What Family Means To Gregor

In Kafka's Metamorphosis, the main character, Gregor, turns into a bug one day. He instantly realizes that he turned into bug but Gregor worries more about missing a train. "'Good God!' he thought. It was half past six, and the hands were going quietly on. It was even past the half hour, already nearly quarter to'" (Kafka 1). Gregor doesn't seem to care what he looks like. I believe it's either Gregor is so focused on other issues (like missing the train) that he can't care about his look or simply he think his look doesn't matter. If I turn into a bug, the first thing I would worry is what if my family doesn't recognize me. Gregor seem like he's believing in their family to notice him whatever look he have. The quote also explains Gregor is tied to his work.

 Another quote describes Gregor's boss, "The boss would certainly come with the doctor from the health insurance company and would reproach his parents for their lazy son and cut short all objections with the insurance doctor's comments; for him everyone was completely healthy but really lazy about work" (Kafka 2). Gregor's boss is very mean and selfish. Gregor obviously doesn't like his job, however he thinks he have to work for the company. It's because Gregor has to pay back his parent's debt. Gregor most worries about the boss telling his parent that he is lazy. He wants to please and not disappoint his family.

Gregor is a selfless and kind man who is not confident of himself. His room has no signs of friends or a lover. I believe for Gregor, family is the only thing he got. Family isn't like friends or lover that you have to make and can break up. From the moment one's born, he or she is part of the family. Since Gregor has no self confidence, he finds the meaning of his life from his family. By paying his parent's debt, Gregor feels prideful of himself. He also loves his family and wants to prove himself. But Gregor's parents are arrogant, selfish, and mean people. They let their son work without his own life and enjoys luxury life. Gregor probably knows how their parents are, but he constantly asks for love and finds the meaning of his existence from his family.

(an image of Gregor: left to right

1.2.3 Gregor's childhood with a frame of his mother and him on the background

-> 4.5 Adult Gregor crying)

Franz Kafka Biography

Birth:
 Franz Kafka was born in a German-speaking Jewish family in 1883 in Prague, Bohemia, modern day Czech Republic. He was the eldest of six children. His father was a shopkeeper and his mother spent most of her time helping him. Therefore the children were mostly raised by servants. Kafka illustrates his father as a tyrant.

(an image of Kafka's childhood)

Adult Life:
He got a law degree in 1906 from Charles Ferdinand University of Prague. After he graduated from college, he worked for an Italian insurance agency; he quickly quit the job. Then he was hired by Worker's Accidental Insurance Institution for the Kingdom of Bohemia.

(an image of Kafka drawn by Andy Warhol)

Influence:
He wrote many plays, including the famous The Metamorphosis in 1912. He was a unknown writer in his lifetime but after his death, his works became so influential that the word "Kafkaesque" which means senseless derived from him. His works often portraits social problems by creating a character that is in a absurd situation. The Metamorphosis is a satire to modern life.

(an image of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis)

Death: Franz Kafka died at June 3, 1924. He always had health issues but the tuberculous is the cause of his death. He also suffered from mental problems such as clinical depression and social anxiety. He quotes "kill me or else you're a murderer" to his doctor due to his pain. He was hospitalized in ENT Institute, in Vienna until he passed away.

(an image of Franz Kafka's gravestone)

Bibliography:
Nervi, Mauro. "Kafka's Life." The Kafka Project. Link.it, 08 Jan. 2011. Web. 15 Mar. 2014.
"Franz Kafka." Franz Kafka. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Mar. 2014.
"Franz Kafka Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
SUMMER EH102. WORDPRESS.COM, 18 May 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.
D, Felisati, and Sperati G. "Works of Kafka and His Relationship with the Disease." National Center for            Biotechnology Information. U.S. National Library of Medicine, 26 Mar. 0006. Web. 18 Mar. 2014.

What Dreams May Come

What Dream May Come was a it-gave-me-a-headache-movie. Some movies are so full of allusions that it gives the viewers headache. This film, What Dreams May Come, is a movie about the afterlife in a completely different view from Dante's. While Dante's Inferno portrait hell as a place where the devils torture sinners, the sinners in What Dream May Come torture themselves, mentally. The film focuses more on soul than bodies. For instance Chris's son and daughter, Ian and Marie, was in a different look.

(an image of Marie, in form of Leona)

Also the film uses colors to express the emotions of characters. In the scene when Annie suffers after Ian and Marie's death, she appears in a garden with a green clothing. Annie is hiding herself from the world due to her suffering.

(an image of Annie wearing green in a garden)

However the film shares some traits with Dante's Inferno. When Chris enters the hell to find Annie, he encounters his father. His father and many other souls are trapped on the ground only exposing their heads. This looks like the punishment for the falsifiers where the sinners are trapped in a cold ice. Also Chris, like Dante, has a conversation with the damned. 

(an image of Chris talking to his father)

Deeper inside Hell

Last week, the class went over canto 14 through 28. The cantos mostly cover circle 8 of Dante's Hell. I presented Canto 19, which is about the simonists. Simoninsts are sinners who practice an act of paying to receive sacraments, including those for ordination to a office or other position in the hierarchy of a church. I went first of Tuesday. The punishment for sinners in canto 19 is being upside-down, their head covered by rocks and burning fire with the oil dripping from their legs. The punishment fits the sin well since the hole resembles baptismal font and oil represents the holy water that had been misused. Also the canto has many allusions to Jason of Maccabees, and Constantine. I was too nervous to mention all I've researched but I think I did okay.

(an image of the visual I drew)

Right after my turn, Ellie B. went and presented canto 20 which is a canto about diviners and magicians. It was interesting how Dante put the magicians in same/lower part of hell as simonists. Magicians in dictionary terms can be just someone who guess what card you picked. The magicians in the canto is more of prophets who dare to see the future. The sinners have their twisted backward and have to walk. Their heads are twisted because in their lifetime they tried so hard foreseeing other's futures they can only look what they've walked before, the past. As Ellie B. said, I agree that Dante really comes up with clever ideas. Creating different sins/punishments for all 34 cantos will be pretty hard. However as I go deep inside the Inferno, I believe Dante's Hell should not be and will not be the standard hell for everyone. Most of the classmates agree that Dante's punishments are too cruel. It makes me wonder if anyone's not in hell.

Heresy and Suicides

Last week, students did a presentation on Dante's inferno. They did Canto 9 through Canto 13. Canto 9 was Heresy. The girl who presented did a great job in relating the sin and the punishment. Heresy is a sin committed by people who thinks their souls are linked to their bodies. The sinners were burnt alive in their life-time and in the hell, they have to sit forever in burning tombs. The visual she presented was a concentration camp. She said the world outside the concentration camp is bad but in the concentration camp is even worse. Since Canto 9 takes place in the border of Wall of Dis, she illustrated inside of Wall of Dis as a concentration camp.

Canto 13 was done by Allison S. The sin was suicide. Although she didn't agree with the punishment, she did a great job explaining the sin and the punishment. People who committed suicides are turned into trees and they get tortured by harpies, a bird-like monster. People who committed suicides are turned into trees because they treated themselves badly by killing themselves. The sinners lose control of their bodies which they have abandoned in their life time. Allison's visual is also very well made. She made a tree with a face in it and she placed garbage and cut scars to represent how the sinners are being treated horribly.

(an image of Canto 13)