English 1B – Midterm – Flashcards

Appeals to someone who is not an expert on the issue under discussion

Appeals to people's desire for exclusivity and prestige. Someone like a celebrity says you should do something

Implicitly threatens the audience

Attempts to win sympathy

Restates as a premise, the conclusion in different words. Epithet = 1 word

Asks a question that contains an assumption that must be proven

Judges and labels the same act differently, depending on the person or group who performs the act.

Shifts the meaning of a term within a single argument

Points out similarities in things that are otherwise different (Apples & Oranges)

Assumes that just because 'B' happened after 'A', then it must have been 'A' that caused the event or outcome.

Asserts there are only two possible outcomes. (Either go to college or don't make any money)

Conclusion based on insufficient evidence. Sample is way too small to represent overall population. (Racism, sexism, etc.)

A personal attack of someone's personal appearance, character or habits without focusing on the

Discredits an argument because the behavior of the person proposing it does not conform to the position he's supporting.

Something should be done, because most people believe its true. Intimidates the audience.

Shifts the discussion from the issue to a different topic.

Claims that an action should be avoided because it will lead to a series of extremely undesirable consequences.

Creates and then attacks a distorted version of the opposition's argument.

An explanation of why a position is false or weak

A statement that grants the opposing view

The key assertion in an argument, the statement that the other assertions support; the point one hopes to make when presenting an argument.

An opposing view in an argument

A reason that supports the conclusion in an argument

Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up in his bed to find himself transformed into a large insect. He looks around his room, which appears normal, and decides to go back to sleep to forget about what has happened. He attempts to roll over, only to discover that he cannot due to his new body—he is stuck on his hard, convex back. He tries to scratch an itch on his stomach, but when he touches himself with one of his many new legs, he is disgusted. He reflects on how dreary life as a traveling salesman is and how he would quit if his parents and sister did not depend so much on his income. He turns to the clock and sees that he has overslept and missed his train to work. Gregor's mother knocks on the door, and when he answers her, Gregor finds that his voice has changed. His family suspects that he may be ill, so they ask him to open the door, which he keeps locked out of habit. He tries to get out of bed, but he cannot maneuver his transformed body. While struggling to move, he hears his office manager come into the family's apartment to find out why Gregor has not shown up to work. He eventually rocks himself to the floor and calls out that he will open the door momentarily. Through the door, the office manager warns Gregor of the consequences of missing work and hints that Gregor's recent work has not been satisfactory. Gregor protests and tells the office manager that he will be there shortly. Neither his family nor the office manager can understand what Gregor says, and they suspect that something may be seriously wrong with him. Gregor manages to unlock and open the door with his mouth, since he has no hands. He begs the office manager's forgiveness for his late start. Horrified by Gregor's appearance, the office manager bolts from the apartment. Gregor tries to catch up with the fleeing office manager, but his father drives him back into the bedroom with a cane and a rolled newspaper. Gregor injures himself squeezing back through the doorway, and his father slams the door shut. Gregor, exhausted, falls asleep. Gregor wakes and sees that someone has put milk and bread in his room. Initially excited, he quickly discovers that he has no taste for milk, once one of his favorite foods. He settles himself under a couch and listens to the quiet apartment. The next morning, his sister Grete comes in, sees that he has not touched the milk, and replaces it with rotting food scraps, which Gregor happily eats. This begins a routine in which his sister feeds him and cleans up while he hides under the couch, afraid that his appearance will frighten her. Gregor spends his time listening through the wall to his family members talking. They often discuss the difficult financial situation they find themselves in now that Gregor can't provide for them. Gregor also learns that his mother wants to visit him, but his sister and father will not let her. Gregor grows more comfortable with his changed body. He begins climbing the walls and ceiling for amusement. Discovering Gregor's new pastime, Grete decides to remove some of the furniture to give Gregor more space. She and her mother begin taking furniture away, but Gregor finds their actions deeply distressing. He tries to save a picture on the wall of a woman wearing a fur hat, fur scarf, and a fur muff. Gregor's mother sees him hanging on the wall and passes out. Grete calls out to Gregor—the first time anyone has spoken directly to him since his transformation. Gregor runs out of the room and into the kitchen. His father returns from his new job, and misunderstanding the situation, believes Gregor has tried to attack the mother. The father throws apples at Gregor, and one sinks into his back and remains lodged there. Gregor manages to get back into his bedroom but is severely injured. Gregor's family begins leaving the bedroom door open for a few hours each evening so he can watch them. He sees his family wearing down as a result of his transformation and their new poverty. Even Grete seems to resent Gregor now, feeding him and cleaning up with a minimum of effort. The family replaces their maid with a cheap cleaning lady who tolerates Gregor's appearance and speaks to him occasionally. They also take on three boarders, requiring them to move excess furniture into Gregor's room, which distresses Gregor. Gregor has also lost his taste for the food Grete brings and he almost entirely ceases eating. One evening, the cleaning lady leaves Gregor's door open while the boarders lounge about the living room. Grete has been asked to play the violin for them, and Gregor creeps out of his bedroom to listen. The boarders, who initially seemed interested in Grete, grow bored with her performance, but Gregor is transfixed by it. One of the boarders spots Gregor and they become alarmed. Gregor's father tries to shove the boarders back into their rooms, but the three men protest and announce that they will move out immediately without paying rent because of the disgusting conditions in the apartment. Grete tells her parents that they must get rid of Gregor or they will all be ruined. Her father agrees, wishing Gregor could understand them and would leave of his own accord. Gregor does in fact understand and slowly moves back to the bedroom. There, determined to rid his family of his presence, Gregor dies. Upon discovering that Gregor is dead, the family feels a great sense of relief. The father kicks out the boarders and decides to fire the cleaning lady, who has disposed of Gregor's body. The family takes a trolley ride out to the countryside, during which they consider their finances. Months of spare living as a result of Gregor's condition have left them with substantial savings. They decide to move to a better apartment. Grete appears to have her strength and beauty back, which leads her parents to think about finding her a husband.

