The Metamorphosis

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The Metamorphosis

• Franz Kafka
• Published 1915

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Chapter One

• When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from
  unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in
  his bed into a monstrous vermin. He was lying on
  his back as hard as armor plate, and when he
  lifted his head a little, he saw his vaulted
  brown belly, sectioned by arch-shaped ribs, to
  whose dome the cover, about to slide off
  completely, could barely cling. His many legs,
  pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest
  of him, were waving helplessly before his eyes.

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Kafka the Outsider

• 1883-1924 born in Prague
• German-speaking Czech
• Jewish unbeliever
• Harsh father difficult relationship
• Died of tuberculosis
• Sisters later died in concentration camps

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Modernism

• Desire to discard ideas and values of the past
  and to find new ideas more applicable to 20th
  century life
• Effort to capture reality of modern life in form
  and content
• Disjointedness, alienation of modern life
• Fragmentation and uncertainty of human experience.

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Is He a Bug?

• monstrous vermin
• ungeheueres Ungeziefer
• No place in family,
• without a place in Gods order.

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Some Questions to Begin

• Why is Samsa a monstrous vermin?
• Is there a connection between SAMSA
• How does this work relate to its
  historical/cultural context (Modernism)?
• Is The Metamorphosis relevant today?

KAFKA