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| Edward Munch's The Scream (1893) |
Don't forget that Paper #1 is due by 5pm on Monday! You can turn it in late, but you lose a letter grade each day, with Wednesday at 5pm being the last day you can turn it in for credit. So be careful!
Otherwise, read "The Metamorphosis" and answer TWO of the questions below:
Q1: Kafka is almost obsessed with describing Gregor's body, not only what it looks like (the apple rotting in his back!) but also how it moves, and the sensations and pleasures of moving with such a large body. Why do you think this is such an important part of the story? What might this suggest about his choice of a cockroach rather than, say, a wolf or a bat (which, only a decade or so earlier, was the subject of Stoker's Dracula)?
Q2: Why is Grete, Gregor's sister, so protective of her job in taking care of him, when she is visibly terrified of him (and in some sense, loathes him)? How are we supposed to understand her fit of rage when her mother decides to clean the room without her help?
Q3: Why might it be significant that the longer Gregor is an insect, the less and less he wants to eat, until by the end is he "completely flat and dry"? Does his transformation slowly remove his humanity, or is something else lost in the process? How can we tell?
Q4: Do you consider this story more of a work of horror or satire? Are we supposed to be terrified at the random possibility of becoming a bug? Or is Gregor never really a bug at all...is it all a metaphor for feelings and roles that we are forced into through class, money, and society? In other words, is this more a Stephen King story or one by Voltaire?
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