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| The Metamorphosis (Dover Thrift) | 
 enlarge | Author: Franz Kafka
Creator: Stanley Appelbaum
Publisher: Dover Publications Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: £1.50
Buy New: £0.01
You Save: £1.49 (99%)
New (24) from £0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 1891
Media: Paperback
Edition: New edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 96
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.1 x 0.2
ISBN: 0486290301
Dewey Decimal Number: 833.912
EAN: 9780486290300
ASIN: 0486290301
Publication Date: August 26, 1996
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand New. Shipped from UK Mainland. Delivery is usually 2 - 3 working days from order by Royal Mail, International Delivery is by Airmail.
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 6-8 of 8 | | « PREV | | |
462nd interpretation of the Metamorphosis October 13, 2002
65 out of 70 found this review helpful
Metamorphosis is one of the most famous works in 20th C literature, and possibly has the most memorable opening lines in the history of story telling, - 'As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning after disturbing dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect'. The standard interpretation of this allegorical tale is that Gregor's transformation from hard working travelling salesman, providing for his family, to a grotesque useless insect that provokes disgust and pity and ultimately rejection by his family, represents physical disability, and society's treatment of it. I can see this in the story, but I read Kafka as essentially portraying his nightmare of the barrier between the public and personal inner world being removed. The private mental life, with its sensitive and raw secrets, its ugly and embarrasing little features, the desires and instincts that we strive to keep hidden, and/or are forced to repress. The bug is the embodiment of the ugly and raw inside turned out, exposed for all the world to see. Particularly nightmarish for Gregor (kafka) is the fact that those who see are those he loves and whose rejecton he fears most of all - his family.
Kafka: a tortured existentialist genuis September 7, 2001
30 out of 42 found this review helpful
Metamorphosis is quite probably the greatest short story ever written. When I read it I always see it as a book about alienation, a theme that was later to be picked up on by the existenialists. This may go to explain why as a group they held Kafka in such high esteem. In the story Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find that he has been turned into an insect. The rest follows on from here. The change is showing how indivduals can become ostrasiced by natural differences, something that perhaps they are not even aware of. What surprises us in the book is not the fact that Samsa is an insect but more the attiude he takes to this, and the shocking social consquences of what has happened. The change in the a cockroack is simply symbolic of something that aroses disgust, something that we do not like, makes us feel uncomfortable and also something that we ternd to look down on. Having a large one in our house woulkd not be pleasant. This may sound nasty but it could be comaprtive to a baeggar, Kafka though is symapthetic to this and his portayal of Samsa is very touvhing. This idea that Metamorphosis is an exploration of al;ienation is backed up by closer analysis of some of his other works. Here we see people who becpome almost divorced from reality by a nightmarish and inexplicable bureacracy. Read this book now, then rerad it again, think some and then again.
The metamorphosis the only book for a literary study September 27, 2000
4 out of 12 found this review helpful
This book is great. I am curently using it for my litereray study in English. You start reading one story and read all of them. The book is a must have for all fans of Kafka's.
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