germans use poison gas as a weapon Bolshevik terror in Russia Hitler’s Mein Kampf is Published Stock Market Crashes & Great Depression Begins-1929 The World during the early 1900’s?

Darwin, Nietzsche, Freud….Oh My! Darwin ( ) – theory of evolution Nietzsche ( )- “death of God,” called himself an “immoralist,” nihilism Freud ( )- psychoanalysis

The “Old World” Collapse The world = violent, uncertain, irrational, inhuman. Crisis of thought- old way of thinking dies; new philosophies emerge Crisis of faith- questioning institutions Crisis of identity- entire generations dead

The Grotesque Motivated by negative occurrences of the time. Grotesque presents the strange, fantastic, ugly, incongruous, unpleasant, or disgusting (rather than the beautiful or accepted). Refers to something that simultaneously invokes in an audience a feeling of uncomfortable bizarreness as well as pity. Grotesque character isn’t a villain, but a victim of social castigation. We feel pity for the victim. Grotesque is often fascinated with the ambiguity between reality and non-reality.

Dark Humor= it’s funny because it’s absurd Dark Humor: describes the form of comedy that comes from the pathetic absurdity of human suffering & existence (NOTE- some of this humor has been lost in translation)  a sub-genre of comedy & satire which laughter arises from cynicism & skepticism, often relying on topics such as death

In media res In medias res: Latin for in the middle of things  Story begins with a climatic event

Anti-hero vs Antagonists Anti-hero: Gregor  Non-action, passivity, cowardly, self-effacing  Reader response = 1 st sympathy & pity, but then disgust.  Allows us to see & avoid failures in our own lives. Antagonists:  Father  Grete

Conflict  Man vs society  Man vs man  Man vs self  Man vs nature