In the book Frankenstein By Mary Shelley, she is able to portray how distant and isolated Victor had become from his family and friends once he traveled away to University. ” The same scenes around me caused me to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had not seen for so long a time…. but I could not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination.” Victor had let himself completely go, his work had consumed him as a person, to the point where his “cheek had grown pale with study and my person had become emaciated with confinement.” I believe in a sense Victor is a monster, he had moved away, isolated himself and buried in his work, it had taken over him. He then decided to play “God,” and create life on his own, which can be viewed as monstrous, because to society that is utterly taboo, some may even consider it as sinful.
In the short story by Kafka called the Metamorphosis, we learn that an average family undergoes a strange change. Gregor, the breadwinner of the family also undergoes a change, a Metamorphosis have you. He wakes up and realizes he is a roach, his family is unable to understand and he is able to reflect upon his life he was living but its too late to change it. “Oh God,” he thought, “what a grueling job I’ve picked! I’ve got the torture of traveling, worrying about changing trains, eating miserable food at all hours, constantly seeing new faces, no relationships that last or get more intimate.” Gregor has become almost a slave to his family, he devoted his whole life to working thus giving up his life. He then metamorphosize’s into a roach, something that is disgusting and looked down upon, which is ultimately how his family looked at him just as society looks at roaches.
Three comments:
1) I am really interested in the relationship between the drudgery of work or working making one monstrous in both of these texts, which I think your post is getting at. It’s interesting though b/c Gregor’s work makes him lose an identity. He has no control or ability to express individuality. He is a cog. But Victor’s work is about singular glory. It’s self directed and unique. How does your comparison account for that.
2) Ultimately you make an interesting comparison, but you don’t really tease out your theory in Frankenstein, so it’s hard to really see how it works in the Kafka.
3) The assignment asked for you to compare Frankenstein to a contemporary text. Contemporary meaning in your parents’ life time. Unless your parents are a 100 years old, Kafka’s story is not contemporary.