The Studying different literary theories

will help the readers to see the

stories beyond what the actual text
shows or in many different views.

By applying literary theories to The

Metamorphosis, readers will be able
to understand about Gregor’s

Metamorph
tranformation and what are the
actual things that happens between
Gregor and his family throughout the
story.

osis
Alvarez, Ricarla S.
BS Psychology
The Metamorphosis was written by Franz Kafka in
1912 and was published in 1915. Kafka wrote it in
Prague and during those era, they are having conflict
with divided identity.

Gregor Samsa, the protagonist of the story resembles

the life of Kafka. He wrote the story due to stress
from work and his family, which Gregor Samsa also
experienced as the bread winner in their family not
until he transformed into a vermin.

Short Summary
Gregor, who was a travel salesman woke up one day as an insect. Ever
since his transformation, his family’s life also changed. His sister took
care of him, but later on neglected him and on the climax convinced
their parents to get rid of him which he heard and chose to starved
himself to death. After his death, the family felt relieved and was
ready to face a new beginning.
 In the story, Gregor Samsa belongs to working
class. He works as a travel salesman who moves to
other places from time to time and can’t even make The Metamorphosis
close friends with the people he interact. He has no
choice but to work to support his family and for the
depth of his parents. Addition to that is his employer
is the one to control him and the other employees in
their job, which shows that Gregor is lower than his
boss. Through Marxist Analysis, readers will be able to
view how much gregor struggle in his job and life. It
will help to show how those circumstances affect &
Gregor.

Gregor’s transformation and new situation in life

makes him alienated in modern life. In the view of
Marxist theory, it can be showed as a representation
of dehumanization of capitalism. It also similar to
what they call “Parasites” wherein people are not
contributing to the economy and society and are just Marxist Theory
dependent.
 A premise of Marxist criticism is that
literature can be viewed as ideological, and
that it can be analyzed in terms of a
Base/Superstructure model. Karl Heinrich
Marx argues that the economic means of
production within society account for the
base. A base determines its superstructure.
Human institutions and ideologies—including
those relevant to a patriarchy—that produce
art and literary texts comprise the
superstructure. Marxist criticism thus
emphasizes class, socioeconomic status,
power relations among various segments of
society, and the representation of those
segments. Marxist literary criticism is
valuable because it enables readers to see
the role that class plays in the plot of a text.
(Mangione A.)
Thank you