1- Telling a Strange Tale
- How would you characterize the tone in which the story is told—esp. at the beginning? What is the effect of using this tone for an account of such bizarre incidents?
The tone of this story is very clinical and matter-of-fact. The presentation of the situation is always done with a minimum of excess modifiers; the author relies on nouns to tell the story rather than adding to the text with too many adjectives and adverbs. The effect of this is to present the story as perfectly normal and mundane – which is what makes it all the more horrifying.
2 - Calling in Sick
Early in the story, Gregor's office manager shows up at his house. Do you think this is a realistic or likely thing to happen? What is the point of the scene with the office manager?
I find it highly unlikely that an office manager would drop by Gregor’s home to check on him to see if he is really sick. In most companies, the business would simply fire someone who did not show up or who was sick too often. One of the themes is the draining of Gregor’s humanity (and by extension, all of our humanity) by modern life. Having a boss show up like that on one’s sick day would certainly accentuate that sense of draining.
Below you will find Kafka's description of Gregor's room (which appears in the second paragraph of the novella). Why does he choose to describe the room as he does? What details does he include? Why?
"What's happened to me," he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a human being, only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known walls. Above the table, on which an unpacked collection of sample cloth goods was spreadout—Samsa was a travelling salesman—hung the picture which he had cut out of an illustrated magazine a little while ago and set in a pretty gilt frame. It was a picture of a woman with a fur hat and a fur boa. She sat erect there, lifting up in the direction of the viewer a solid fur muff into which her entire forearm had disappeared.
Gregor's glance then turned to the window.
The details are very limited: the walls, the table, a container of samples, and then a “pretty gilt frame” with a picture of a woman – but not a woman he knows. Instead, it is a picture of a woman from a magazine. The walls are there to indicate the sense of confinement that he feels in life. The table with the samples is a brief nod to his job. The picture and the frame show the degree to which Gregor fantasizes in his life. The fact that this picture gets by far the most treatment in the description shows you how central fantasy is in his life.
4- Family Values
What do you think of the way Gregor’s parents react when they first learn of his metamorphosis? Can you think of circumstances in ordinary life that might get a similar reaction?
I think that the fact that his mother has a fit is fairly predictable. Most mothers would. I don’t know why she doesn’t run screaming out into the streets because her son has either been possessed by aliens or changed into another species, but it is what it is. In contemporary life, I could see either finding out your son is an addict, or that he has gotten a girl pregnant out of wedlock, could inspire a similar fit in a mother.
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*Reply for this discussion that my friend wrote it on discussion board on " Family Values " T opic since I need to reply at least one time for my classmate discussion ( it could be couple of sentence just write a comment about what he wrote)
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Joann Petry
RE: Family Values
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I truthfully don't know how I would react if I found out my son turned into a bug. Probably the same as the mother didfreak out. I found it funny that no one questioned why he is a bug? That would be my first form of action. The parents reactions is very similar to a lot of parents' reaction to finding out that their child is homosexual. I had a friend in high school who came out to her parents that she was a lesbian and her mother cried and kept saying she was feeling dizzy and her father kicked her out of the house and while she was packing he was throwing framed family portraits at her and one cut her just like the father did in the story with the apples. Some people treat homosexuals like "vermin" and they don't stop and realize that they are people too.
Response: I hadn’t thought about finding out that your child is a homosexual being something that would cause that sort of reaction. After reading that post, though, it certainly makes sense. For some people, finding that discovery would make them think that their child was of a different species. Fortunately, that is becoming an outdated response, but it is still all too common.
Resp
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Make it simple as high school level.
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