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LABEL YOUR PAPER: Kafka/Metamorphosis Notes 1. Focus Activity: Think of a situation from a dream you have had that seemed incredibly real at the time but could not actually happen in real life. Write a paragraph describing what happened in the dream, what details made it seem real, and how you felt during the dream and afterward.
Kafka’s Metamorphosis: Themes, Context, and “Isms” World Lit/Comp Spring 2014
Franz Kafka: 1883-1924 Born in Prague (Bohemia, Austro-Hungarian Empire—now Czech Republic) “Born the citizen of a crumbling state, a German-speaker among Czech-speakers, a Jew among Gentiles—and in himself the loneliest of men” (Corngold xii). About the Author
Kafka’s Life (thanks, Professor Hildebrand!) • Lower middle class Jewish family • “Minority within a minority;” alienated and marginalized • Father Herman was a merchant and a “looming patriarchal figure;” ambitious and class-conscious • Mother Julie was “obedient and dutiful”
Kafka’s Life, continued • Employed by an insurance company • Wrote exclusively at night • Writing was “torture and bliss;” obsessive attention to detail • Only a few short stories published in his lifetime • Socially awkward, especially with women • Died of tuberculosis at age 41 after a lengthy illness • Asked on his deathbed for his books to be burned
Don’t you just hate when this happens? “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”
The “Isms” • Modernism: A cultural and artistic period at the beginning of the 20th century (approx.1890-1930) • Marked by “wild experimentalism” • Focused on subjective experiences of the author • About “making it new” (Ezra Pound) • Abstract, urban focus, importance of the self, individualism
The “Isms,” continued… • Existentialism: a philosophy concerned with finding self and the meaning of life through free will, choice, and personal responsibility. • People are searching to find out who and what they are throughout life as they make choices based on their experiences, beliefs, and outlook. • A person's judgment is the determining factor for what is to be believed rather than by arbitrary religious or secular world values. • The concept of society is irrational and the world is, in many ways, a fundamentally irrational place. WE CREATE OUR OWN MEANING.
More “Isms” • Surrealism/Dadaism: Major artistic movements of the 20th century • Surrealism was a revolt against realism and rationality • Dada was out to destroy meaning—a reaction to the devastation of WWI
Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase and Dali’s The Persistence of Memory
Into the Lexicon: “Kafkaesque” • Kaf·ka·esque [kahf-kuh-esk] • adjective 1. of, pertaining to, characteristic of, or resembling the literary work of Franz Kafka: the Kafkaesque terror of the endless interrogations. • 2. marked by a senseless, disorienting, often menacing complexity: Kafkaesque bureaucracies.
“Before the Law,” Short Version You go to the city to see the law. Upon arrival outside the building, there is a guard who says "You may not pass without permission.” You notice that the door is open, but it is closed enough for you to not see anything. You point out that you can easily go into the building, and the guard agrees. Rather than be disagreeable, however, you decide to wait until you have permission. You wait for many years, and when you're an old, shriveled wreck, you get yourself to ask: "During all the years I've waited here, no-one else has tried to pass in to see the law, why is this?“ The guard answers: "It is true that no-one else has passed here; that is because this door was always meant solely for you, but now, it is closed forever.” He then proceeds to close the door and calmly walk away.
Metamorphosis Chapter 1 Vocabulary (copy down and define for homework) • Admonish • Brusque • Fathom (v) • Fulminations • Harbinger • Plaintively • Ravenous • Supine • Vaulted (ADJ) • Vermin
