...by virtue of your antagonistic nature, you could not help but always and inevitably
cause the child such disappointments; and further, this antagonism, accumulating material, was constantly intensified; eventually the pattern expressed itself even if, for once, you were of the same opinion as I; finally, these disappointments of the child were not the ordinary
disappointments of life but, since they involved you, the all-important personage, they struck to the very core. Courage, resolution, confidence, delight in this and that, could not last when you were against it or even if your opposition was merely to be assumed; and it was to be assumed in almost everything I did ~Kafka's Letter to his father
Franz Kafka had a strained relationship with his father to say the least. His relationship is mirrored in Gregor Samsa's on many levels. On pg36 "He [Mr. Samsa] rushed over to them and tried with outstretched arms to drive them to their room and at the same time with his body to block their view of Gregor." This excerpt from the novel could easily mirror the feeling of shame that Kafka felt from his father. His father hiding him from the outside world in his condition and never checking in on him in his cloistered room also creates the picture that to Mr. Samsa, Gregor was just a way to pay the bills
ReplyDeleteKafka's relationship with his father was very tense. The lack of a supportive father figure caused Kafka to have sadness, anger, and distress in many things that he did thorughout his life. In The Metamorphosis, Kafka vivdly shows his relationship with his father through Gregor Samsa and his father. On pgs. 28 -29, "(Gregor) did not linger over this, he had known right from the first day of his new life that his father considered only the strictest treatment called for in dealing with him". Instead of embracing the person that Kafka had become, his father instead brushed him off, not even caring about Kafka becoming a successful writer. While Gregor is being chased, his father begins to throw apples at him, like firing shots out of a gun. One apple that was thrown "literally forced itself into gregor's back; Gregor tried to pull himself away, as if the startling, unbelievable pain might disappear with a change of place" (29). The literary evidence rpesented could explain how Kafka felt about his father. His father did not care for how Kafka was internally feeling, nor how he was fitting in with the rest of the world, but his father thought he was just for show, not caring to look any deeper within his son.
ReplyDeleteThe Metamorphosis is a book about a young man named Gregor who changes overnight into a beetle. In this book, the German author Franz Kafka, describes the hardships that Gregor must face a hideous creature. Although the book’s main theme is isolation, another important aspect is the tension between Gregor and his father. Even before the Metamorphosis, Gregor and Mr. Samsa and his son had a strained relationship and Gregor seemed only a source of income for the family. The metamorphosis merely acted as a catalyst in the complete destruction of their relationship. This strained and tense relationship was shown through Mr. Samsa’s constant disappointment and shame in his son. It is also seen when Gregor escapes from his room (as he is being trapped their by his father) and his father angrily chucks apples at his son, eventually hitting Gregor and lodging one into his back.
ReplyDeleteAs seen by his letters to his father, Kafka based this story off of his own relationship with his father, “…finally, these disappointments of the child were not the ordinary
disappointments of life but, since they involved you, the all-important personage, they struck to the very core”. Like Kafka’s father, Mr. Samsa is disappointed and embarrassed by Gregor and his hideous transformation as seen when he hides his son from his manager as well as shone him from the world.
As apparent in just a brief excerpt from one of Kafka’s letters to his father, the two had a very tumultuous relationship. In his letter, Kafka says, “these disappointments of the child were not the ordinary disappointments of life but, since they involved you, the all-important personage, they struck to the very core.” It appears, with these words Kafka is addressing the fact that the father was constantly disappointed with him throughout his life. They were not even everyday disappointments, but they were disappointments that his father created or made a bigger deal than they needed to be, and really hurt Kafka’s ego. In The Metamorphasis by Kafka, there is a scene in the story that seems to be a spitting image of this concept. On page 34, Kafka writes, “It was clear to Gregor that the father had misinterpreted Grete’s all too brief statement and assumed Gregor was guilty of some kind of violence.” It is almost as if Kafka is using a personal experience where his father jumped to a shallow conclusion about him to create this scene in the story.
