Two prominent figures of the literature as well as philosophy : Franz Kafka and Albert Camus based on "The Metamorphosis" and "The Guest" respectively.

Essay by murathan November 2005

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In this essay, I want to compare and contrast two prominent figures of the literature as well as philosophy : Franz Kafka and Albert Camus based on The Metamorphosis and The Guest respectively. The structure of the paper will be as follows: My analysis will be include both the short summaries in the political and social framework in which the stories were written and the person alities of the authers were formed and this paper will also include the philosphical presuppositions intrinsic to the stories.

Kafka on whom a voluminous literature has been written is identified with melancholy, loneliness, anxiety, alienation, sense of guilt in the popular memory.

In "Kafka For Beginners"(p. 3-28), Kafka's style and mood is related to his ethnic identity that is Jewish in Catholic Czechoslovakia. He was the son of a German speaking shopkeeper when German was the language of the Austro_Hungarian government of the period.

(Northon Antology p.1687)

On other determinant of Kafka's personality is said to be his father who was a domineering self made men. Kafka spent almost all of his life with his parents. Even after he earned his own living he did not leave them. For his father, a huge man, Franz was a futile and naughty "Schleimel" and his father without hesitation told these to his son's face.

In "Metomorphosis", Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning from unsettling dreams and he finds himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin. Being a tavelling sales men, he was looking after his family. In the day of transformation his boss as well as his family withnessed his new body. He was mostly worried about his family and he spent the whole day listening to the tense conversations between family members. In the novella, there is also transformation in Gregor's family. Their...