"The whole art of Kafka," Albert Camus said, "consists in forcing the reader to reread. He is still making us pay attention today, never allowing the reader to take things for granted. As its protagonist, Gregor Samsa, experiences personal alienation from the people he has cared for and served, he is transformed, losing himself altogether. The novella explores the degradation and transformative power of alienation. Kafka once said that books were not worth reading unless they shook the reader out of his stupor and forced him to pay attention. The Metamorphosis is a novella written by Franz Kafka in 1912 and first published in 1915. Today, Kafka is a voice for all those who struggle to make meaning of an often-senseless world. Dora Diamant held on to his notebooks and letters until they were confiscated by the Gestapo despite an international search, the papers have never been found. He published them in the years after his death - The Trial in 1925, The Castle in 1926, and Amerika in 1927. Brod began editing the disorganized chapters of Kafka's unfinished novels. Neither Max Brod nor Dora Diamant honored Kafka's requests to have his papers burned post-mortem. Kafka died at his home in Prague on 3 June 1924. Like the main character of his story - "A Hunger Artist" - he slowly starved to death. Complications from tuberculosis made it too painful for Kafka to eat. The two fell in love, and their relationship lasted until Kafka's death. In 1923, Kafka traveled to the Baltic Sea, where he met a Polish woman, Dora Diamant. He requested that Brod burn all but a few of his papers after his death. Knowing that he did not have long to live, he asked Max Brod to be his literary executor. He began work on his novel The Castle, but had to set it aside when his condition worsened. He also became involved with a married journalist named Milena Jesenska, in another epistolary relationship conducted primarily via letters. In 1920, as his health continued to fail, Kafka published the short story collection A Country Doctor. His father Hermann disapproved of his engagement to Wohryzková, prompting Kafka to write the missive now known as Letter to His Father, addressing their troubled relationship as father and son. He became engaged (briefly) to a woman named Julie Wohryzková. Over the next few years, Kafka underwent rotating bouts of illness and recovery in sanitoriums across Europe. His younger sister Ottilie took care of him. Kafka took a leave of absence from work while he recovered. Tuberculosis at that time was an incurable and often fatal disease. In August 1917, he began to cough up blood - the first signs of tuberculosis. Kafka's own body was about to betray him as well. It is a classic metaphor of alienation - a vivid image of how it's possible for a man to feel at odds with his home, his family, and even his body. The story of the salesman Gregor Samsa - who wakes up as a giant bug, is shunned, dies and is quickly forgotten - is Kafka's best-known work. On June 21st, Twitter user posted an Are Ya Winning Son? parody using the same illustration (shown below, right).In December 1915, Kafka published his only completed novella - Die Verwandlung or The Metamorphosis. For example, on March 16th, 2020, Instagram user Monsieur.egg used an illustration of Gregor in a What Zero Pussy Does To a MF meme, gaining over 4,500 likes (shown below, left). In recent years, the novella has continued to be referenced in more surreal and shitpost memes. On January 21st, 2008, a cat meme featuring the novella's opening line was posted on Cheezburger (shown below, right). On January 13th, 2011, a Rage Comic edit of the novella's opening was added to Memebase (shown below, left). Online, the work has been referenced in numerous memes which tend to focus on Samsa's transformation into a beetle. It has also been widely referenced in popular culture, as authors and filmmakers have referenced or used the work for their own original pieces. The work has been the subject of much interpretation and translation, as scholars and critics have debated on how to best translate the work to portray the exact sort of creature Gregor turned into, though popular culture has generally represented him as a beetle. As they discuss plans to get rid of him before they fall to ruin, Gregor starves himself to death. His family initially takes care of him but eventually turns on him, finding him a disgusting burden. It tells the tale of Gregor Samsa, a man who one day awakes to find himself transformed into a large insect. The Metamorphosis was first published in 1915.
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