Thesis & Dissertations

The main steps adopted to examine the construction of alienation through the use of metaphor in the study are how the theme of alienation is presented and how the use of literary technique, metaphor, is used to construct it. It also investigates how metaphor is used to draw parallelism between Kafka and his characters in A Hunger Artist and Metamorphosis and how the two marginal figures, Gregor Samsa from Metamorphosis and the hunger artist from A Hunger Artist, are empowered by Kafka in the novellas, for they both refuse to give up their status and carry on with their struggle. Also, it investigates how Kafka draws parallelism between literature and reality. These two literary productions reveal to the reader a world in which a person is deprived of security, motivated in the pursuit of his dreams, stripped of his humanity and its successive values and principles. And due to his socio-economic status, becomes tormented by loneliness and alienation, and relegates to the margins of society. The theme of estrangement and alienation is greatly present in both novellas on two diverse levels, the macro and the micro, the universal and collective, on one hand, and the individualistic, on the other. It is worthy to note that both protagonists, Gregor Samsa and the unnamed Hunger Artist, not only live on the margins, but also try to confirm their presence, from within the periphery. Hence, the theme of alienation present in Kafka’s two novellas Metamorphosis and A Hunger Artist, is depicted through the employment of metaphor, in order to not only reflect and affirm a present alienation, but also to reveal and attempted empowerment that proclaimed from the margins of society and literature.