Gerald Courtney

Eh102

5/24/12

Metamorphosis psyco analysis

The Metamorphosis is a story about a man named Gregor, he takes care of his parents and his sister named Grete but one morning when he wakes up he discovers that he has transformed in to a giant insect. I will be applying the Psychoanalytical theory to the story. I will try to answer my question which is what trials ordeals does the protagonist face? Does he overcome them?

 Just to get it out of the way Gregor never overcame his ordeal in the story. But the trials he faces were tough. It started when Gregor woke up to discover that for some reason he has transformed into an insect; in shock he panics and stays in bed knowing that he can’t go to work and earn money to take care of his mother, father, and, sister. Deep down in Gregor’s mind he is stud that he has been transformed into a gross insect.

In a way what Gregor’s goes through in his ordeal in the Metamorphosis is comparable to the bureaucrat who was exposed to alien fluids in the movie district 9. In the movie he slowly transforms into one of the alien insect looking creatures (district 9). The next day when Gregor woke up roles had been reversed all the other three family members had to find jobs to economically stabilize themselves.

 Gregor’s deep down must have been severely depressed when he overheard his family discussing the idea of getting rid of him. What made his ordeal more mentally painful to bear was he lost his entire social and human life when Gregor’s woke up that morning. His situation of becoming an insect monster had created strife and stress between the other family members. What made no since was that his family did nothing about his burden of becoming a giant insect. As time passed Grete started to neglect him by feeding him less and less. Realizing that his ordeal would never change and things would get worse Gregor started to take a nose dive towards starvation and increasingly worse depression. In the end of the story the family had become stressed and heavy burdened with his ordeal. Mentally and physically depressed with the thought that it was his presences that prolonged their suffering Gregor heads into his room and die when the sun rises. The only way to overcome his ordeal was to die because it was his very existence that made his family members suffer mentally.  

The family moved on and wanted the sister to find a man to marry. In a strange way the story line of transforming into an insect almost matched district 9’s movie story line. Gregor did overcome his ordeal when he realized that death was his only way out.

Citations:

1 http://www.herzogbr.net/kafka/papers13.htm

2 Kafka, Franz. "Letters and Diaries." The Metamorphosis. Trans. and Ed. Corngold, Stanley. New York: Norton, 1996. 61-74

   3 http://www.highbeam.com/topics/franz-kafka-metamorphosis-t10553

4 Kafka, Franz. "Explanatory Notes to the Text." The Metamorphosis. Trans. and Ed. Corngold, Stanley. Sydney: Bantan, 1972. 77.

5 District 9