Metamorphosis Essay - 1270 Words

Insecticide In order to be considered human, one needs to control their own life and have the freedom to express and think. In The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, Gregor Samsa transforms into a giant insect, terminating his life as a â€Å"human† along with all of his tiring duties. Before his transformation, Gregor’s life consisted of little sleep and a strict work schedule with hardly any freedom or importance in his job. Therefore, Gregor underwent a transformation that granted him more advanced human qualities than he had before, when he was simply a working man. After Gregor’s miraculous metamorphosis, he was relieved of his unreasonable toils and was able to develop a thoughtful view of his situation as wells as the critical society that†¦show more content†¦This lifestyle trapped him into what he felt was for the benefit of his family, yet also relinquished all of his parents’ duties to care for him, and sent him into a brutal world where he was most ap preciated for the pay he earned from work. Only once he became a giant insect, these thoughts were revealed. Unlike his previous life, as an insect Gregor has time to reflect upon his tedious old life as well as begin to advance in his new life each day. He felt for his family, after putting them through the unthinkable and uncontrollable, like what had been done to him for so long. He even begins to question his family’s care for him, â€Å"he would not be in the mood to bother about his family, he was only filled with rage at the way they were neglecting him†(94). Gregor actually began to experience some sort of emotion for the first time, as an insect. He wasn’t very shocked about turning into an enormous bug, which had happened months prior, as Gregor is described as an emotionless and rather peculiar guy. So for him to admit to the human sentiments like moodiness and rage in his situation provides evidence that he is gaining further human qualities. Gregor continuously dwells on his love for his parents and shame about his transformation, and how â€Å"the money w as gratefully accepted and gladly given, but there was no special outpouring of warm feeling†(78). He doesn’t recall any of the â€Å"fine times† that he had with his family, butShow MoreRelated The Metamorphosis- Critical Essay718 Words   |  3 PagesRichter agreed that Kafka was a very prominent figure in world literature and was amazed by his mechanics and word usage. I feel that his essay is supportive of Kafka’s writing, but also leaves out many important details in its brevity. Richter did not include Kafka’s flaws and tendencies in his essay. Helmut Richter analyzed the plot of The Metamorphosis in his essay. He depicts the main plot of the story to be Gregor’s failure at his work, which leads to his death. The climax of the story starts offRead MoreEssay on Metamorphosis1359 Words   |  6 PagesMetamorphosis In the short story, Metamorphosis, the narrator describes Gregor’s new life as an insect. He then goes on to describe Gregor’s sister, Grete, with a reflection of Gregor’s opinion in the description. Kafka employs a number of stylistic devices including descriptive imagery, metaphors, and symbolism in the passage to describe the situation. While these devices on their own just provide a more complex method of painting the situation, the way they are assembled in the passage Read MoreMetamorphosis Alienation Essay970 Words   |  4 Pages Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka Alienation Essay Alienation is the primary theme in Kafkas The Metamorphosis. Much of early twentieth-century literature makes as its basic premise that man is alienated from his fellow humans and forced to work in dehumanizing jobs in order to survive. There is no choice for most in this matter. Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in The Metamorphosis, awakes from a dream to find he has become an insect. He wonders what happened, and tells himself it is notRead More Essay on Metamorphosis of the Family in Kafkas Metamorphosis1868 Words   |  8 PagesMetamorphosis of the Family in Kafkas Metamorphosis      Ã‚   In Franz Kafkas Metamorphosis, the nature of Gregor Samsas reality changes insignificantly in spite of his drastic physical changes. Gregors life before the metamorphosis was limited to working and caring for his family. As a traveling salesman, Gregor worked long, hard hours that left little time to experience life. He reflects on his life acknowledging the plague of traveling: the anxieties of changing trains, the irregular,Read MoreThe Metamorphosis Essay1588 Words   |  7 PagesSociety Determines Identity, Not Individuals The Metamorphosis, a story written by Franz Kafka, is about the sudden transformation of Gregor Samsa into a bug. The