The Use of Metaphors in Kafkas Metamorphosis

A detailed Summary of The Use of Metaphors in Kafkas Metamorphosis

In two ways, change is brought about in The Metamorphosis. The first is by allowing time and circumstances determine one's decisions. The next way is by using courage and conviction to make one's own decisions. Kafka brings about change with the use of metaphors in The Metamorphosis. The hidden metaphors are there if one can recognize and understand them. Kafka's crafty use of metaphors throughout his story includes many uses of different items. Finding the hidden and direct metaphors gives one a sense of adventure and challenge.

The transformation of Gregor into a giant vermin is a very apparent metaphor, which can be thought of in more than one way. One may be inclined to associate "this man turned bug" as a grotesque display representing one of the lowest forms of life. Gregor's manager and family are repulsed by his unexplainable physical appearance. Stunned, the manager retreats out of the house in horror, the mother falls to the floor in grief and the father, in an attempt to get Gregor out of sight, forces him into the doorway of his room. Gregor's beetle body is too large for the doorway and he finds himself stuck and unable to move, "when from behind his father gave him a hard shove, which was truly his salv

The newspaper provides one with news of the outside world. This in turn educates and fills the void one might feel by being cut off from the world. The food, of course, fills the belly and is literally sustenance for physical requirements to remain alive. When one thinks about it, the same could be said of newspapers. By providing the mind with the information and text, one is also fulfilling a physical need. This is the need to know what is going on outside of one's own realm and therefore fulfilling a physical need for human contact.

Throughout Kafka's strange and disturbing story are two more metaphors that are repeatedly used: food and newspapers. Kafka's reference to food and newspapers serve as a metaphor for the need for sustenance. Sustenance is apparently something that the whole family is in need of. Gregor describes the dining room table as having "The breakfast dishes laid out lavishly on the table, since for his father breakfast was the most important meal of the day, which he would prolong for hours while reading various newspapers" (2310-11). The sister brings Gregor his food, or sustenance, and to find out what he might like, "she brought him a wide assortment of things, all spread out on an old newspaper..." (2316). The food is significant

Some common words found in the essay are:
, Throughout Kafka's, Gregor Gregor, outside world, direct metaphors, food newspapers, one's own, fulfilling physical, world family,

Approximate Word count = 863
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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