Cliffs Notes: Kafka's The Metamorphosis and Other Stories

Cliffs Notes: Kafka's <i>The Metamorphosis and Other Stories</i>

The stories of this turn-of-the-century writer concern the disillusionment of modern man. To Kafka and to the people in his stories, life is often absurd and meaningless, with only a faint ray of fleeting hope.

This concise supplement to Kafka's The Metamorphosis and other stories helps students understand the overall structure of the works, actions and motivations of the characters, and the social and cultural perspectives of the author.

This volume also covers The Judgment, A Hunger Artist, A Country Doctor, In the Penal Colony, The Hunter Gracchus, The Burrow, Investigations of a Dog, A Report to an Academy, The Great Wall of China, and Josephine the Singer or the Mouse Folk.

Customer Reviews:

First rate analysis from Czermak on the writings of Kafka

By Lawrance M. Bernabo - June 9, 2001

Herberth Czermak has put together a somewhat different Cliffs Notes volume for looking at "The Metamorphosis" and other stories by Franz Kafka. Certainly it would a bit much to devote an entire little yellow book with the black stripes to the story of Gregor Samsa, although clearly it is Kafka's most important work. But the biggest difference is that this is a Cliffs Notes where the emphasis is on commentary to the exclusion of summaries of the works being discussed. You will not find a synopsis of these stories and you certainly will not understand the first-rate commentary and analysis if you have not read the stories in the first place. What you will find is detailed analysis that will help you understanding the writings of Franz Kafka. You have been warned. Czermak's notes on the Life and Background do more than get into Kafka's biography, they set up the author's focus on "angst" and put "The Metamorphosis" in the context of his body of writing... read more