"The Metamorphosis" and "A Rose for Miss Emily" Comparison Essay by writingsensation
"The Metamorphosis" and "A Rose for Miss Emily"
This essay compares the similarities between the protagonists in Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and Faulkner's "A Rose for Miss Emily."
# 75382
| 1,168 words
| 2 sources
| MLA
| 2006
| 
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Description:
In this paper, the author compares and contrasts the protagonists in Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and Faulkner's "A Rose for Miss Emily." Although the stories are quite different, neither protagonist deals with real life particularly well. A major contrast, however, is the way these characters deal with their challenges. Miss Emily gets away with her crime by becoming more and more rigidly what the townspeople expect her to be. Gregor from "The Metamorphosis" copes with turning into a cockroach by accepting it and learning to live life as a bug. Both characters have to cope with unacceptable circumstances, but do it in markedly different ways.
From the Paper:
""The Metamorphosis" is not only about a man's difficulty facing a bizarre reality. It tells a remarkable story of personal alienation from society. It also makes a political statement: Kafka's character is a salesman, but Kafka was a socialist. The story could be interpreted to suggest that it was the character's job, working for a man who treated him more like a cog in a machine than a human being, a job that caused his metamorphosis into something non-human. The fact that the character doesn't fully recognize how much he has changed suggests that the character is still an extension of humankind. This metamorphosis suggests that as a human or a bug, the main character was of no real importance except for what he could produce for the capitalist system in which he worked. He sold goods for his company and paid off his parents' debts with his earnings.Miss Emily was in an opposite situation: she was viewed as such a significant person that laws were waived for her, with disastrous results. No one realized her dead suitor lay in bed in one of her upper rooms until Miss Emily herself died. Ironically, both person's circumstances allowed them to hold on to delusional beliefs. In Kafka, the character goes straight from turning into a cockroach to attempting to figure out how to live as a giant bug. In Faulkner's story, Miss Emily deludes herself that it was acceptable for her to murder her suitor. The implication is that Miss Emily sleeps in the same bed as the dead man. Society expectations in both stories have allowed both characters to think quite irrationally."
Cite this Comparison Essay:
APA Format
"The Metamorphosis" and "A Rose for Miss Emily" (2006, December 12)
Retrieved December 05, 2023, from https://www.academon.com/comparison-essay/the-metamorphosis-and-a-rose-for-miss-emily-75382/
MLA Format
""The Metamorphosis" and "A Rose for Miss Emily"" 12 December 2006.
Web. 05 December. 2023. <https://www.academon.com/comparison-essay/the-metamorphosis-and-a-rose-for-miss-emily-75382/>