Gerald Courtney

Eh 102

 Film compared to the original work

For every moment that he is stuck as an insect Gregor’s becomes psychologically depressed and physically dependent on his parents and sister. In this analysis I will be comparing Franz Kafka’s original story to Carlos Atanes short film about Franz Kafka’s story the metamorphosis while answering the theoretical question from a psychoanalytical point of view. My question is how can characters behavior, narrative events, and/or images be explained in terms of psychoanalytic concepts any kind.

            In Kafka’s original story there was a role as the male of the house hold that Gregor’s had to fulfill, which was to provide of his family which included his parents and sister. But when Gregor’s woke up the next morning he discovered that he had somehow transformed into a giant roach like insect in Carlos’s film Gregor’s transforms into a half human and half bug creature in the middle of the night when he was awake which did not match exactly what had happened in the original story in the written story he was a fully transformed bug but in the movie he was half bug and half human. Despite the difference in the story line both movie and written story reflected the soul crushing and horrified reality that Gregor’s had lost everything he once had worked for and had obtained.

            At the beginning of the film it was shown that Gregor’s family was Jewish by the Star of David hanging over the dining room table. Later on in the film after Gregor’s horrifying transformation was revealed to his family and boss a knock at the door had revealed the year and location that the film took place. When the door was opened standing in the doorway smiling at Gregor’s sister was a German Nazi in uniform. Losing the bread winner in the family was bad but having him transform into a giant bug and then losing your job that supports the family did Psychological damage to the minds of the family members, but what made things worse was having the Nazis so close to them that they could have been taken from their home. The family members must have felt lost, devastated, and stressed to the point that they felt powerless to do anything. In Kafka’s original writing it did not take place in years of the Nazi Germanys rise to power in Europe.

            If there was one that I would have to pick that could reflect the psychological hardship and fear of the characters in the metamorphosis it would be the short film by Carlos Atanes. Not everything in the film matched the original written work of the metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, But the film did give a more visual understanding of what the family members had to do in order to survive. In both the film and written story Gregor’s soul crushing depression is what killed him in the ending of both works. Gregor’s realized that it was he who was stressing his family. It was he who kept them from living a normal life.  

     

Work cited

Kafka, Franz. “Expository notes on text”. The Metamorphosis trans. And Ed. Corngold, Stanly. Sydney: bantan, 1972. 77

http://stats.storify.com/record/click?sid=4fc4fb468f8502b54e003088&redirect=http://www.thefullwiki.org/The_Metamorphosis

http://stats.storify.com/record/click?sid=4fc4fb468f8502b54e003088&redirect=http://novelinks.org/uploads/Novels/TheMetamorphosis/Concept%20Analysis.pdf

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