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  • Subject: Franz Kafka and The Metamorphosis
Subject: Franz Kafka and The Metamorphosis
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I know this might be considered an Ilovebees discussion but I thought it was off topic enough to warrant being on The Flood forums. I'd never really read the blog post that are linked from Ilovebees but today when I checked them out I noticed that the top of the page quotes the open sentence from Kafka's novella The Metamorphosis about Gregor Samsa who wakes up to find himself a bug. It's a really weird story but fraught with symbolism. I was just wondering if anyone else has read Kafka's work. See, it's not Ilovebees, it's a literary discussion.

  • 08.18.2004 10:47 AM PDT
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It's a great metaphor for the human aging process. I was disappointed that it was our "Sci-Fi" literature block for my English class, but, what can you do?

  • 08.18.2004 10:51 AM PDT
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It's not really sci-fi, It's existentialism. Kafka was an artist and represents himself through Samsa, both finding themselves suddenly out of place in society. It's also a big poke at the way society treated those who were different as well as the way society lived, or rather didn't. It has the common theme of surviving verses living that you often see in pieces of that time. And ironically Samsa finds out that to truly live he must die and fade into the nothingness, the classic end of all existential novels. I wonder if our friends at Bungie read that book before they decided to use the quote in the whole Ilovebees thing. If they have, answer this question, what does Samsa get stuck in his back? Bet none of them know it.

  • 08.18.2004 10:21 PM PDT
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It was symbolic of the Jews during WWII.

Edit: I studied it greatly. I think it had very little, if not anything to do with philosophy. And this is comming almost directly from the author's personal accounts.

Edit2: Of course I could be wrong. If I am, I'd be interested in seeing why.

Edit3: Remember - I think he was either in a camp during WWII, or nearly got in one.

[Edited on 8/18/2004 10:27:27 PM]

  • 08.18.2004 10:23 PM PDT
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Of course, it's possible it symbolized two things at once, but I'm very certain it was the jews during WWII and what was happening to them. My class went through and correlated each event in the story with events of WWII pretaining to the Jews.

It fits perfectly - every element.

  • 08.18.2004 10:32 PM PDT
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Posted by: ObbiQuiet

Edit2: Of course I could be wrong. If I am, I'd be interested in seeing why.



1. The Jews' families did not turn on each other and sell each other out in the same way that Gregor's family did to home. Gregor's family reacted like a family whose Patriach has lost his dignity and sanity and could not lead anymore.

2. Gregor's physical ailments that he recieved by becoming an insect were not because of extensive slave labor, but natural of his metamorphisis. The lack of an ability to speak correctly, the bad vision, the frail strength of his body, his weakend mental capacity - these all come upon him in due course, just like the normal human aging process.

3. Gregor's family only grew to despise him as he grew weaker.

Edit3: Remember - I think he was either in a camp during WWII, or nearly got in one.

4. Gregor died. Kakfa was a German Jew, but did not die during the Halocaust. In fact, unless I am mistaken, Kafka died in 1924, and Hitler was not even appointed to power until 1933.

[Edited on 8/18/2004 10:49:36 PM]

  • 08.18.2004 10:47 PM PDT
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Then we spent two days of english 12 summerschool talking about a false interpritation of it.

I wish I still had the textbook - I even remember it saying that it was an analogy to the jewish situation around wwII.

  • 08.18.2004 10:54 PM PDT
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Posted by: ObbiQuiet
Then we spent two days of english 12 summerschool talking about a false interpritation of it.



I'm sure that it fits, in the same way that biblethumpers can fit the Bible to almost anything, or even halo players can with Halo. That just goes to show that, just because you learn something in school, it may not always be concrete.

  • 08.18.2004 10:59 PM PDT
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Posted by: ajenteks
Posted by: ObbiQuiet
Then we spent two days of english 12 summerschool talking about a false interpritation of it.



I'm sure that it fits, in the same way that biblethumpers can fit the Bible to almost anything, or even halo players can with Halo. That just goes to show that, just because you learn something in school, it may not always be concrete.


Good point.

And, come to think of it, the teacher had been wrong on many occasions. :/

Now I feel tricked.

  • 08.18.2004 11:01 PM PDT
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Posted by: ObbiQuiet

Now I feel tricked.


Me too. 6 Hrs. in a kilt has me wondering how the Hell I, and the rest of my felllow man, ever got sold on pants in the first place, and if I can even ever go back.

  • 08.18.2004 11:04 PM PDT