Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis Existentialism

Existentialism is defined as a modern philosophical motion emphasizing the importance of one’s experience and answerability. Its focal point is the brand on the personal contemplations that these do on the person. who is seen as a free agent in a deterministic and apparently nonmeaningful existence. Its doctrine is punctilious that. in a nutshell. advocates a diverse armory of responses and solutions to the ‘existentialist attitude which basically is what an single feels when confronted by the absurdness of life.

Throughout humanity. contemplation and self-proclaimed ultimate truths have assumed assorted signifiers: poesy faith. and legion other philosophies and textual plants.

In The Metamorphosis. Franz Kafka narrates the branchings of a metabolism in which the topic and supporter. a adult male named Gregor Samsa. is transformed into a bug. Despite the novella’s literary methods and influences. the most outstanding being the manner Kafka so coolly describes such abnormality in his life. The Metamorphosis is besides hailed as a premier textual work of existential philosophy.

the antecedently mentioned philosophical motion.

Both anterior and subsequent to the transmutation. Kafka portrays Gregor as a adult male who seems lost within himself. and missing individuality. The reminiscences of his yesteryear are neither nostalgic nor affecting: his human life is seen to go around entirely around fiddling affairs. His societal life pays the monetary value from this. his failure to asseverate a concrete and consistent being. The extent of his deficiency of individualism is farther exemplified by his reaction to the metabolism: determination himself “transformed in his bed into a mammoth insect” (Kafka 296), he prioritizes work over all else, even in his freshly equated insect signifier.

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Furthermore. he panics because “the following train went at seven o’clock to catch that he would necessitate to travel rapidly like mad and his samples weren’t even packed up”  (297). Gregor’s individuality crisis is a device for conveying Kafka’s belief of an impersonal society where individuality is drastically mitigated as a consequence of inordinate philistinism. Gregor. in the context of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground analogy. would be the ant in the anthill — therefore rendering his metabolism ironically. Another dominant subject prevalent throughout the novelette is the absurd state of affairs Gregor is confronted by. These absurd occurrences (296-327) reflect the universe as seen from the existential philosopher position: a universe absent of a rational and comprehensive aim. Jean-Paul Sartre postulated that ‘every bing thing is born without ground. prolongs itself out of failing. and dies by chance.

This nonsense is exactly what Gregor is victim to in the microcosm of society that Kafka generates: Gregor flounders about. beleaguered by absurdness and weakness. presumptively because he is incognizant of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard’s slightly comforting decisions that one must invent significance for one’s ain being ex nihilo. Once once more. Kafka utilizes a combination of secret plan and character to convey his angst refering an seemingly unpointed being. Freedom — or instead the deficiency thereof — is another existentialist dogma that Kafka addresses. Gregor is depicted as person constrained by self-imposed loads. the most demanding being the function as the fiscal pillar of the household. Despite holding the freedom to disown this function. Gregor alternatively pursues it with hectic ardour to the extent that it becomes his ‘sole desire (310).

Yet his rant sing his calling (297-298) reveals that this is non due to personal desire. but instead the belief that he must replace his male parent financially. regardless of penchant. Gregor’s psychotic belief sing an absence of pick contradicts what Kafka perceives as the truth: that freedom is omnipresent in malice of any ethical duties we may be expected to adhere to. and that the single defines his or herself via one’s determinations.

A quasi-motto of existential philosophy coined by Sartreexistence precedes essence. In decision Kafka employs the fictional literary elements he constructs to turn to the really non-fictional. existentialist facets of society and life. Akin to Dostoyevsky’s Notes from Underground. it can be interpreted as both a contemplation and philippic against impersonal communities. limitation of freedom. and the absurdness of life.