Kafka & Gregor Family

Gregor's family are very much alike to Kafka's family in real life. Kafka's mother was a devoted housemaid and his father was a brute. Neither of his parents understood why Kafka wanted to go into writing.
Much of Kafka experience with the real world reflect upon Gregor in the metamorphosis. Gregor someone who working an unenjoyable wants to quit and not go to work. This can be contrasted with Kafka wanting to go to writing but his parent pressuring him not to. Kafka father is much like Gregor's father where they were both a "major power" in the family. They control most of the decisions made in the household. The difference is that Kafka father was actually a successful businessman vs the failure of a businessman in the story. It feels like Kafka is using The Metamorphosis as a guilty pleasure making his father fail. Metamorphosis could be view as what happened if Kafka abandoned his family and went to do whatever he wanted to. His father would be disappointed, His sister would transform and grow up because she is not looked after ( she has to look after herself). However, they were overall fine without Kafka working a "ideal" job. It feels like this book is all his regret in his life. (Maybe why he wants them burned?)

Comments

  1. AlexOctober 13, 2018 at 2:12 PM

    I think that the extent to which Kafka's real life experiences interested his writing is rather interesting. Your idea that The Metamorphosis is Kafka's fantasy of what leaving his family would be like is a good one. Kafka writes the family as being happy to see Gregor gone because he is himself trying to justify leaving his family.

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  2. GrantOctober 13, 2018 at 7:07 PM

    I think there could be something to your interpretation. When Kafka was dying I believe he asked his friend to burn his manuscripts, maybe because he was embarrassed of what people would think of him when they read what he wrote.

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  3. Eli GarrettOctober 13, 2018 at 8:25 PM

    I really like this theory, and I feel like if we consider The Metamorphosis as a depiction of Kafka's life it seems like all of the characters are shown in their worst light. Kafka is Gregor the insect (parent's perspective), his father s a lazy brute (Kafka's perspective), his mother seems quite different, unless she had asthma in real life, then the mom is his mom.

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  4. MartinOctober 13, 2018 at 9:53 PM

    This book does very much seem like a canvas of Kafka's life. He clearly has "daddy" issues, through the Oedipus complex, the physical violence his father shows in the novel, etc. It seems like Kafka just wants to do something to make his family/dad proud of him so drastically that it takes control of his life.

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