Download Kafka`s Isms

Kafka’s Isms
Schools of Thought on
The Metamorphosis
Interpretations of The
Metamorphosis
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Over the years, Kafka’s fiction has been
interpreted in many different ways, therefore his
work has been “adopted” by different schools
of thought and had various theories applied to
it. Primary examples include:
Expressionism
Surrealism
Existentialism
Freudianism
Expressionism
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Early 19th c. movement based on the belief that
inner reality, a person’s thoughts and feelings, are
more important than “objective” reality of the
outside world.
The response of the individual is more
important than the situation that causes it.
Expressionist artist and writers portray this inner
reality through symbolism, distortion, imagery,
and fantasy rather than through realistic
depictions.
Surrealism
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“Super realism” developed in France in the early
1900s.
Surrealism stressed the power of imagination
and dreams over conscious control or rational
thinking.
Surrealist painters like Salvador Dali depicted
objects as they never appear in reality.
The Persistence of Memory 1931
Existentialism
A philosophical, religious, and artistic
movement characterized by:
 The belief that people are “created” or formed
by the experiences they have. It is action and
choice that give life meaning, not simply the act
of existing.
 Rene Descartes – “I think, therefore I am”
 Human nature is irrational and chaotic, but
human beings are free to make their own moral
choices in life.
Existentialism and Kafka
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During the literary modernist movement in the 1900s,
authors began describing dystopian societies and
surreal and absurd situations in a parallel universe, a
trend that paralleled the existentialist movement. In
Franz Kafka's novella The Metamorphosis, a man awakes
to the realization that he has turned into a creature
known as a "vermin". This story, which is certainly
"absurd" and surreal, is one of many modernist literary
works that influenced and were influenced by
existentialist philosophy. (From Wikipedia.com)
Important Existentialists
Soren Kirkegaard- “Father of existentialism”
stressed the importance of the self.
Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a play called No Exit and
known for stating, “Hell is other people”.
Freudianism
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Based on ideas of psychologist, Sigmund Freud.
Freud believed that every human action is
influenced by the unconscious mind.
Early experiences, especially parental
relationships affect the development of the
unconscious.
Kafka’s conflicted relationship with his father
and the way his fiction deals with family
relationships appeals to Freudians.