Telling a Strange Story & Family Values - Essay Example

Kafka’s Absurd Metamorphosis Q1. From the very beginning Kafka introduce readers to extraordinary news: for some reason a travelling salesman Gregor Samsa overnight has turned into a disgusting bug with monstrous features and many sticky limbs. Feeling of frustration comes already when reading this news. Abomination appears later when reading descriptions of Samsa’s new look. Thus, most extraordinary is to found a casual tone Kafka uses for narrative.Casualty comes from common descriptions Kafka makes and mostly, from casualty of Samsa’s thoughts.

After introducing readers to the news, author introduces Gregor’s room, “a picture of a woman”, the weather etc. as if there’s a common human in the room (Kafka). Very routine are Samsa’s concerns on his metamorphosis. One may expect panic, or shock when discovering such a change in oneself, or frustration and other similar feelings. Yet Gregor knows exactly what to do. He’s trying to live his day-to-day life, to cause no problems to his family and in the workplace. Narrative seems ordinary due to these Samsa’s thoughts.

Firstly, frustration appears as a reaction on this casual tone, yet later, readers too begin to perceive a story as something common. At the beginning, there’s a strong feeling that someone should enter the story and correct these obviously false values for characters. Thus, effect of absurd appears. It’s interesting, but when reading further, one gets used to irrationality of characters as narrative’s sucking readers in. Thus, there’s a controversial feeling of absurdity and calmness what Kafka’s casual narration about the metamorphosis brings. Q2. When Samsa’s parents only predict that something’s wrong with their son, first their conclusion is Gregor’s illness.

They are mostly worried about Gregor, so they send for a doctor, and mother’s trying to excuse Samsa before Mr. Manager. “He is not well, believe me, Mr. Manager. Otherwise how would Gregor miss a train?” (Kafka). This normal reaction changes completely when parents see their son has become a bug. Sadly, but anger, shame and disgust are common false reactions on real life family troubles. Samsa’s mother’s prostrated by a sudden change in her son. She’s very scared. Meanwhile, Gregor’s father gets furious, but soon starts crying.

This looks like a normal reaction for ones who receive some shocking bad news, but Samsa’s parents’ later reaction is mostly cruel. It’s commonly expected that family are those to go to for a comfort, for a helping hand when one’s in trouble. Meanwhile, Gregor’s parents step by step turn away from their son providing him with no (speaking in modern terms) medical care or moral support. Similar examples in real life are any family life events when one member becomes a burden on others.

Moreover, if it’s a person who’s expected to support family financially, like Samsa is. Those events are long-term illnesses or different disorders like alcoholism, depression or more fatal cases of cancer or Alzheimer’s etc. which slowly deprive person of life. Then lives of other family members are affected too, and they may feel anger, ashamed and disgust towards ill relative. Work CitedKafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Ian Johnston (Trans.). 1 Aug. 2011. Web. 17 Jun. 2015.