Gregor Samsa Despite his complete physical transformation into an insect at the beginning of the story, Gregor changes very little as a character over the course of The Metamorphosis. Most notably, both as a man and as an insect Gregor patiently accepts the hardships he faces without complaint. When his father's business failed, he readily accepted his new role as the money-earner in the family without question, even though it meant taking a job he disliked as a traveling salesman. Similarly, when he first realizes he has transformed into an insect, he does not bemoan his condition, wonder about its cause, or attempt to rectify it in any way. On the contrary, he quickly accepts that he has become a bug and tries to go about his life as best he can in his new condition. The narration in the story mirrors Gregor's calm forbearance by never questioning or explaining how or why this odd transformation occurred or remarking on its strangeness. Instead, the story, much like Gregor, moves on quickly from the metamorphosis itself and focuses on the consequences of Gregor's change. For Gregor, that primarily means becoming accustomed to his new body. In fact reconciling his human thoughts and feelings with his new, insect body is the chief conflict Gregor faces in the story. Despite having changed into an insect, Gregor initially still wants to go to work so that he can provide for his family. It takes him time to realize that he can no longer play that role in his family and that he can't even go outside in his current state. As the story continues, Gregor's insect body has an increasing influence on his psychology. He finds that he is at ease hiding in the dark under the sofa in his room, like a bug would, even though his body won't fit comfortably. He also discovers that he enjoys crawling on the walls and ceiling. But Gregor's humanity never disappears entirely. He still feels human emotions and has strong memories of his human life. As a result, even though he knows he would feel more physically comfortable if his room were emptied of furniture, allowing him to crawl anywhere he pleased, Gregor panics when Grete and his mother are taking out the furniture, such as the writing desk he remembers doing all his assignments at as a boy. In a desperate attempt to hold onto the few reminders he has of his humanity, he clings to the picture of the woman muffled in fur so that no one will take it away. Ultimately he's unable to fully adapt to his new body or to find a new role within his family, which is disgusted by him and ashamed of his presence in the house. Toward the end of the story, he even feels haunted by the thought that he might be able to take control of the family's affairs again and resume his role as the family's money-earner. Despite these hopes, he decides it would be best for the family if he were to disappear entirely, and so he dies much as he lived: accepting his fate without complaint and thinking of his family's best interests. Grete Samsa Apart from her brother Gregor, Grete is the only other character addressed by name in the story, a distinction that reflects her relative importance. Grete is also the only character to show pity for Gregor through most of the novella (his mother also exhibits pity for him later in the story), apparently owing to the great affection Grete and Gregor had for each other before Gregor's transformation. Consequently, she becomes Gregor's primary caretaker. She brings him food, cleans his room, places his chair by the window so he can see out to the street, and comes up with the idea of removing his furniture so he has more room to scurry and climb. In this role as caretaker she serves as Gregor's only real human contact for most of the story, and she acts as Gregor's only strong emotional tie to his family—and indeed to the rest of humanity. Grete, however, changes more than any other character in the story—in essence undergoing her own metamorphosis from a girl into a woman—and that change occurs while her pity for Gregor slowly diminishes. While at first Grete takes care of her brother out of kindness, eventually she comes to regard the job as a duty. She doesn't always enjoy it, but it serves to define her position in the family, and she becomes territorial about caring for Gregor, not wanting her mother to be involved. As she matures and takes on more adult responsibilities, most notably getting a job to help provide for her family financially, her commitment to Gregor diminishes. Eventually she comes to resent the role, and it is Grete who decides they must get rid of Gregor. The story ends with the parents recognizing that Grete has become a pretty young woman and thinking that it may be time to find her a husband, suggesting Grete has completed her own transformation into an adult. The father The reader predominantly sees Gregor's father from Gregor's point of view in the story, and for the most part, he appears as a hopeless and unkind man, concerned primarily with money, who isn't particularly close to his son. We learn, for example, that he had a business that failed, and since its failure he has lost his motivation and essentially given up working, forcing Gregor to provide for the family and work to pay off the father's debts. Yet despite Gregor's help, the father has no sympathy for Gregor after Gregor undergoes his metamorphosis. On the day of Gregor's change, the father only seems concerned about the family's finances, and in the two instances when he interacts directly with Gregor in the story, he attacks Gregor in some way, first when he beats Gregor back into his room at the beginning and later when he throws the fruit at him. These details suggest an estrangement between Gregor and his father (Kafka's strained relationship with his own father, whom he viewed as alien and overbearing, certainly gives weight to such an interpretation). Gregor never explicitly says he resents his father, but it's clear that he only works as a traveling salesman to make up for his father's failure in business, suggesting he feels trapped by his father's failings. Moreover, Gregor never displays the same affection for his father that he displays, albeit rarely, toward his mother and sister, as when he longs to see his mother before she and Grete begin moving the furniture out of his room. Adding to this sense of estrangement is the way the father is referred to in the story. The narrator does not name him beyond calling him "Mr. Samsa," and in Gregor's thoughts he almost always appears as "the father." Gregor Samsa - A traveling salesman and the protagonist of the story. Gregor hates his job but keeps it because of the obligations he feels to pay off his father's debt and care for his family. He has transformed into a large bug and spends the rest of his life in that state. Although hideous and unrecognizable to others, Gregor retains his some of his inner life and struggles to reconcile his lingering humanity with his physical condition. Read an in-depth analysis of Gregor Samsa. Grete Samsa - Gregor's sister. Grete is a young woman on the cusp of adulthood. She initially shows great concern for Gregor, but her compassion gives way to possessiveness and resentment as the effects of Gregor's transformation on her life slowly take their toll. Read an in-depth analysis of Grete Samsa. The father - Gregor's father. The failure of his business has left him exhausted and emotionally broken, and he is forced to return to work again after Gregor's metamorphosis. Despite the beneficial effects his new employment has on him, he expresses considerable hostility toward Gregor. Read an in-depth analysis of The father. The mother - Gregor's mother. Frail and distressed, the mother is torn between her love for Gregor and her horror at Gregor's new state. Grete and Gregor's father seek to protect her from the full reality of her son's transformation. The charwoman - An elderly widow and the Samsa family's cleaning lady. Taken on by the Samsas after their regular maid quits because of Gregor, she is a blunt, honest woman who faces the reality of Gregor's state without fear or disgust. The office manager - Gregor's boss. Distrustful and overbearing, the office manager insinuates that Gregor has been doing a poor job at work. He flees in terror upon seeing Gregor. The boarders - Three temporary boarders in the Samsas' house. The boarders greatly value order and cleanliness, and thus become horrified when they discover Gregor. The maid - The Samsas' original maid. She is terrified by Gregor and begs the family to fire her.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols→ Themes The Absurdity of Life Beginning with its first sentence, The Metamorphosis deals with an absurd, or wildly irrational, event, which in itself suggests that the story operates in a random, chaotic universe. The absurd event is Gregor's waking up to discover he has turned into a giant insect, and since it's so far beyond the boundaries of a natural occurrence—it's not just unlikely to happen, it's physically impossible—Gregor's metamorphosis takes on a supernatural significance. Also notable is the fact that the story never explains Gregor's transformation. It never implies, for instance, that Gregor's change is the result of any particular cause, such as punishment for some misbehavior. On the contrary, by all evidence Gregor has been a good son and brother, taking a job he dislikes so that he can provide for them and planning to pay for his sister to study music at the conservatory. There is no indication that Gregor deserves his fate. Rather, the story and all the members of the Samsa family treat the event as a random occurrence, like catching an illness. All these elements together give the story a distinct overtone of absurdity and suggest a universe that functions without any governing system of order and justice. The responses of the various characters add to this sense of absurdity, specifically because they seem almost as absurd as Gregor's transformation itself. The characters are unusually calm and unquestioning, and most don't act particularly surprised by the event. (The notable exception is the Samsas' first maid, who begs to be fired.) Even Gregor panics only at the thought of getting in trouble at work, not at the realization that he is physically altered, and he makes no efforts to determine what caused the change or how to fix it. He worries instead about commonplace problems, like what makes him feel physically comfortable. In fact, the other characters in the story generally treat the metamorphosis as something unusual and disgusting, but not exceptionally horrifying or impossible, and they mostly focusing on adapting to it rather than fleeing from Gregor or trying to cure him. Gregor's family, for example, doesn't seek out any help or advice, and they appear to feel more ashamed and disgusted than shocked. Their second maid also shows no surprise when she discovers Gregor, and when the boarders staying with the family see Gregor they are mostly upset that Gregor is unclean and disturbs the sense of order they desire in the house. These unusual reactions contribute to the absurdity of the story, but they also imply that the characters to some degree expect, or at least are not surprised by, absurdity in their world. The Disconnect Between Mind and Body Gregor's transformation completely alters his outward appearance, but it leaves his mind unchanged, creating a discord, or lack of harmony, between his mind and body. When he first gets out of his bed after waking, for instance, he tries to stand upright, even though his body is not suited to being upright. He also thinks of going to work, despite the fact that he can't by any means do so, and when Grete leaves him the milk at the beginning of Part 2, he is surprised to find he doesn't like it, even though milk was a favorite drink when he was human. In essence, he continues to think with a human mind, but because his body is no longer human, he is unable at first to reconcile these two parts of himself. As Gregor becomes accustomed to his new body, his mind begins to change in accordance with his physical needs and desires. Yet he's never able to fully bring his mind and body into harmony. Gregor gradually behaves more and more like an insect, not only craving different foods than he did when he was human, but also beginning to prefer tight, dark spaces, like the area under his sofa, and enjoying crawling on the walls and ceiling. (Through these details, the story suggests that our physical lives shape and direct our mental lives, not the other way around.) But Gregor's humanity never disappears entirely, and he feels conflicted as a result. This conflict reaches its climax when Grete and the mother move the furniture out of Gregor's room. Gregor initially approves of the idea because it will make his room more comfortable for him physically. Without furniture, he'll be able to crawl anywhere he pleases. But realizing that his possessions, which represent to him his former life as a human, provide him emotional comfort, he suddenly faces a choice: he can be physically comfortable or emotionally comfortable, but not both. In other words, his mind and body remain opposed to one another. Gregor, unable to relinquish his humanity, chooses emotional comfort, leading him to desperately cling to the picture of the woman in furs. The Limits of Sympathy After Gregor's metamorphosis, his family members struggle with feelings of both sympathy and revulsion toward him. Grete and the mother in particular feel a great deal of sympathy for Gregor after his change, apparently because they suspect some aspect of his humanity remains despite his appearance. This sympathy leads Grete initially to take on the role of Gregor's caretaker—she even goes so far as to try to discover what food he likes after his change—and it leads the mother to fight with Grete over moving the furniture out of Gregor's room since she holds out hope that he will return to his human form. Even the father, who shows the least sympathy of the family members toward Gregor and even attacks him twice, never suggests that they kill him or force him out of the house. Instead, he implicitly shows compassion for Gregor by allowing the family to care for him. Eventually, however, the stresses caused by Gregor's presence wear down the family members' sympathy, and even the most caring of them find that their sympathy has a limit. One of those sources of stress is Gregor's appearance. Grete is so upset and revolted by the way he looks that she can hardly stand to be in the room with him, and his mother is so horrified when she sees him as she and Grete are moving his furniture that she faints. In addition, Gregor's presence is never forgotten in the house, causing the family members to feel constantly uncomfortable and leading them to speak to each other mostly in whispers. Moreover, the fact that Gregor cannot communicate his thoughts and feelings to them leaves them without any connection to his human side, and consequently, they come to see him more and more as an actual insect. All these factors combined steadily work against their sympathy, and the family reaches a point where Gregor's presence is too much to bear. Significantly, it is Grete, the character to show the most sympathy toward Gregor, who decides they must get rid of him. Alienation Perhaps the greatest consequence of Gregor's metamorphosis is the psychological distance it creates between Gregor and those around him. Gregor's change makes him literally and emotionally separate from his family members—indeed, from humanity in general—and he even refers to it as his "imprisonment." After his transformation he stays almost exclusively in his room with his door closed and has almost no contact with other people. At most, Grete spends a few minutes in the room with him, and during this time Gregor always hides under the couch and has no interaction with her. Furthermore, he is unable to speak, and consequently he has no way of communicating with other people. Lastly, Gregor's metamorphosis literally separates him from the human race as it makes him no longer human. Essentially he has become totally isolated from everyone around him, including those people he cares for like Grete and his mother. But as we learn over the course of the story, this feeling of estrangement actually preceded his transformation. Shortly after waking and discovering that he has become a bug, for example, Gregor reflects on his life as a traveling salesman, noting how superficial and transitory his relationships have become as a result of his constant traveling. Later, Gregor recalls how his initial pride at being able to support his family faded once his parents began to expect that support, and how he felt emotionally distant from them as a result. There is also no mention in the story of any close friends or intimate relationships outside his family. In fact, the alienation caused by Gregor's metamorphosis can be viewed as an extension of the alienation he already felt as a person. Motifs Metamorphosis The Metamorphosis depicts multiple transformations, with the most significant and obvious example being Gregor's metamorphosis into an insect. Though Gregor's physical change is complete when the story begins, he also undergoes a related change, a psychological transformation as he adapts to his new body. Grete experiences her own transformation in the story as she develops from a child into an adult. (In fact, in zoology the word metamorphosis refers to a stage in insect and amphibian development during which an immature form of the animal undergoes a physical transformation to become an adult.) At the beginning of the work, she is essentially still a girl, but as she begins to take on adult duties, such as caring for Gregor and then getting a job to help support her family, she steadily matures. In the story's closing scene, her parents realize she has grown into a pretty young woman and think of finding her a husband. The scene signals that she is now an adult emotionally and also physically, as it describes the change her body has undergone and echoes Gregor's own physical change. The family as a whole also undergoes a metamorphosis as well. Initially, the members of the Samsa family appear hopeless and static, owing to the difficulties resulting from Gregor's transformation as well as their financial predicament. But over time they are able to overcome their money problems, and when Gregor finally dies and the family no longer has to deal with his presence, all the family members are reinvigorated. As the story closes, they have completed an emotional transformation and their hope is revitalized. Sleep and Rest References to sleep and rest, as well as the lack of sleep and rest, recur throughout The Metamorphosis. The story opens, for instance, with Gregor waking from sleep to discover his transformation, and Part 2 of the story begins with Gregor waking a second time, in this instance late in the day after the incident in which his father drove him back into his room. He quickly crawls under the sofa in his room to rest, and he spends a great deal of the story beneath the sofa either resting quietly or anxious and unable to rest. Moreover, Gregor describes how his father used to while away the day in bed or dozing in his armchair, and after the father resumes working, he often refuses to go to bed in the evenings and instead falls asleep in uniform in his chair. Toward the end of the work, as Gregor's health declines he stops sleeping almost entirely until finally he dies. Money Because of the failure of the father's business and the debts that resulted, money is a chief concern for the Samsa family, and consequently it appears as a frequent topic in Gregor's thoughts and in the conversations of the family members. Gregor's chief concern after discovering he's become an insect is that he'll lose his job, which we quickly learn he took solely as a means of earning money for his family. The office manager also implies while checking on Gregor that Gregor's boss suspects him of stealing money from the firm. Then, shortly after Gregor awakes at the beginning of Part 2, he overhears the father explaining the family's financial situation in detail to the mother and Grete. Later, the father and Grete both take jobs to make up for the loss of Gregor's income, and the family even takes in a few borders as a means of bringing in extra money, which results in an argument about money after the borders discover Gregor. Symbols The Picture of the Woman in Furs Mentioned right at the outset of the story, the picture of the woman in furs serves as a symbol of Gregor's former humanity. Exactly why the picture, which shows a woman wearing a fur hat, a fur boa, and a thick fur muff that covers her arms, originally attracted Gregor is never made clear (though it could be that it embodied Gregor's desires—the presumably attractive woman may be sexually alluring while the furs she wears could signal wealth to Gregor). But Gregor's strong attachment to it does not derive from the content of the picture so much as from the fact that he put it on his wall when he was still human. He clings to it in panic when Grete and the mother are clearing out his room because, as he looks around the room in desperation, he sees it as one object from his former life that he can save. The content of the picture is irrelevant at that moment. It acts foremost as a reminder that a human lived there and chose that object to frame and display. The Father's Uniform The uniform the father wears for his job symbolizes the father's dignity, as well as Gregor's shifting feelings of pity and respect for him. Throughout the story, we see the father primarily from Gregor's point of view. We learn about the failure of the father's business, for example, from Gregor's thoughts as he overhears the father explaining the family's financial situation, and through Gregor we gain a picture of the father as a shiftless and depressed man whom Gregor appears to feel sorry for but not necessarily respect. But when Gregor runs out of his room in Part 2 and sees the father for the first time in weeks, Gregor's opinion of the father changes. This shift is most evident through Gregor's description of the father's uniform, which gives the father an air of dignity: Gregor notices the "smart blue uniform with gold buttons," and thinks the father looks to be "in fine shape," suggesting the father's self-respect has been restored, and with it Gregor's respect for him. As the story continues, however, the father again declines—apparently from the pressure of living with Gregor—and in the evenings Gregor watches him sleep in his uniform, now dirty and covered with grease spots. As a result, the dignity the uniform conveyed to the father deteriorates, and Gregor again looks at him with pity. (Notably, there is also a picture in the house of Gregor in uniform. It is an army uniform, and in the picture Gregor smiles, "inviting one to respect his uniform and military bearing.") Food Food represents the way the members of the Samsa family feel toward Gregor. Notably, it is Grete, the family member Gregor feels closest to, who feeds Gregor for most of the story. At the beginning of Part 2, she leaves milk and bread for him, showing sympathy and consideration for him after his transformation, particularly as milk was one of his favorite foods when he was human. When she sees he hasn't drank the milk, she goes so far as to leave a tray of various foods out in order to discover what he now likes. Eventually, however, the work suggests that the family loses interest in feeding Gregor. One night, after the borders have moved in, the charwoman leaves his door open, and able to see everyone gathered, he watches as his mother feeds the borders. The scene causes Gregor to feel a great deal of resentment, and he thinks that he is starving while the borders stuff themselves, suggesting that as the members of the Samsa family have lost their sympathy for Gregor, they have stopped taking the same interest in feeding him. Significantly, the father inflicts the injury in Gregor's back with an apple, and this wound appears to weaken Gregor and contribute to his death.

