Thursday, March 8, 2012

What is the relationship between the father and son in The Metamorphosis?

The relationship between the father and the son is strange. It is certainly strained, but it is also complex. The son's metamorphosis begins while works in a job that he hates in order to pay down his family's debt. His father loves him, but his love seems difficult to find: although tears eventually come, his initial response to his son's transformation is not sadness, but anger (he shakes his fist). The twisted part about their relationship is that the son essentially gets sick while carrying his father's burden (debt) but the father, instead of being sympathetic, essentially rejects and attacks the son for becoming the "vermin" that he has become. He hurts his son, physically, and scars him (he throws apples at him which injure his son and eventually cause an infection). This is deeply ironic, because the change in the son seems to occur as a result of the work that he does on his father's behalf. The father should be showering him with love, but instead hates the despicable creature he has become and wants nothing to do with him.  

No comments:

Post a Comment

Discuss at least two characteristics of Romanticism in John Keat's poem "Ode toa Nightingale".

The poet in Ode To A Nightingale  is an escapist .He escapes through imagination .On his way the bower of the bliss wher the nightingale is ...