Day: November 3, 2016

In 1883-1910 Czech Republic was under control by Austria. This may have affected Kafka as a young man, as it can damage a young persons mental state, knowing that your an outcaste to society just because of your religion, it’s a experience which most likely sticks with you forever, and in Kafka’s case, it did.

Kafka had a complicated relationship with his father. His father treated him with “indifference and even contempt”. It’s really important to have a good relationship with your family, as it’s mentally healthy for a young person, however, the reason why Kafka always had a antisocial energy to him was because he didn’t have a lot of social experience as a young child, due to things like having a distant relationship with his family. These experiences were often used as a stimulus in his plays. When writing up a script or preparing the plot for one of his plays, he often uses his life experiences to portray his perspective on the world and how his life was. Much of the time, his plays were strong and deep in meaning allowing the audience to also have a different perspective on the world and generally in their daily lives.

Metamorphosis is especially significant to Kafka’s life, as it portrays how humans can be affected by their families, in this case, how his distant relationship with his family affected him. In his play, he reveals to the audience how too much pressure to a human can lead to him/her becoming stressed and straining into a faze they don’t want to be in, in this case, Gregor being forced into a beetles body against his will due to the pressure on him to work and provide for his family. The use of an insect can represent someone who is more vulnerable and so someone who reacts to various emotions differently and it can tear a family apart. Generally no one likes insesct’s, and throughout the play we get more and more of his family neglecting and leaving Gregor to suffer in a form of body which his family are not fond of.

Macbeth starts off by saying “Is this a dagger which I see before me”. Macbeth has already started to question his mental state and wether this is actually real, it’s showing us how he is starting to ‘lose the plot’.

He then moves onto saying “The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee”. His vision of the dagger has been placed with the handle of it pointing straight to him, almost beckoning him over to go and grab it, like it was supposed to be there at that specific place, time and for a reason. After that, he says “Come, let me clutch thee” At this point I feel like he has been hypnotised by his madness, the witches words and his Lady Macbeth’s manipulation, I feel like he has no control over his body and that he is being pushed against his will towards grabbing the bloodstained dagger.

Towards the end of his soliloquy a bell rings, and he says “I go, the bell invites me. Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or hell” I felt that the ringing of the bell was significant, as it was almost perfect timing of the moment. Again,  the handle of the dagger pointing towards him and the bell ringing is like it was his fate for all of this to happen, like it was set in stone. But who is making this happen? The witches? Or is it his mind playing games and really believing that it can happen without the witches fateful intervention? Whatever it is, its due to spill blood all over the path which leads him to his final destination.