THE METAMORPHOSIS Franz Kafka ←Key Facts → FULL TITLE · The Metamorphosis AUTHOR · Franz Kafka TYPE OF WORK · Short story/novella GENRE · Absurdism LANGUAGE · German TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN · Prague, 1912 DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION · 1915 PUBLISHER · Kurt Wolff Verlag NARRATOR · The narrator is an anonymous figure who recounts the events of the story in a flat, neutral tone. POINT OF VIEW · The narrator speaks exclusively in the third person, focusing primarily on the thoughts, feelings, and actions of Gregor Samsa. The narrator only describes events that Gregor sees, hears, remembers, or imagines from the actions around him. TONE · The narrator's tone is flat and unchanging, describing even the most outlandish events in a neutral fashion. TENSE · Past tense SETTING (TIME) · Unspecified, though references to trains and streetcars suggest the late-nineteenth century or early twentieth century SETTING (PLACE) · The Samsa family's apartment in an unspecified city PROTAGONIST · Gregor Samsa MAJOR CONFLICT · Gregor Samsa struggles to reconcile his humanity with his transformation into a giant bug RISING ACTION · When Gregor Samsa wakes up inexplicably transformed into a giant bug, he must handle the consequences in terms of his understanding of himself and his relationship with his family CLIMAX · Unable to bear the thought that all evidence of his human life will be removed from his room, he clings to the picture of the woman in furs, startling Grete and the mother and leading the father to attack him FALLING ACTION · Gregor, injured in the father's attack, slowly weakens, venturing out of his room once more to hear Grete play the violin and dying shortly thereafter THEMES · The absurdity of life; the disconnect between mind and body; the limits of sympathy; alienation MOTIFS · Metamorphosis; sleep and rest; money SYMBOLS · The picture of the woman in furs; the father's uniform; food FORESHADOWING · Gregor is seriously injured after he leaves the room a second time and he stops eating and sleeping, foreshadowing his eventual death; the family gradually takes less interest in Gregor, foreshadowing their decision to get rid of him

