The Metamorphosis (Kafka)

Kafka's Metamorphosis was one of those books that not only contained various other thought-provoking short stories - but also encompassed everything that was dystopian in a modernist dystopia. Kafka was the pinnacle writer of downturn and really makes the gears of the mind cog and burn together as they grind through the build and destruction of the eerie dystopia where you can only be sure of one thing - that everything is going to go south so quickly. 

Characters:

Samsa is a great three-dimensional character who not only evokes this sense of deep, enthralling sympathy with him - but also embodies the entirety of the dystopian vision in one being. He is the be all and end all of the existence of Kafka's metamorphic world and perpetually volts out this depth that can only be seen when focussing intensely on the use of language mixed with the structure of the text itself. We see that, like Samsa, the text constructs and destructs itself violently in an act of self-cleansing that can never be purified. It is unachievable - and this is Kafka's true message through characterisation. 

Themes:

Obviously, the theme I'm concentrating is dystopia. If I haven't said it enough already - Kafka uses a sense of vibrant and provocative structuralism to stain the work with binary oppositions that create and perceive the dystopia as the whole story spins violently out of control. As stated (and paraphrased by me) in Tzetan Todorov's Structural Analysis of Narrative we can observe a sense of binary and hierarchy. For example, black and white are opposites. White has more positive connotation than black and therefore has the upper-hand in the hierarchal placement of words. The dystopia is created by the character representation of dystopia whilst he is inside a dystopian vision complete with constant comparisons between our world and his (our world having the upper-hand). Thus, we get a multi-layered complex of a vivid, provocative and eagerly anticipated dystopian design as it perceptually creates and destroys itself within a world where everything is bound to self-destruct anyway. Beautiful, isn't it? 

Storyline:

The storyline is completely perceptive - and that's the beauty of it. It can be interpreted and evaluated in several different ways - but I don't want to give any spoilers away so I'll keep this concise and ambiguous. The storyline is a work of art and quite difficult to map out in terms of character emotions - they are constantly kept conflicting and uncertain, and this is why it has endured so much thought-provoking journal analysis. The character emotions are put into our dear storyline at times of pathos and catharsis of something dystopian, therefore we then feel unsure about the whole aspect of the dystopian social stature and how things are supposed to go. Kind of like a 1984-esque picture of obedience vs disobedience; do we want to be obedient or do we want to be rebels? 

Verdict:

I give this story a 9 out of 9.

100% for characters: The character of Samsa is so perfectly intertwined with the themes and story that we hardly notice the whole thing falling to pieces so very structurally. It is like he is "part of Kafka's furniture". 

100% for themes: The aspect of dystopia is surely the best state of regression of the counter-cultures that we can see. It is Kafka's best point of being destructive and probably the exact opposite of the term "Kafka-esque". 

100% for storyline: Kafka's intense amounts of creation and destruction give us a conflicting, unsure and yet completely thought-provoking storyline. Hooking from start to finish, the very first word to the very last statement - we can see the pure beauty overflowing in Kafka's anti-establishment work of anonymity and exasperating dystopian emotion.