narrator describes how Gregor’s transformation negatively affects his work, family, and social relationships; it also takes readers through Gregor’s journey of trying to regain his humanity. Throughout the story, Gregor denies his loss of humanity and attempts to preserve his previous work and family relationships because these relationshipsRead MoreFranz Kafkas The Metamorphosis Essay1105 Words   |  5 PagesIn this paper I will interpret the short story, The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka. My purpose is to explain to my classmates the short story’s goal what Kafka wanted to transmit to people. I want to expand more why this short story is considered one of the best poetic imagination works. In my research I expect to use Kafka’s work, The Metamorphosis as my primary source. Important other sources include essay critiques from different editors, which will help us to understandRead More The Metamorphosis Essay1716 Words   |  7 PagesThe Metamorphosis The longer story The Metamorphosis, first published in 1971, was written by Franz Kafka. He was born in Prague in 1883 and lived until 1924, and he has written many other stories along with The Metamorphosis. The Metamorphosis appears to be a fantastic piece. After reading The Metamorphosis, I do believe that there are many similarities between magical realism and fantastic literature. Kafka showed many fantastic issues in The Metamorphosis. While reading The MetamorphosisRead MoreMetamorphosis Essay1033 Words   |  5 Pages Franz Kafka wrote the famous Metamorphosis, I believe this short story to be integrated with the life Kafka once lived. In this paper, I intend on interpreting the metamorphosis that undergoes the Samsa family. In view of this, I asked myself an important question, what if I view Gregor Samsa’s transformation as a metaphor while considering Grete Samsa, Gregor’s sister, transformation as literal. In addition, there are four family members that make up the Samsas. Gregor Samas, being the protagonistRead MoreThe Metamorphosis Essay754 Words   |  4 PagesIn Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Gregory Samsa is transformed into a giant bug. He wakes and wonders what has happened to him. As he is trying to get out of bed his mother comes to his door reminding him that he has to be at work. This alarmed others in the home so his father comes to check on him, then his sister, she whisp ered ‘â€Å"Gregory, open the door, please†Ã¢â‚¬â„¢ (Kafka, 2006, p.1968). He is trying every way he can to get himself together to get out of bed but is finding it difficult as he doesn’tRead MoreMetamorphosis into Humanity Essay714 Words   |  3 PagesFranz Kafka’s uses of symbolism throughout Metamorphosis help the audience grip the appreciation of Gregor’s drive towards humanity and independence. The transformation in this book is used as a symbol for Gregor’s metamorphosis to humanity. Even though none of us should ever wake up and experience the emotion of changing into a giant bug, the hardship Gregor felt is a sample that is relevant to us in different ways. Throughout the story, we see numerous symbols that show the ultimate symbol of

Representation of Society in Euripides Medea Essay

Representation of Society in Euripides Medea During the time of Euripides, approximately the second half of the fifth century B.C., it was a period of immense cultural crisis and political convulsion (Arrowsmith 350). Euripides, like many other of his contemporaries, used the whole machinery of the theater as a way of thinking about their world (Arrowsmith 349). His interest in particular was the analysis of culture and relationship between culture and the individual. Euripides used his characters as a function to shape the ideas of the play (Arrowsmith 359). In Medea, there was not a traditional hero, but a fragmentation between the two paired major characters, which is characteristic of Euripides work (Arrowsmith 356). Jason†¦show more content†¦Euripides was interested in how culture affected things. He was not the typical writer and his characters confirm this. In Medea, Euripides wanted his characters to participate in a culture that was under extreme stress, perhaps the same stress that his culture was experiencing. He exhibited this by writing as if his characters were transplanted into a different culture, unique from their own, as if to use the unfamiliarity as psychological strain. Therefore the strain would immortalize or distort them. The way in which Medea meditates the murder of her children is much admired, however Euripides interest is in the collapse or derangement of culture that makes the murder both possible and necessary (Arrowsmith 357). Euripides sends the message through his characters that human character is altered by suffering. During