Paper for Dissertation Class - Outline and Abstract

Topic: The effect of Franz Kafka's own life and family on the characters of Gregory Samsa and Mr. Samsa (father to Gregory Samsa) in "The Metamorphosis", in the light of psychoanalytic reading.


Thesis Statement: Psychoanalytic reading, when applied to Franz Kafka's short fiction "The Metamorphosis", demonstrates that Kafka's personal life had a great contribution to the characters of Mr. Samsa and Gregory Samsa in the short story.


I. Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism
a) Freud and the origin of psychoanalysis
b) From psychoanalysis to psychoanalytic reading
c) The application of psychoanalytic reading to a literary text




II. A comparison between Franz Kafka's own life and his fictive character Gregory Samsa
a) eating habits
b) the insect-like life
c) wish to be invisible
d) working life




III. The parallel between Kafka and his Gregory Samsa in terms of their family relationships
a) relationships with sister
b) relationship with father
c) the short term tenants' reference to Kafka's dead brothers




CONCLUSION


ABSTRACT




This paper includes the psychoanalytic criticism of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis with an introduction to the studies of Sigmund Freud, also the father of psychoanalysis. Freud, beginning to set the rules of his psychoanalytic theory, tried to understand human motivations in their activities through the way they (the patients) expressed themselves. Although there are several layers of understanding and sorting humane behaviors and thoughts, in this method of criticism, in this paper, we will merely focus on the contribution of the author's life to the characters. Franz Kafka lived between years 1883- 1924 while Sigmund Freud lived 1856- 1939, which means Kafka lived during Freud's life time. It is widely known that Kafka's will written to his best friend Max Brod about his writings was "...to [be] burned unread." Yet, sorry to disagree his will, we will read his short fiction in the light of the ideas of one of his contemporaries, which will lead us to find new connections between the author and the fiction.