The Metamorphosis:The Potrait Of Kafka's Life

The Metamorphosis: The Potrait Of Kafka's Life By Vishal S Shah -- 4/01 The Metamorphosis written by Franz Kafka is considered one of the few great, poetic works of the twentieth century. Addressing The Metamorphosis, Elias Canetti, a Nobel Prize-winning author, has commented, "In The Metamorphosis Kafka has reached the height of his mastery: he has written something which he could never surpass, because there is nothing which The Metamorphosis could be surpassed by - one of the few great, perfect poetic works of this century" (http://www.mala.bc.ca/~mcneil/m4lec5a.htm). There are many symbolisms and parallelisms used in the story. "[Kafka's] disturbing, symbolic fiction, especially The Metamorphosis, written in German, [not] only prefigures the oppression and despair of the late 20th century" but also is an account of the dramatic transformations that had occurred during his own life ("Kafka Franz", Funk?, 2000). This beautifully written masterpiece of Kafka's is clearly symbolic of his own life and nightmare-like life experiences he had with his father. "Suppose all that you have always valued in your life was shown to be an illusion. What if your precious beliefs, maxims, platitudes, and traditions were inverted and distorted beyond recognition? You suddenly realize that what is good is bad; what is beauty is foul; what is virtue, vice. What if all your points of

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Jane Austen's Views towards Marriage in Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Austen's Views towards Marriage in Pride and Prejudice In this novel the main theme is the importance of how to get a husband, and preferably a rich one. In Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen has very strong views on marriage. We can see this because she has based the whole of her novel around marriage making it the dominant theme. Showing us a variety of different marriages. Starting from the first page where she reveals to us the marriage of Mr and Mrs Bennet and until towards the end when she finally reveals to us the marriage of Darcy and Elizabeth. From the opening sentence the readers are told that this novel is based around marriage. "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife". This is an ironic sentence by the author setting the scene of topic straight away. This not only shows us that marriage is involved here " want of a wife" but it also tells the reader that a lot of the time when marriage was to be the subject, the word money or fortune was to be part of the conversation too. It tells us also that it was in the interest of a woman to marry a man with a fortune, or at least some good deal of money. As this chapter began with the first sentence revealing the theme of marriage to us, the last sentence in the chapter outlines the rest of the book and the marriages to follow. " The business

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Paley. Throughout the short story Conversation with my father Paley uses, among other strategies, discourse, focalisation and embedding to represent the relationship of the narrator and his/her father.

Paley Throughout the short story 'Conversation with my father´ Paley uses, among other strategies, discourse, focalisation and embedding to represent the relationship of the narrator and his/her father. Conflicting views and opinions and elements of appeasement present in the relationship are conveyed by the strategies present in the story. Several narrative strategies are also used to highlight both similar and contrasting aspects of personality, attitude and outlook on society, held by the two characters. The story is told in the first person, which Paley immediately uses to good effect. In showing the story from this point of view Paley allows the feelings of the daughter to be shown and represented in her own words. It is as early as the first sentence that this strategy is used to show conflict. The narrator describes her fathers´ heart, very negatively, as 'that bloody motor´ giving clear indications that she is displeased by or angry at the fact that her father is still clinging to life. The thoughts of the narrator are used again, later in the story, to show conflict in the relation ship. The statement from the narrator, 'I didn´t want to argue, but I had to say...´ shows a deeper conflict in the relationship, a conflict so extensive that the narrator felt compelled to argue with her father. In this same instance and for the same reason the point of view is also

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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This essay attempts to examine and analyze the autobiographical links in Kafka's fiction Metamorphosis and The Judgment, with particular focus on the techniques employed by the author to execute this feat.

