(3) The revelation brought by "The Metamorphosis".

The story of "Metamorphosis" seems absurd on the surface, but in fact it contains rich and profound content, mainly including the following aspects:

1. First of all, it truly expresses the alienation of people in modern capitalist society in the West. In the modern capitalist society of the West, people are driven, coerced, and ruled by "things" (such as money, machines, products, production methods, etc.) and cannot be autonomous, become slaves of "things", and then lose their human nature and become inhuman. The story of Rigault, the protagonist of The Metamorphosis, is the philosophical reality of human alienation into non-humanity.

2. Secondly, the work also expresses a kind of existential fear of people in modern society. The feeling that people cannot control their own destiny is manifested in a certain mental state of modern Westerners, especially since the beginning of the 20th century, the disasters of two world wars, periodic economic crises, the arms race of the superpowers, the threat of nuclear war, environmental pollution, and the destruction of the ecological balance of the natural world, all of which have put people in a state of unknowable fear of their future destiny. The fate of Gregor in The Metamorphosis reflects the essence of this state of mind.

3。 Thirdly, "The Metamorphosis" also shows the indifferent relationship between people in modern society. The novel depicts in detail the process of his family's concern for him to disgust with him to the necessity of putting him to death, which is actually the process of despairing in the hope that he will regain his ability to make money. This is the tragedy of a little person who has given everything to his family, but is abandoned by his family because he has lost his original value, and this kind of tragedy is not uncommon in modern society with indifference.

(4) The artistic techniques and connotations used in "Metamorphosis".

A classic of Western modernist literature. Literary critics and literary historians generally classify Kafka and his works as "expressionist literature".

Expressionist literature emerged in the early 20th century and flourished in Germany, the United States and other countries in the 20s and 30s. Deeply influenced by Kant's philosophy, Bergson's intuitionism and Freudian psychoanalysis, they emphasized the description of people's subjective world, intuition and subconscious, and used special techniques to reflect the real world.

The art world created by the works covers both ideological content and art form, which is the organic unity of content and form. In terms of ideology, it reflects the various shortcomings of capitalist society in a tortuous way, and looks at the absurdity and alienation of human nature as an inevitable phenomenon of human society under specific historical conditions, giving the work a strong nihilistic and pessimistic atmosphere; As far as art is concerned, he is good at using grotesque and symbolic expressions, especially expressive techniques to express abstract thoughts and feelings

Influenced by the theory of existentialism, the works deeply reflect the mood of the end of the century, express people's loneliness and fear, and show people the absurd world and alienated themes, forming a unique "Kafkaesque" artistic style and ideological content. Distinction is Kafka's use of expressionism, which has reached the pinnacle of perfection. His works often combine the absurd with the real, blending fantasy and the grotesque, or depicting the organic collision between people and "non-human" people; or clinging to the insurmountable of the spiritual plane, the insurmountable of truth; or the shaping of symbolic images to show the pain and confusion of the characters, etc., constructing the aesthetic concept of "Kafkaesque" art style.

The novel uses the technique of stream of consciousness to directly reflect the inner feelings of "humanized" small animals, and describes the real state of mind of people through fictional, absurd plots and absurd behaviors. Performance: The fear and irrational living environment of the little people of that era in order to survive the prevailing psychology. The purpose of depicting non-real-life events and allowing non-real-life characters to live in real-life environments is to show the universal nature of human alienation in Western society through Gregor's mental language and lonely environment. The so-called symbol is to use a specific image to represent or imply a certain thought, idea and feeling. Because some phenomena cannot be directly represented, they can only be hinted at through the corresponding symbolic objects, so they need to be symbolically expressed.

Kafka's "symbols" have both profound meanings and incisive metaphors, and some of his works also contain multi-layered meanings. The work carries Kafka's unique irony and uncertainty about the content elements of the work. The irony of Kafka's work is mainly manifested in the revelation of the absurdity of the real world. His protagonists often unexpectedly fall into a ridiculous and inextricable predicament. The more they struggle, the deeper they will fall, and even give them their lives. The "beetle-like" character Gregor – this idiot and laughable plot is absurd and bizarre, seemingly boring and boring, and chewing is endless! The work interweaves the factors of reality and the illusory elements of non-reality, and puts normal people and "non-humans" (animals) together, and uses realistic techniques to narrate events in non-real life, although absurd and funny, but it excavates the depth of the theme. The so-called absurdity, also known as grotesque, is a method of extreme exaggeration of things, that is, starting from a certain subjective feeling to change the form and attributes of objective things, go straight to the depths of the phenomenon, and reveal the essence of things. The absurd plot reflects the irrational manifestations of human existence at that time. The irony in the novel is often combined with bitter humor. It is also characteristic of Kafka's modernism to express the ideological content of the work through uncertain time, space and characters, and to abstract the concrete characters in reality.

In conclusion: put the absurd in everyday life, in the most mediocre environment, and express it as if there was nothing strange about it. "Expressing abnormal content in the form of pretending to be prosaic and unremarkable", as a result, events that are not subject to reality appear "more realistic than real life".

Allegorical structure. Symbolism and absurdity. Realist language versus non-realist content, concise; Insipid; Indifferent language style. The narrator and the protagonist become one. In the process of reading, the reader can only obtain information through the senses of the protagonist, and there is no longer a narrator who is clear to explain the cause and effect to the reader, so Kafka reformed the narrative art of the novel to a certain extent.

(5) About Kafka

Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was an Austrian novelist and 20th-century German-language novelist. The writing is clear and imaginative, often using the allegorical style, and the meaning behind it is different, and there is no (or never) conclusion.

He was unknown during his lifetime, but after his death, he won the world's admiration, and became a pioneer and master of Western modernism with Marcel Proust and James Joyce. He began publishing in 1909 and in 1915 was awarded the Fontana Prize for German Literature for his short story The Stoker.

Kafka was a diligent writer, but he did not aim to publish or become famous. His creations outside of work are a means for him to express his thoughts and feelings and to dispel depression and depression. Many of his works were written at random without endings, and he was often dissatisfied with his own works, and before his death, he asked his close friend Broad to burn all of his works. Out of friendship and reverence, Blod went against Kafka's last wishes and compiled and published Kafka's Complete Works (1950-1980) in nine volumes. The works in eight of these volumes were published for the first time and caused a sensation in the literary world.

"I can destroy all obstacles" on Balzac's cane, and on Kafka's cane, it becomes "All obstacles can destroy me." "There are goals, but there are no roads, and what we call roads is actually just wandering." The character of "lonely and fragile", pessimistic and self-abandoning, and "depressed and melancholy" is one of the important reasons for the formation of Kafka's artistic tendency. The Metamorphosis, as his main work, inevitably bears Kafka's strong autobiographical overtones. The protagonist is in a situation where he is involuntarily born, lost in a dreamlike world, full of fear and anxiety. They all have a goal, but no matter how hard they try, they can't achieve their goal, and finally they finally go to perdition. This is also a common feature of Kafka's work.

Any interpretation of Kafka can only make sense in partially, and it is difficult to justify it in the context of the entire work. As the American writer Otz said, "Kafka is an eternal mystery." To solve this mystery is to solve the true meaning of life. ”