In the Penal Colony Summary How It All Goes Down We're in a sandy valley (the proverbial "barren landscape") on the outskirts of a penal colony. Gathered near a rather unusual machine, "the apparatus," stand four characters with very specific names: "the officer," "the explorer," "the soldier," and "the condemned man." The explorer is a visitor to the colony, and has been sent by the Commandant to watch the execution of the condemned man, which will be performed with the apparatus. The officer, who's quite fond of the machine, eagerly describes it to the explorer. The apparatus, invented by the former Commandant of the colony, is what the colony's justice system uses to punish people, in a rather unique way. It "writes" a commandment (in very complicated, illegible script) on the body of the condemned man, the very one he's supposedly guilty of violating, and it does this by slowly rotating his body and cutting into it repeatedly with lots and lots of needles. The punishment is meant to "enlighten" the prisoner - as the machine works on him, he comes to learn what commandment he violated by feeling it on his body. The prisoner is somehow transformed greatly by this process. One other thing: the prisoner doesn't know what his sentence (or the commandment he violated) is beforehand because in this penal colony he gets no trial or opportunity to defend himself. In fact, if accused by someone, it's just assumed he's guilty. This prisoner - "the condemned man" - for instance, was reported by his captain for being insubordinate, and without trial or even being questioned, he was put in chains. He'll have "HONOR THY SUPERIORS" written on his body by the apparatus. The officer finds this form of punishment exquisite. Having described the apparatus to the explorer, the officer has the condemned man put in the machine. Meanwhile, the explorer has decided that the apparatus and the whole "judicial procedure" of the colony really bothers him. He wonders if there's any way he can put a stop to it. He's in luck. The officer tells him the popularity of the procedure has fallen greatly since the old Commandant's days, when it used to be the most important thing in the life of the colony. Now the officer is its only real defender. The new Commandant does not like the "procedure," and is hoping the explorer will disapprove of it, too. The explorer is apparently an important guest from a more "enlightened" part of the world, so if he doesn't like the procedure, the new Commandant will seize the opportunity to take action against the officer. The officer hopes (and appears to believe) that the explorer is in favor of the procedure and will use his influence to defend it and save the legacy of the old Commandant. The explorer feels a bit sorry for the officer, but tells him he can't defend the procedure in good conscience. Actually, he'll speak against the procedure. Resigned, the officer lets the condemned man go. There's nothing left to do but go into the apparatus himself. His sentence? "BE JUST!" After setting everything in order, the officer gets into the machine and turns it on, as the soldier and the newly freed condemned man strap him in. But something goes horribly wrong with the apparatus, which begins to fall apart. Instead of writing the officer's sentence slowly into his flesh over the course of twelve hours, it simply impales him and makes a bloody mess of his body. He's dead within a couple of minutes. Afterwards, the explorer goes with the other two to visits the teahouse in the colony where who the old Commandant lies buried. His grave is hidden, unceremoniously, under one of the teahouse tables, bearing an inscription that predicts he'll return to lead his followers to triumph. Everybody in the teahouse just laughs at it. The explorer prepares to leave the colony in haste, getting in a ferry to return to his steamer. The condemned man and the soldier try to follow him, but he keeps them from jumping into his boat.

