To this, Kafka replied, “plenty of hope, for God-only not for us.” This dismal prognosis, a sense of terminal confinement, is represented by Gregor, whose only alternative to the world in which he has unintentionally entered is death. Brod asked whether there was hope elsewhere in the universe. Speaking to his friend Max Brod, Kafka once explained that he thought human beings were God’s nihilistic thoughts. In alignment with Kafka’s largely cynical philosophical views, The Metamorphosis supports a decidedly pessimistic interpretation of human nature. All three texts connect materialism and status consciousness with the degradation of humanity. The Metamorphosis, furthermore, resembles Gordin’s drama in its entirely domestic setting and episodic narrative structure. Gregor Samsa’s counterpart is an idiot son, who is unable to communicate with his family, stays locked in his room, and fears the wrath of his father. All of the characters in The Metamorphosis find analogues in The Savage One. Kafka wrote extensively about the play in his diaries. Kafka’s text was also inspired by a Yiddish play, Gordin’s The Savage One. In addition to these autobiographical references, The Metamorphosis alludes to a number of literary works, including the Russian Nikolay Gogol’s The Nose, in which a man wakes up to find his nose missing preposterously, the nose goes on to attain a high-ranking position in the civil service. Although Kafka had earned a law degree in part to appease his father, he would remain an object of patriarchal disdain and repudiation-particularly in light of his fictional work, which his father deemed “a waste of time.” Kafka’s mother, like her alter ego in the story, was ever-deferential to her husband and offered little solace to her son his sister, Ottla, was normally a compassionate ally, but on one occasion she joined the parents in insisting that Kafka increase his hours at the office shortly thereafter, Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis, in which Gregor’s sister betrays him by insisting that the family get rid of him. Gregor, likewise, cowers in fear of his father, who finds him repulsive and attacks him at every turn. Like his creation, Gregor, Kafka was continually berated by his imposing father, who considered his only son to be an unmitigated failure. But the story resonates most profoundly with the real circumstances of Kafka’s family life. Kafka’s anxieties about ill health and fear of physical collapse play out in the unfortunate Gregor, who dies from a wound inflicted on him by his father. In a letter, Kafka mentioned the similarity between Samsa’s name and his own both writer and character, furthermore, were pressured to take on largely pointless office jobs. Like much of Kafka’s fiction, The Metamorphosis expresses dominant themes in the author’s own life.
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