Franz Kafka’s \"The Metamorphosis\" Story in the Context of the Concept of Alienation and Karl Marx’s Thoughts

Authors : Eda Deligöz

Pages : 65-78

View : 125 | Download : 101

Publication Date : 2024-03-20

Article Type : Other

Abstract :This study aims to clarify the formation and transformation of the concept of alienation in modern society through Franz Kafka\'s (2012) story \"The Metamorphosis\" to examine the gradual alienation of individuals in this organizational order and the inability of human beings to find a place for themselves in capitalism from the framework of Karl Marx and to provide a plus to the social sciences literature with a compilation. F. Kafka (1883-1924), who helped reconcile image with thought with his own stories and novels in the years when industrialization accelerated, addressed the problems arising from the change and transformation of social relations from a critical and questioning perspective in his work titled \"The Metamorphosis.” In this study, F. Kafka\'s story \"The Metamorphosis\" has been tried to be discussed from the perspective of social scientists, with the interpretation of Karl Marx, the etiology of transformed human relations, family life, communication, and the emerging concepts of \"alienation\" of the society exposed to industrialization. In Kafka\'s works, which were translated into Turkish under the title \"The Metamorphosis,\" the communication deficiencies of the individual alienated from modern society, capitalism-based organizations, and himself are discussed within the framework of the characters in the story. In the study, the problem of alienation was analyzed based on the works of Franz Kafka. The concept of alienation, one of the important problems experienced by today\'s people, appears in every aspect of life. It can be said that the concrete expression of human relations is best seen in literary works. Franz Kafka\'s works have examined the problem of alienation as an example of the relationship between philosophy, sociology, psychology, and literature. It is known that the concept of alienation is discussed in many areas of art and literature, as city life triggers the feeling of alienation as a result of modern social life. In this study, the alienation of today\'s modern man from his private life and his immediate environment due to his working life that consumes his time and energy, the fear and depression that surround him afterward, and the fact that the bureaucracy does not attach importance to human personality, are discussed in Franz Kafka\'s work \"The Metamorphosis\" and evaluated from the perspective of Karl Marx. Within the scope of the study, the concepts of communication, non-communication, and alienation, which are important components of modern daily life, are discussed based on F. Kafka\'s story “The Metamorphosis.\" In other studies in the literature, Max Weber\'s theory of bureaucracy and Karl Marx\'s concepts of alienation are also discussed as other phenomena seen in Kafka\'s texts. Based on these concepts, in Franz Kafka\'s work \"The Metamorphosis,\" the characters\' individual communication and non-communication levels are examined under the influence of alienation.
Keywords : Franz Kafka, Dönüşüm, Yabancılaşma, Karl Marx, Modern Toplum