"The Metamorphosis"

Lesson 23: “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka pp. 1996-2030

The Modern World: Self and Other in Global Context pp. 1579-1599: This introduction is long and complicated, but it is also fascinating. I recommend that you look at whatever section seems most helpful as we near the end of the semester.

Professor Lynch includes "The Metamorphosis" of Franz Kafka in his course to conclude a movement from` a study of Genesis, with Adam being made from dust in God's image, to the modern degradation of a man's waking up to discover he has been transformed into a dung beetle. (Remember, the whole set, of programs covers the Western tradition from the Bible to Kafka.) Professor Lynch also wants an example of modernism, a set of literary tendencies that began shortly before World War I: Modernism is the subject of a complicated discussion in the Norton Anthology. Because of that complexity and the variety of what modern writers pursued in this highly individualistic period, I don't want to attempt the same summary of its main principles that I offered with Romanticism and realism. Instead, you should note the particular features of Kafka's modernism as they are summarized in the Living Literature Study Guide, page 103. An absence of unifying certainties led to people's suffering a feeling of isolation; bureaucratic complexities made people feel small and insignificant. They felt powerless before systems beyond their control. Same critics talk about these features of modernism as continuing throughout the twentieth century.

In order to represent this reality, Kafka blended a realism of detail with nightmarish and fantastic plots. A simple portrayal of external reality couldn't suggest the anguish Kafka wanted to express. It's this element of dream reality that separates Kafka and some other modernists from the realists of the nineteenth century. Internal consciousness rather than external appearances becomes the primary reality in modernists as varied as James Joyce, Virgina Woolf, William Faulkner, and T. S. Eliot.

Vocabulary

Be sure to become familiar with the terminology listed under the vocabulary sections of the lessons.

Modernism:

After World War I, “the survivors emerged resolved to reexamine the bases of certainty, the structures of knowledge, the systems of belief, and the repositories of authority in a society that had allowed such a war to occur. Their reaction would also be reflected in literature, not only in subject matter but—for many—in a new use of language, in new ways of representing our knowledge of the world, and most especially, new hesitations about subscribing to any single mode of understanding it.”(Norton 1582)

Paper Topics

The following is a list of topic choices for the third essay. Select one to develop in a 500+ word essay. Or, choose a topic from lesson 18 or lesson 22. Be sure to review the guidelines for writing an essay and don't forget to add a Works Cited sheet to your essay. Check important dates for due date to avoid late penalties.

• You may select any one of the five Review Questions on page 106 of your Living Literature Study Guide to use as a topic for this paper.

Last Updated: January 5, 2007