Literally Kafkaesque

  When Gulliver gives brief description of the political and legal institutions of England to Brobdingnagian King, the King dismissively concludes "the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth." In Chapter Four of Gulliver’s Travels, Swift described Yahoos, human like creatures, as "the most filthy, noisome, and deformed animals which nature ever produced . . . " and they are "restive and indocible, mischievous and malicious Gulliver, when he is told he must leave Houyhnhnmland, exclaims “that the certain prospect of an unnatural death was the least of my evils, for…how could I think with temper of passing my days among Yahoos”. At the same time, The Houyhnhnms, on the other hand, are “Perfection of the nature” “endued with a proportionable degree of reason” and “orderly and rational, acute and judicious”. They are presented as utopian creatures. However, this is...

  “The Metamorphosis” is arguably, the most popular work of Franz Kafka and through it we are introduced to the literary genius of Kafka. The Metamorphosis is a novella about the miserable turn of events for a travelling salesman, Gregor Samsa, who finds himself transformed into a vermin after having unsettling dream. Metamorphosis is a notable work in the category of “Literature of the absurd”, that delineates human condition, essentially absurd. Case in point, when Gregor found himself transformed into an insect his first thought was that he has already missed his train and had to hurry up to catch up the train which was to depart in the next fifteen minutes, otherwise he would definitely lose his job. There are multiple themes, a reader can encounter while reading but what I felt conspicuous was Gregor’s ability for “Self-loathing”. HERMANN KAFKA, AS A CONTRIBUTOR. Kafka had an exasperating relationship with his father. As we know from letter to his father, his f...