In the Penal Colony Plot Analysis Most good stories start with a fundamental list of ingredients: the initial situation, conflict, complication, climax, suspense, denouement, and conclusion. Great writers sometimes shake up the recipe and add some spice. Initial Situation An explorer comes to visit a penal colony, and plans to watch an execution. We meet all of the characters on the outskirts of the penal colony, where the officer is preparing the apparatus for the execution of the condemned man. The officer gives a bit of background about the colony and the machine. He attracts the explorer's interest, and tells him about how the condemned man was sentenced. This is about all we get as setup for the story. Conflict "The explanation of the judicial procedure had not satisfied him" (14). The officer's explanation of the colony's judicial procedure troubles the explorer, and he begins to have the stirrings of a thought that perhaps something should be done. This unease grows worse the more he hears about the execution methods, deciding they are clearly unjust and inhumane. Complication The plea of a desperate (and possibly insane) man Once the condemned man is set in the apparatus, the officer starts to tell the explorer the truth of his situation: no one else in the colony supports the use of the apparatus. The explorer is at pleased to know that he can have influence, but feels reluctant to tell the officer "No" outright. Finally, he's put on the spot. Climax "And yet now, facing the soldier and the condemned man, he did hesitate, for as long as it took him to draw one breath. At last, however, he said, as he had to: 'No'" (30). When the explorer tells the officer his negative opinion of the apparatus, it resolves the explorer's dilemma about whether and how to intervene. It also decides the officer's fate: his last hope has been crushed. But what will he do? Suspense "Then the time has come" (34). The officer announces that "the time has come" with resignation. We have a pretty good idea of what he's going to do, and when he strips naked we know it: he'll put himself in the apparatus. As he does so, however, we see various indications that things aren't going quite according to plan. Then the machine starts spitting out cogwheels and all hell breaks loose. The officer, trapped in the machine, is massacred before the horrified explorer's eyes. Denouement The remains of the old Commandant With the officer dead and the machine kaput, there's not really any suspense left. The explorer sees the old Commandant's grave in the teahouse, as well as the people laughing at it. Without the officer and the machine, there's not much left of the old Commandant's legacy besides an epitaph that no one takes seriously. Conclusion Escaping the nightmare The explorer, quite troubled by all he has seen, leaves the colony and its inhabitants behind. He wards off the condemned man and the soldier to ensure that nothing from the colony comes back with him where he is going. That's as close as we'll get to closure.