ReplyDeleteThe relationship between Gregor and his father correlates directly to the relationship between Kafka and his father. It is apparent in Kafka's letter to his father that Kafka always felt like a burden to his father and could never do anything to please him. Gregor's feelings through out The Metamorphosis are very similar. Gregor spends every moment possible working in order to repay his father's debts yet his father never sees Gregor as a help to the family. After the transformation, the burden Gregor has always placed on his father grows larger as Gregor grow frail with every passing day. In the story, Gregor peers out into the living room only to see his father asleep in the chair still wearing his uniform which has become tattered from all the hours his father has spent wearing it. Since Gregor can no longer ease his father's work load, his father must go strain his old body everyday at work. Gregor was always treated harshly by his father and this broken relationship is told from the experiences of Kafka.
ReplyDeleteKafka's relationship with his father provides a basis for Gregor's relationship with his father in the Metamorphosis. He used Gregor for his work, and the money he receives from his hard-work to support his family while his father relaxes, not having to bare that burden. When Gregor opened the door to show his family the chief clerk his transformation, his mother falls to the floor in shock. Gregor'd father motions to harm him rather than comfort him during this incident as Kafka writes, "His father looked hostile, and clenched his fists as if wanting to knock Gregor back into his room. (20)" He solely cared about Gregor's health for the purpose of money, and once he saw Gregor could no longer work, he saw Gregor as useless and would not oppose inflicting harm. Possibly relating to a difficult time in which Kafka needed his father, and instead of comforting him, he showed no mercy and potentially harm towards Kafka. He uses his personal experiences and feeling towards his own father to create an unloving, uncaring character who is a father only in his title.
ReplyDeleteClearly Franz Kafka and his father did not have a good relationship. Franz felt as if his father did not care for him at the least and was almost ashamed of everything he did. These tense feelings between the two inspired Kafka's novel, The Metamorphosis. In the story, the relationship between Gregor and his father can be connected to that of Franz Kafka and his father. Kafka states,"Now they actually did get a little angry-it was not clear whether because of his father's behavior or because or because of their dawning realization"(Kafka 47). Franz Kafka could have possibly felt like Gregor did by his father. He may have felt as if his father had emotionally blocked him away from everything, and treated him like he was an unworthy creature, just like that of Gregor in the story. All of these factors inspired Kafka to write The Metamorphosis and the story of Gregor's alienation.
ReplyDeleteFranz Kafka had a tumultuous relationship with his father. This is evident in the few brief lines of the above letter from Kafka to his estranged father. Kafka also exemplifies this relationship in his novel, The Metamorphosis, through the relationship shared by Gregor Samsa and his father. While Kafka presents most of dysfunctional relationship in an emotional and mental state for Gregor and his father, he also gives outward examples of the two gentlemen's disagreements, where Mr. Samsa has the tendency to neglects to treat Gregor as his son, but rather as a servant or slave, good only for providing for the Samsa's financially. After the manager leaves and Mr. Samsa is forcefully shooing Gregor back into his room, "One side of his body rose up, he lay lop-sided in the opening, one of his flanks was scraped raw, ugly blotches marred the white door... when from behind, his father gave him a hard shove, which was truly his salvation, and bleeding profusely, he flew far into his room" (19). This not only shows the visible signs of disgust and neglect to his son, but describes that final blow from his father as his salvation, his freedom in which he is no longer in the presence of his demanding and ungrateful father.