Dr. Ill: Basically, you talented sick mind... you used writing as "self torture to bring about personal healing." You grew to expect and appreciate your father's abuse didn't you? Without it, there was less inspiration - so much less need for catharsis ... you sick, sick man. Kafka: Nooo... You are vrong! Eet vas hisss vault... my Vatherr!!! This extract came from a humorous interview-presentation and refers to the Austrian writer Franz Kafka. However, the fact that this man's traumatic life is depicted in and impacts upon his work so strongly is no laughing matter. This essay attempts to examine and analyze the autobiographical links in Kafka's fiction Metamorphosis and The Judgment, with particular focus on the techniques employed by the author to execute this feat. Upon reading Metamorphosis, the first thing the reader notices is the dismal imagery used by Kafka; the dull, gloomy and humid environment serving to foreshadow the decay and deterioration of Gregor's life. Additionally the newspaper Gregor's father uses, creates the imagery of a man chasing an insect. This is ironic because it is the constant work on the part of Gregor that supports the buying of that said newspaper, and it is this work that transforms Gregor into vermin. The exploitation at the hands of the oppressive bourgeois culture of his world, robs him of his humanity, thus turning him into a creature

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Explain the ways in which Gothic is about reading and misreading

Explain the ways in which Gothic is about reading and misreading. Charming as were all Miss Radcliffe's works, and charming, even as were the works of all her imitators, it was not in them perhaps that human nature, at least in the midland counties of England, was to be looked for.1 Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey is, for the largest part, based entirely around that which is real and that imagined, dreams, and reality, perhaps. Life is shown to be separate from, and not representative of, art, and the novel allows us to follow Catherine Morland's journey from child-like imagination to a more lifelike and perhaps cynical view of the world around her. References to books and reading are frequently found in Northanger Abbey, as Catherine is working her way through the gothic novels of the time. Austen allows Catherine to read novels, and accuses her contemporaries of some hypocrisy- for, she says she will not: Adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers, of degrading by their contemptuous censure the very performance, to the number of which they themselves are adding- joining with their enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works, and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine, who if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust.2 Indeed, this view is common: In The Monk,

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  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Do the texts wide sargasso sea and pygmalion seem to present a straightforward contrast between male figures of authority and passive women ?

Do the texts wide sargasso sea and pygmalion seem to present a straightforward contrast between male figures of authority and passive women ? The two texts being referred to , in answer to the question are the play Pygmalion by Shaw, and the novel Wide Sargasso Sea by Rhys. Each piece of literature will be discussed individually, with any distinct contrasts between the two noted. The first text is the play written by George Bernard Shaw , Pygmalion , in 1912, and the two main characters being considered are that of Henry Higgins , and Eliza Doolittle. From the play, we can glean a lot of information about these characters , their attitudes, morals , beliefs, physical and mental attributes , basically everything which makes them , to the reader or audience, more human. A play has the bonus in that much can be given about such points in the stage notes, something which Shaw was very particular over . The directions given to the actors help to illustrate their moods and behaviour , as it is written as a guide, rather than as part of the story line . Looking more closely at Higgins' character, it can be easy to ascertain if he is a male figure of authority. His appearance and character are described in the stage notes to act 2 , which become clearer throughout the act. It states he is a bully, and can be petulant. His manner is robust and direct, and

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Villete by Charlotte Bronte.

Katie Dineen English Novel Professor Morse February 25, 2003 Villete by Charlotte Bronte Charlotte Bronte's Villette is the story of Lucy Snowe. After leading a rather tragic life, initially dominated by repression and loneliness, Lucy has taken it upon herself to write her memoirs, and give her personal testament. Standing at the dusk of her life she is able to look back and provide an objective account of herself and those significant in her rather unusual life. Her writings are dominated by the use of natural imagery, which are used by Lucy to portray the personalities, feelings and emotions of her those around her. The imagery, and the relationship with nature it implies, is also an important barometer of Lucy's own reactions to the situations in which she finds herself. As narrator, Lucy Snowe frequently uses animal imagery, to describe other people. The frivolous and vain Ginevra Fanshawe is initially likened to a "hummingbird" and a "butterfly", but as Lucy grows less tolerant towards her, she is presented as a "mealy-winged moth". Polly, perching on the end of her bed, is described as a "white bird", although Lucy also thinks of her as possessing the "supple softness" and "velvet grace" of a kitten. Mme. Beck's furtive ways are compared to those of a "cat", but Lucy will later say that she is as "strict as a dragon". The bestial qualities ascribed to

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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Olivier, Olivier and Europa, Europa.