The Explorer Character Analysis The Explorer: Audience to a Sick, Sad World The first thing you might notice about the explorer is that, well, there's not a whole lot to notice about him. While we get colorful descriptions of the other characters - the condemned man is described as a "submissive dog" (1), the heavily uniformed officer is "uncommonly limp" and "breathe[s] with his mouth open," (2) - we hear nothing about how the explorer looks. We don't get any background on him, or any description of strong emotions going on inside of him. The only thing we do hear about is that he's kind of bored and distracted by shiny things (namely the sun): The explorer did not care much about the apparatus and walked up and down behind the prisoner with almost visible indifference. (2) Then, later: He had not been listening very attentively, the glare of the sun in the shadeless valley was altogether too strong, it was difficult to collect one's thoughts. (3) It doesn't seem like there's that much to the explorer. The explorer is not a spectacle. He's just the pair of eyes in the story (see "Narrator Point of View"), who watches the real spectacle unfold. Most of the story is just the officer talking - about the machine, the procedure, the lovable old Commandant - and the explorer listening or watching. In that way, the explorer is a stand-in for the reader within the story, since the reader is also just "observing" the strange world of the penal colony. The one significant thing we learn about the explorer is that he's "a famous Western investigator, sent out to study criminal procedure in all the countries of the world" (25). So what is it he does for a living? He observes. Maybe that's why he's bored and tired. By the time he's visited the penal colony, he probably thinks he's seen it all, and would rather not be stuck in some tropical armpit of a penal colony with bright sun and sweltering heat. The Explorer's Initial Reaction to the Machine Of course, the explorer doesn't just watch; he also has reactions. You can actually look at the whole story as the escalation or intensification of the explorer's reaction to what he's seeing, as he gets more drawn in to (and troubled by) what he sees. What's striking is how gradually it happens. It begins when, after that opening stint of boredom, he feels a "dawning interest" (4). Even after learning that the condemned man has had no trial, is being sentenced to death for disobedience, and will have his sentence "written on his body," the explorer is still only mildly dissatisfied! The explorer considered the Harrow with a frown. The explanation of the judicial procedure had not satisfied him. (14) After he hears about how the agonizing twelve hours of lethal torture will unfold for the condemned man, the explorer thinks to himself, "It's always a ticklish matter to intervene decisively in other people's affairs" (19). We would have totally lost it by then. It's absurd how understated his reactions are to such a gruesome procedure. The Explorer and His Principles The explorer seems to think of everything in abstract or intellectual terms. It's a matter of principles. He's made the principle of "non-intervention" an operating procedure for him by now: "He traveled only as an observer, with no intention at all of altering other people's methods of administering justice" (19). And his disapproval of what's going on in the penal colony is made from principle, from his commitments to general ideas of justice and humaneness: "the injustice of the procedure and the inhumanity of the execution were undeniable" (19). The explorer's principles are pretty easy to identify with - they're presumably the reader's, which is another way he's like a stand-in for the reader. But it's worth noticing that, as far as actual sympathy for the condemned man goes, it's basically nil: No on could suppose that he had any selfish interest in the matter, for the condemned man was a complete stranger, not a fellow countryman or even at all sympathetic to him. (19)The explorer represents a certain hollowness that Kafka seems to find contemptible, and can be seen as characteristically "modern." The explorer "tolerates" people and believes in their rights as a matter of principle without feeling sympathy for them. He believes in the "rightness" of one's convictions without really feeling them, unlike the officer. The Explorer's (Lack of) Emotions The explorer is very removed and rather without feeling, unlike the officer (see the officer's "Character Analysis"). In fact one of the only strong reactions we get from the explorer (until the end) is when the officer, in a fit of excitement, embraces the explorer and puts his head on his shoulder. The explorer is "deeply embarrassed" and stares "impatiently [...] over the officer's head" (22). Painful executions don't seem to ruffle him (he's probably seen a lot of those, anyway), but having another man get all emotional with him makes him uncomfortable. However, the explorer admires the officer for the force and passion of his belief. But even this admiration feels removed. The explorer doesn't seem to care about what the officer believes - by his standards, it's pretty horrific - but thinks it nice that the officer is so committed. He's "touched" by the officer's "severe conviction" (30). It takes the machine going haywire and the officer getting gorily slaughtered to get a real reaction out of the explorer. Not that the explorer goes hysterical or anything. He keeps his composure. But when we're told simply that the explorer feels "greatly troubled" (46) watching the officer, he rather helplessly reaches out a hand, and that ultimately he's forced to look into the officer's face "almost against his will." We think this indicates some pretty deep inner turbulence (of the psychic, not the gastric variety). We as readers feel more uneasy being told that he's "greatly troubled" than we would if all the details of his being "troubled" were spelled out. It leaves more room for the imagination, and in a nightmare world like that of "In the Penal Colony," that's scary. Escape from the Penal Colony The explorer really must be "deeply troubled" because he leaves the penal colony so soon after the officer is killed, and "wards off" the soldier and the condemned man - as if to make sure nothing of the place comes with him. This gives his departure the feeling of an escape. Having seen what he saw, he now needs to get away from the penal colony. Kind of like Marlow in Heart of Darkness: "The horror...the horror!" So the explorer has been startled out of his earlier state by the end of the story. Here again he's just like a frame for the reader, who by the end of the story is also quite disturbed and ready to get the heck out of "In the Penal Colony." The explorer thought he'd seen it all, but he hadn't. But exactly what has the explorer seen that troubles him so? Hearing about how gruesome the execution procedure was hadn't made him "greatly troubled." It's a good question, and a hard one to answer. So go check out "What's Up with the Ending?" and start taking a crack at it.

