Kafka – Metamorphosis. Autobiographical Reading

Metamorphosis is a highly allegorical, polysemous novella written by Franz Kafka. It depicts the transformation undergone by the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, and recounts the reactions by himself and his family. The seemingly simple storyline is interwoven with numerous meanings and interpretations, perceived differently to every individual. The novella has many allegories and parallels to Kafka’s own life, as Kafka expressed his anxieties and criticisms of his own body image, his self-worth and his troubling relationship with his father and his family, conveyed to the audience for them to begin to understand the several complex layers of Kafka’s life.

Kafka explores his own troubled relationship with his father through his allegorical novella, expressing Kafka’s anxieties, concerns and powerlessness under his father’s authority. Kafka uses the relationship between Gregor and his family, especially his father to reflect Kafka’s own relationship in the real world, also creating definite parallels between Herr Samsa and Kafka’s father. After Gregor’s transformation, instead of sympathy, he is met with hostility from his family, particularly his father. ‘…and to the accompaniment of much stamping of the feet he set about driving Gregor back to his room by flourishing the stick and the newspaper.’ This initial aggression is later followed with physically brutality to Gregor: ‘But another apple that came flying immediately after it positively plunged itself into Gregor’s back’, ‘Shocking, unbelievable pain.’ Kafka’s inadequacy or powerlessness under his father’s control is clearly represented through Herr Samsa’s physical dominance over Gregor. This physical cruelty and violence intends to shock the audience, creating a vivid, strong and even exaggerated understanding of Kafka’s perceptions towards his father. Kafka also mirrors his feelings of constricting guilt and inferiority towards his father in the physical imprisonment of Gregor, and also uses Gregor’s debt to...