ReplyDeleteLife at home is not a blissful place for Gregor. In particular, Gregor seems to have a difficult relationship with his father. The first scene that his father appears in he is making a fist, albeit just to knock on Gregor's door. Soon after, however, he makes a fist more in earnest: when he first sees Gregor in his insect form, he shakes his fist at him and glares at him fiercely. His father attacks him with a newspaper and a walking stick, and, later still, bombards him with apples, causing him serious injury. This could be seen as symbol for the emotional damage that Kafka was caused by his own father. And it turns out that he has deceived Gregor about the family finances, thus needlessly extending the length of Gregor's employment at the horrendous traveling salesman's job. There seems to be "no special uprush of warm feeling" about his financial aid. His father is far from grateful for his son’s strenuous labor. He is untroubled by living off his son’s money. Gregor's disappointment over the lack of appreciation is one of the few critical thoughts he thinks about his father. Which reflects the thoughts of Kafka’s letter. In the letter he writes of all the disappointments he has brought upon his father. In the novel, Gregor’s father is never satisfied with his son’s hard work, similar to Kafka’s life.
ReplyDeleteKafka projects his own relationship with his father into the relationship the protagonist of The Metamorphosis, Gregor, has with his father. In a letter to his father, Kafka says that any happiness he experienced during his childhood years “could not last when [his father] was against it.” His father snuffed out all “courage” and “confidence” within Kafka with his “agnostic nature.”The same relationship is shown in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in the relationship between father and son. After Gregor’s transformation his father no longer accepts him as a member of the family. What the father does not realize is that Gregor has poured all of his energy into his familial duty to provide for everyone. The father does not appreciate that and takes Gregor for granted as he pulls the family slowly out of the seemingly bottomless abyss of debt that the father plunged them into. Gregor becomes a burden to the family because instead of taking care of everyone, they all have to take care of him now and because of this they resent him. At the first sight of Gregor after the transformation the father “brandishes the walking stick and newspaper in order to drive Gregor back into his room.” The father “hisses” at Gregor, making himself, unknowingly, more animalistic than Gregor himself. The final act that separated Gregor and his father for good was when the father “bombard[ed]” him with “apple after apple” and lodging one apple in Gregor’s back and “remained embedded in his flesh as a visible souvenir because no one had the courage to remove it.” The bombardment was a turning point in the story; up until then Gregor’s sister would happily feed Gregor and find the things he did and did not like, but after she would throw old food scraps into his room and would not care if he had eaten any or not. She only did enough to say she fulfilled her duty. Perhaps there was the same turning point in Kafka’s relationship with his father as there was with Gregor and his father…
ReplyDelete"However humbly he turned his head, the father merely stamped his feet all the more forcefully,"(Kafka 19). In the story, at this moment, Gregor's father is physically trying to push Gregor back into his room after the family first discovered there son's metamorphosis. This quote, however, also symboliszes Kafka's personal relationship with his father because whatever Kafka tried to do to impress his father,(acording to Kafka) his father continued to chastice Kafka and his achievments. "The father drove Gregor back relentlessly, hissing like a savage,"(20). I believe that this quote also relates to Kafka's relationship with his father because Kafka uses violent and descriptive language like "hissing like a savage" to further exagerate his hatred for his father and express their broken relationship.
ReplyDeleteKafka's father was often times critical of him and never satisfied with the efforts and accomplishments that Franz Kafka made throughout his life. Kafka lost his respect for his father and began to resent him because of his father's growing discontent and disapproval throughout Kafka's life. Kafka replicates his relationship with his own father in the Metamorphosis through Gregor and his father. Kafka gives an example of this in a symbolic meaning when he writes, "If only it hadn't been for that intolerable hissing noise that came from his father! It made Gregor lose his head completely", on page 78. This quotation uses the intolerable hissing noise made by his father as a symbol for his father's complaints and never ending disapproval despite Gregor's efforts. The line that says, "It made Gregor lose his head completely", is a metaphor for the way that Gregor's father's actions affect his mental state of mind. Just as Kafka breaks down because of the way his father acts towards his accomplishments, Gregor also is affected, and in a sense soiled and ruined for the rest of his life, because he cannot be content without his father's approval.