The Officer Character Analysis If the explorer is the character who watches the spectacle of the story, the officer is the person who makes a spectacle of himself. To call him emotional is an understatement. We're brought back time and time again to the enthusiasm he feels for the apparatus and the "justice" of the old Commandant. Perhaps enthusiasm is too weak a word; the officer basically worships the old Commandant and the system he created, which is embodied in the apparatus: We who were his [the old Commandant's] friends knew even before he died that the organization of the colony was so perfect that his successor, even with a thousand new schemes in his head, would find it impossible to alter anything, at least for many years to come. And our prophecy has come true. (3) The officer is driven completely by that devotion to the old Commandant's system. He just loves being the judge of the colony and getting to "do justice" by executing people with the apparatus. He judges on the principle "Guilt is never to be doubted" (which doesn't seem much like "judging" at all). And he has an intense fascination with the intense torture the apparatus inflicts on the body. He thinks it brings "enlightenment" or "transfiguration," and is tempted to subject himself to it just to experience that: Enlightenment comes to the most dull-witted. It begins around the eyes. From there it radiates. A moment that might tempt one to get under the Harrow oneself. (16) He also relishes the idea that anyone who goes into the machine has a moment of certainty, just before dying, that "Now Justice is being done" (22). That's his reason for living. In fact, he can't live without it. So when the explorer refuses to help him and he realizes that whole system will go down the drain, he goes into the apparatus himself. However, he doesn't die in quite the way he wants - his execution is rapid with no chance for transfiguration. Is the Officer Insane? The big question we have to ask about the officer is: do we take him seriously? Chances are the officer's understanding of justice and of "humane" execution are pretty far from your own. It probably looks pretty sadistic and barbaric. But he clearly believes in it with every fiber of his being. Do you admire the force of his conviction anyway, such that perhaps you even feel sorry for him that his world is collapsing? Do you maybe even wonder if there might be something to his beliefs? Or do you think: "Wow, that guy is totally insane"? That's one of the central questions for interpreting the whole story, and we can't tell you the answer, because we don't know it. But we can at least get you thinking. One way to approach understanding the officer is to try to think about why he believes so strongly in his kind of justice. Maybe he has good reasons. The problem is that it's actually hard to understand why the officer believes what he does. On the surface it often seems like nonsense - like the stuff a brainwashed cult member might buy into - and we're just not given many clues by the text. Think about it. Take the officer's belief that "Guilt is never to be doubted," which is probably the place to start since that's his operating principle as a judge. It seems pretty absurd. Does that mean that he'll just judge anyone guilty who's accused of something? Isn't it obvious there can be false accusations? Why should we always believe the accuser and never the accused? (And what if the judge is accused?) We're not given any further indication of what the officer means by that. There are a few ways we can try to make sense of the officer's statement. For example, you could see it as related to the idea that all human beings are guilty of something, like some religions do (see the "Symbols, Images, Allegory" section for more on this, and why the story can be read as a religious allegory). Why would the officer think that? The officer could just believe that all people are pretty rotten - he does live in a penal colony full of people like the condemned man, after all. Since he believes they're rotten, perhaps they do deserve punishment. Besides, the people in the penal colony are all guilty of something, at least in the past, which is why they're presumably there. Do you agree with this interpretation? What about all that transfiguration stuff? If the officer believes everyone's pretty rotten, the most important question on his mind might be: how do we make them less rotten? And that's probably where suffering, or punishment, comes in. By making someone suffer, you can make them appreciate how awful, how guilty they truly are. There's something redemptive about that: in realizing their guilt and feeling repentant, the person overcomes the guilt. That's one way of understanding what the apparatus does, and why the extreme suffering, the prisoner's "learning through his wounds," is so important: it's the only way to really make the prisoner feel guilt. In doing so, the prisoner becomes better than he's ever been (for the brief moments that remain until he dies, that is). Maybe that's why the officer believes that his methods are "the most humane, and the most in consonance with human dignity" (25). It could also be that the officer believes those dirty, rotten fellow humans become nobler or better when they submit to or obey something higher than themselves. It could be God (read: the old Commandant), it could be the Law (coming from God, i.e., the old Commandant). The apparatus forces the victim into the most extreme kind of submission, depriving him of all of his energy and forcing him to contemplate in agony the "commandment" of the law which he has violated. The officer also seems to think that the "procedure" brings people together. If multiple people submit to or obey the same thing, and if it's clear what they have to obey - a law, a commandment - then they can feel a unique kind of certainty about what they're doing and come closely together. It seems the officer finds that "everybody's comin' together around Justice!" part of his procedure very important: Many did not care to watch it but lay with closed eyes in the sand; they all knew: Now Justice is being done[...] How we all absorbed the look of transfiguration on the face of the sufferer, how we bathed our cheeks in the radiance of that justice, achieved at last and fading so quickly! What times these were, my comrade!" (22) Of course, it could be that we're just reading way too much into this. Maybe the officer just loves seeing people hurt really bad, so much that he's thrilled at the prospect of hurting really bad himself. The guy does say, with excitement: Nowadays the machine can no longer wring from anyone a sigh louder than the felt gag can stifle; but in those days the writing needles let drop an acid fluid, which we're no longer permitted to use. (22) Blech! And it's also worth remembering he was fond of attending the executions with children under each arm...we won't even go there. At the end of the day, we can't know whether or not to just dismiss him as a sadist or a madman, or to take him seriously. What's your take on him?

