Metamorphosis

Essay by sarawarnerUniversity, Bachelor'sA-, November 2014

download word file, 4 pages 0.0

Downloaded 3 times

Sara Warner

Dr. Christopher Keep

English 1027F

9 October 2014

TITLE

Kafka's use of a third person narrative reflects Gregor's state of isolation. As the story is told in third person, the readers are restricted to experience Gregor's point of view which mirrors Gregor's restriction to society. Gregor has been socially excluded from humanity as he remains in a state of isolation; Because the people involved in his life isolate him, they do not give him a chance to speak for himself. Due to the restrictions of a third person narrative, the reader is unable to fully grasp how Gregor truly feels about his metamorphosis. This parallelism between the third person narrative perspective and Gregor's character reflects his isolation as Gregor is isolated from revealing his innermost thoughts to the reader, just as his family isolates him from their lives. The use of third person narrative to demonstrate Gregor's isolation is established as Kafka says, "True, his whole body was aching, but it seemed that the pain was gradually growing less and would finally pass away."

(416). This use of third person narrative only tells the reader about Gregor's pain, whereas if the story was told in first person narrative the reader would be able to fully grasp how Gregor feels. Gregor not being able to express how he feels through first person narrative reflects his isolation because through his state of isolation he is restricted from expressing to his family how he truly feels. Kafka's use of syntax reflects Gregor's state of isolation. The syntax in this novella is complex as there are plenty of dependent clauses and qualifying phrases. Kafka uses sentences such as "Intent on crawling as fast as possible, he barely noticed that not a single word, not an ejaculation from his family, interfered with...