Kafka and Poe: Trapped Characters

    Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" will remind you of the Poe stories in that you are immediately inside a nightmare, but this one is of greater length than the Poe stories. Read the text and pay attention to what happens to Gregor, the protagonist. The other main characters are his sister Grete and his parents; pay attention to them, too. Then write an essay discussing the fact that Gregor is trapped in ways similar to the characters in the Poe stories. Discuss elements of family, work, society, and mental state that add to the trapped feeling that all these characters experience. Don't write in vague generalities. Write about concrete things that happen in the stories that feed your imagination and that are ripe for comparison in these various "nightmare" worlds. You are basically also discussing how life itself is sometimes like being trapped in a nightmare, something all these pieces suggest.