The Condemned Man Character Analysis [...] a stupid-looking, wide-mouthed creature with bewildered hair and face [...] in any case, the condemned man looked so like a submissive dog that one might have thought he could be left to run free on the surrounding hills and would only need to be whistled for when the execution was due to begin. (1) Yes, the condemned man is basically depicted as a dumb animal, and that's sort of the role he plays throughout the story. For much of it, he's kept in chains, and choked back whenever he moves too close to the apparatus. One of the most notable things he does is vomit, all over the apparatus and himself. He also never talks - he doesn't understand the French of the officer and the explorer, and so just sits by, watching them with a kind of mute fascination. The one sentence he does say, although we only hear of it through the officer, is "Put that whip away or I'll eat you alive." It doesn't help the case for your humanity much if you only speak to threaten to eat people. That little fact makes it clear the condemned man is actually a pretty brutal guy, in addition to being somewhat animalistic. Despite the horrible fate he's supposed to have, he's just not very sympathetic (the explorer doesn't feel any sympathy for him, really). He's also eager to watch the officer suffer through the pain of the apparatus. The condemned man does make us wonder how he got to be this way. Was he just a barely human criminal before he got to the penal colony? Or has the harsh discipline and brutal treatment of the penal colony made him this way? Perhaps it's a system that demands such total submission of the inmates that it turns them into animals. And it certainly looks as if the condemned man is conditioned for submission - when the explorer tells him to go away, he gets right on his knees as if to beg.

The Soldier Character Analysis The soldier is a dull-witted fellow whose most distinct features are that he seems to fall asleep easily and that he's not very good at his job. He doesn't seem to know or care about what he's doing, and is basically only at the execution because it's his orders to be there and he's obedient. That's why it's almost a surprise to hear him talk in the epilogue and reveal something about the officer and the old Commandant we didn't know. Turns out he does know some valuable information.

The Old Commandant Character Analysis The old Commandant was the founder of the penal colony and the designer of the apparatus. According to the officer, he was kind of the bomb. He was responsible for everything about the colony, from the sentences of the apparatus to the operation of the judicial procedure. He was "soldier, judge, mechanic, chemist, and draughtsman" (10). Nobody would dare disobey him. Plus he had "ladies." A sort of aura surrounds the old Commandant, at least when listening to the officer talk about him. It's as if he's God or something. He's a Creator: the colony is all his design, just as he built the machine himself. Oh, and don't forget that everything he made is perfect (according to the officer). The old Commandant is like a divine Judge or Lawgiver: his system delivers perfect justice, which everybody knows is just (or so the officer says). And he's kind of like Jesus: apparently, there's a prophecy that the old Commandant will "rise again" from his grave and lead his faithful to retake the colony. Though most people in the colony now find this notion very funny. How you see the old Commandant depends on how you want to read the story. Is he something of a mythical figure or even an allegory for God? If he is, then everybody's laughing at him amounts to a "loss of faith." Or was he an extremely sadistic, power-hungry guy, who the officer makes the mistake of worshipping as God? In which case, the officer's reverence for him is kind of tragic.

The New Commandant Character Analysis With the death of the old Commandant, the new Commandant is the one running the show at the penal colony. As with the old Commandant, we only hear about him through the officer. We don't know too much about him, except that he's not such a big fan of the old Commandant's way of doing things, particularly the use of the apparatus. He's hoping the explorer will speak against the apparatus, and enable him to eliminate it once and for all. What we don't know about the new Commandant are his motives. We know he's opposed to the old traditions, but we don't know why. Is it because he genuinely finds them revolting or barbaric? Does he just want to seem modern, to impress people like the explorer? Or might he just have a grudge against the old Commandant? We don't know. We do know, however, that, like the old Commandant, he has "ladies."

In the Penal Colony Theme of Justice and Judgment "In the Penal Colony" revolves around the rather, um, unique system of justice and punishment used in the place where it is set. The judicial system of this penal colony is based on the idea that, as one character says, "Guilt is never to be doubted." The accused are never tried nor given an opportunity to defend themselves. Instead, they are simply put to death at the order of the judge in an elaborate and apparently brutal fashion. The explorer visiting the colony finds the execution procedure unjust and inhumane to the extreme, but the officer who defends it reveres it as the highest kind of justice. How could it be seen as just? In the Penal Colony Theme of Suffering The execution machine at the center of "In the Penal Colony" seems ingeniously designed to inflict one of the most elaborate and horrific forms of suffering imaginable on the prisoners condemned to go into it: it writes their sentences on their bodies in their own blood over the course of twelve hours. In the process of this extreme suffering, the condemned man is supposed to experience a special kind of enlightenment, to learn something through the pain of his body that he couldn't learn otherwise. The attraction that this "transfiguration" through suffering has for the officer, who serves as the colony's judge, eventually leads him to go into the machine himself. In the Penal Colony Theme of Religion The penal colony of "In the Penal Colony" was established by a man - "the old Commandant" - who single-handedly designed an elaborate and brutal system of justice that tied the colony together entirely under his control. Though dead by the time of the story, his rule and his justice system are revered with religious zeal by an officer who served under him. In the officer's eyes, the old Commandant becomes a god-figure, who brought perfect Justice (with a capital J) to the penal colony and who deserves its continued reverence and submission. Much of the old Commandant's system does indeed have strong resonances with religion, which has led some readers to interpret the whole story as a religious allegory. In the Penal Colony Theme of Foreignness and 'The Other' The protagonist of "In the Penal Colony" is an explorer from Western Europe who travels the world to observe other cultures. He finds in the penal colony a system of justice so strange, grotesque, and unjust to him that it challenges his usual guiding principle of never intervening in what he sees. Both the officer/judge the explorer meets and the colony's ruling Commandant grant him special prestige as a "Westerner," and each hopes to win his support in their struggle over the colony's traditional judicial procedure. The explorer ultimately refuses to support the officer, causing him to put himself in his own execution device. The explorer's experience of the penal colony troubles him greatly, and he leaves in haste. In the Penal Colony Theme of Tradition and Custom The officer in "In the Penal Colony" is strongly attached to the traditions - in particular, the system of justice - established by the colony's founder, and finds them perfect. Yet the colony itself seems to have left the traditions behind since the death of the founder, and the officer becomes the only person left to defend them. He tries to win over a foreign explorer to his side in the hopes of convincing him to save the colony's traditions from its new Commandant, who appears bent on ending them. But to the explorer, the traditional justice system that the officer loves so much is barbarous. In the Penal Colony Theme of Primitiveness One of the four characters in "In the Penal Colony," a prisoner, is depicted as more animal than human being. At once wild and submissive, fiercely violent and stupid, he has been sentenced to death for threatening to eat a superior. Although we see little of the colony's other inhabitants, the condemned man's example seems to suggest that many of them are beastly and brutal. What is the connection between the animal-ness of the inhabitants of the penal colony and the gruesome justice system used to keep them in check?