Ellen Tan January 30, 2004 Com 15.5 A Olivier, Olivier and Europa, Europa When one looks at life, it seems as if only some life-events portray that it is a struggle to survive. However, a person, in any situation he/she may be in, is actually always on his last breath. This thought is inspired by the drowning scene at the beginning of Europa, Europe. Not only does this message apply to Europa as its theme, but also to Olivier, Olivier. Both men are pushed into their actions by the force of need, the need to survive. Olivier (the teenager) and Perel both lied to many people but the consequences of their actions are at two extremes. Perel cared only for himself. He turned against his race and country by pretending to be a German and a non-Jew that caused many people's lives. He is like the drowning person at the start who betrayed and pushed his savior downward. His loyalty is to himself. He pretends to be a German because Germany is in control, making him a parasite in the camp of the Germans. When he is having difficulty with his real identity, he still stays with them; but when he sees that the Jews are gaining superiority, in a flick of a finger, he turns his back on them, who made him into "somebody" (close to a hero), and runs towards the Jews, now claiming that he is a Jew. If the Jews were not winning, he would definitely not be run

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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The Role of Education in Charlotte Bront(TM)s Jane Eyre

Essay-The Role of Education in Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" Done by Diana Griciuviene Af 0606 U Charlote Brontë in her romantic novel Jane Eyre presents factual information and attitudes toward education in the19th century England. As far as is known, during this period people experienced the harmful effects of severe class division typical of the era. At all levels of society boys and girls were taught separately. The children of poor or workingclass families were taught in local schools and the children of upper and upper-middle-class families were enrolled in exclusive private schools (known as public schools). Additionaly, young children in upper-class and upper-middle-class families - both boys and girls - often received their earliest education from governesses. In other words, before 1870, education was largely a private affair. Throughout the novel, we can explore Jane's own education at one of the Victorian charity school , her work in education at one of the local school, her position as a governess and beneficial consequences of the education also. The Lowood School for girls, portrayed in this novel, can be described as one, which curriculum was designed particularly to train children to a lower-middle class occupation, such as becoming a governess or a school teacher, unlike private schooling for upper-class girls, which focused much more on acting like

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Pygmalion's title harkened from its predecessor, Ovid's Pygmalion which accounted a woman-hating sculptor falling in love with his own sculpture of his desired image. Wide Sargasso Sea referred to the sea surrounding Dominica, the setting of Jean Rhys's

Lek Susan SIM-OUC PI No.: K0503345 12th August 2005 TMA 07 George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion was about Higgins, a phonetics expert, who, as a kind of social experiment, attempts to make a duchess out of an uneducated Cockney flower-girl, Eliza. Pygmalion followed some traditional rules. First, the play was based on Eliza's transformation as the main theme. Higgins claimed he could pass Eliza off as a duchess in three months. (Block 5, page 14) Secondly, the virtual sixth act, the ball, was inserted in the book but was absent from the stage version. Shaw understood the essence of traditional convention by excluding the ball which was extravagant and technically taxing. (Block 5, page 11) Lastly, Pygmalion also conformed to the traditional five-act structure which allowed breakdown of actions into five balanced sections: beginning (first act), development (second act), climax (third act), turning-point (fourth act) and denouement (fifth act). (Block 5, page 12) The adage said, "Familiarity breeds contempt." Shaw avoided the familiar 'Cinderella' and 'wedding-bells' ending for Higgins and Eliza. Shaw included the fairy-tale formula but excluded the romantic ending as he hated to be predictable. (Block 5, page 32) Shaw's play was realistic and economical. Firstly, he chose to rise the curtain on an empty stage thrice to achieve an elaborated, unusual and real-looking

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  • Level: University Degree
  • Subject: Linguistics, Classics and related subjects
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