ReplyDeleteAs evidenced by the excerpt from Franz Kafka's letter, he and his father didn't even have a decent relationship. Kafka thought that his father was an antagonist. For instance, Kafka could have been incredibly proud of an accomplishment only to be embarrassed or taunted by his father. Typically, young men look to their fathers as role models, but Franz felt that he would never measure up to his father's expectations. This is mirrored in Gregor Samsa's relationship with his father. For instance, at the violin recital, Gregor's father "hurried over to them and with outstretched arms tried to push them into their own room and simultaneously to block their view of Gregor with his own body." He does not want the men to see his son who is now a bug. In fact, even if his son were still human he would probably be ashamed. Throughout the book, the tone of the relationship between Gregor and Mr. Samsa is strained and tense. I personally got the feeling that a fight was going to break out between the two of them at any moment. Gregor's father will always be ashamed of him, whether he is a human or a bug. Likewise, Kafka's father was always ashamed of him.
ReplyDeleteNovels often have a way of giving the reader a view into the life of the writer. Many authors use their novels as an outlet to reveal personal struggles and their life stories. This is certainly the case in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Kafka uses the main character of Gregor and his father as a representation of the relationship he shares with his own father.
ReplyDeleteI think it is safe to say that Kafka felt some resentment toward his father, due to the fact that he never seemed to be able to do anything right in his father's eyes. "Courage, resolution, confidence, delight in this and that, could not last when you were against it, or even if your opposition was merely assumed, and it was to be assumed in nearly everything I did". In this excerpt from Kafka's letter to his father, you can see that his father made him feel inadequate and useless, no matter what he did. His father seemed to disapprove of all of his actions. Much like Kafka and his father, Gregor's father makes him feel useless, despite the fact that he is invaluable to the survival of the family. Gregor works to support the family, and is their only source of income, however, Gregor's father complains about him and is ungrateful for what Gregor does. When Gregor is transformed, his father seems to be disgusted with him as well. Both Kafka and Grogor have father's that made them feel inadequate and useless to a certain extent.
Kafka’s relationship with his father clearly influenced his writings. Gregor and his father never see eye to eye. When Gregor first reveals that he has changed to his family his father is utterly disappointed if anything. This reaction correlates directly to Kafka’s “Letter to his Father”, Kafka writes, “these disappointments of the child were not the ordinary disappointments of life but, since they involved you, the all-important personage, they struck to the very core”. Kafka, obviously, felt that he disappointed his father in some way throughout his childhood. This hit him very hard. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor disappoints his father as well. Even though Gregor is working very hard to support his family and everything they want to do, Gregor still displeases his father. The reaction his father has to Gregor as he walks out of his bedroom truly shows how he feels Kafka writes, “With a hostile expression his father clenched his fist, as if to drive Gregor back into his room, then looked uncertainly around the living room, shielded his eyes with his hands, and sobbed with heaves of his powerful chest” (12). Gregor’s father is clearly disappointed when he cannot even come to look at his son. He is shielding his eyes; shielding is usually a word used for defense. He is defending his eyes from what he sees before him. Kafka uses his own experiences to form a character similar to his father, but in fact is not a father at all just a figure who is simply an authoritative being in Gregor’s life.
ReplyDelete@Jessie - Quote from work ties in well with Kafka's letter and feelings.
ReplyDelete@Christiana - strong textual evidence - Kafka's dad not being supportive is portrayed loudly and clearly.
@ Allison - great point about the Metamorphosis acting as a catalyst in the complete destruction of the relationship between Gregor and his dad.
@Brooks - Yes, Gregor's father inflated the disappointments!
@Jessica - Kafka's real father certainly showed no mercy - a trait clearly mirrored by Gregor's father.
@Dan - Superb comment about the father's final blow being Gregor's salvation.
@Emily - one of Gregor's biggest disappointments is definitely his lack of appreciation.
@Virginia - Love the comment about Gregor's father hissing, making him, ironically, more of an animal than Gregor.
@Alex - Important quote about Gregor "losing his head."
@ Ray - Interesting comment about Gregor's father "shielding his eyes" from the sight of Gregor.