The Metamorphosis (MCI) (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations) [Hardcover]

Harold Bloom (Author), Franz Kafka (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1988 | Series: Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations

Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis climaxes in the very first line--the protagonist has indeed been transformed. The critical questions lie in the interpretation of the transformation. Kafka has been said to have offered everything from a psychological parable of Oedipal struggle to a caricature of psychological readings.

The title, Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, part of Chelsea House Publishers’ Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics. This collection of criticism also features a short biography on Franz Kafka, a chronology of the author’s life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 149 pages
• Publisher: Chelsea House Publications (December 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1555460704
• ISBN-13: 978-1555460709
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,284,658 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Kafka ignites reason in this book about the drudgery of work, November 18, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Metamorphosis (MCI) (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations) (Hardcover)

As he starts realizing that he is living the life of one, Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to find out that he's become a disgusting insect. Or does he? Is the insect that he sees himself as, a product of his neurotic mind?

This book is wonderful in that small details tell a lot. It's short reading, though 3/4 of the book is just explanations and theories of the story. This book will make you think if nothing else. And books that do that are books that live long in the readers' mind after they've read them--the immortal books.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Surrealist Painting Transcribed, December 16, 1999

By 

K. (Chicago,Il) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Metamorphosis (MCI) (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations) (Hardcover)

Franz Kafka was the truest writer of our time. This was because he never applied the label of writer to himself. He was not driven by anything other than to write, and keep in mind that he did not write for you to read; you've ventured into an untouched river. This is why you can not distinguish the characters in his work with the man; they are the same. This story will confuse you like no other you have ever read, but if you can give it meaning within your own life(and this scenario of a workaholic etc.,is perfect for the U.S.)then you will gain incite on Kafka, and realize that you may also be one of his characters.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Points to the repulsion we have for deformed persons, September 26, 2001

By 

Walker E. Rowe III "Walker Elliott Rowe" (Santiago, CHILE) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Metamorphosis (MCI) (Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations) (Hardcover)

Metamorphosis is a short read: it's either a long short story or a very short novel. But in these few pages Franz Kafka serves up an important theme--this is the way humans react when one of their children or parents suffers some medical condition that makes them repulsive to others. Pity the poor parents who have to raise a child with a serious facial deformity that makes them ugly. Pity the children whose own parents are suffering a fatal disease. In both cases, Kafka is saying that the human tendency is to hide the problem or to wish it to go away--i.e. for that pitiful soul to die. This is ghastly, but perhaps true. Think of the strain on a marriage when a deformed child is brought into the world--many such marriages don't last. In the case of the novel the family try to hide their son when he metamorphs into a beatle. They try to maintain their love for their son but find it impossible because their son's repulsive appearance overwhelms them. They soon prefer that the beetle, their son, die. The son's metamorphosis is a metaphor for this paradox faced by families of the sicked or deformed. Such a theme is deeply disturbing. But as Voltaire said, if you want to write a great book you must embrace a great theme.