the pressures of war when humans are subject to harsh necessity, human nature has a new range of behaviors, chaotic and uncontrollable. Behind Jason and Medea Euripides wanted the audience to see that the spreading of expedience and revenge, when unchecked by culture or religion, would bring about the Peloponnesian War (Arrowsmith 361). Superficially, Medea is a critique of relations between men and women, the struggle between Jason and Medea; then the struggle between Creon and Medea. However at the deeper level, Medea is a critique of the quality and state of the contemporary culture of Euripides (Arrowsmith 361). The unique symbolism is thatShow MoreRelatedAn Analysis of the Play Medea by Euripides1410 Words   |  6 Pagesnotion of the ideal man presented in the play Medea, by Euripides, is an exceptionally important one in the context of 5th Century Athens, a culture based very much upon the importance of the man both in his household and the general society. In Greece during the time of the play, the ideal man showed strong attributes of physical skill and aesthetics, intelligence and wisdom, and courage and bravery, especially in the face of adversity. This representation is shown in many ways throughout the play,Read MoreWomen s Role Model Of Women1373 Words   |  6 Pageswomen had a very limited social p ower and no political power at all. In Euripides, Medea, the protagonist is more than just the main character. She has become an ageless figure of feminine revolution. Although, we should recognize that Euripides doesn’t give the perfect role model of a woman, he just shows the complications that women have. He gives us real women, who have suffered and become twisted by their suffering. Medea serves as a model for the women betrayed, to the sacrifices of personalRead MoreEuripides Medea As A Play By A Feminist Tragedian917 Words   |  4 PagesClaimed to be a play by a feminist tragedian, Euripides’ Medea is ultimately strife with themes of otherness and penultimately, stereotypical ancient Greek gender notions. Medea, who is from Colchis, an island considered to be barbarous by the Greeks, falls in love with the Greek hero, Jason of the Argonauts. Together they adventured, creating enemies. After settling in Corinth with their sons, Jason accepts a proposal from Cr eon, the king of Corinth, to marry his daughter, Glauce, â€Å"as marriage isRead More The Representation of Femininity in Euripides? Medea Essay756 Words   |  4 PagesThe Representation of Femininity in Euripides Medea Works Cited Not At the time Euripides wrote Medea, Ancient Greece was a patriarchal society: women had little or no rights, and were treated as the weaker sex. Women were expected to stay at home and bear and care for their children, while men went to work ?wives to produce true-born children and to be trustworthy guardians of the household? (Resource Book 3, D5b ? Demosthenes 59.122). Men made the rules, while women were expectedRead MoreEssay about The Role of Minor Characters in Medea by Euripides1260 Words   |  6 Pagesfamous Greek playwright Euripides once said: â€Å"Stronger than lovers love is lovers hate. Incurable, in each, the wounds they make.† Such ideas are portrayed in one of him most famous plays, Medea. This play is a fascinating classic centered on the Greek goddess Medea. Despite its recent fame, during his time, Euripides was unpopular since he used what would be considered a ‘modern’ view where he would focus on women, slaves and persons from the lower classes. In the play, Medea commits filicide, whichRead MoreThe Call Of The Wild : The Motif Of Animal Imagery1611 Words   |  7 Pagesâ€Å"The Call Of The Wild†: The motif of animal imagery in the play Medea Animals: a species that have adapted to our ways of life, creatures of comfort, and figures of impotence. However animals also have a wild behaviors, an inner beast that they use to establish their own form of dominance. The theme of animals is as essential to the text as the spots of the cheetah, within the play, Medea written by the greek tragedian Euripides, he repeatedly uses animal imagery to stoutly betoken the strengthRead MoreFeminist Theory : The Beginnings Of Feminism1571 Words   |  7 Pagesand more power into society ultimately bringing women to where they are today. Each aspect of Cassandra, Helen, and Medea’s life can be compared to the feminist theory. Kolmar and Bartkowski view the feminist theory as a way to describe and analyze the lives of women. The theory allows men to see the everyday lives of women through a woman’s eyes. Euripides wrote The Trojan Women and Medea through the eyes of women so that readers can see exactly where Cassandra, Helen and Medea are coming from. FeminismRead MoreThe Chorus as a Homonym 1168 Words   |  5 Pages In Jean Anouilh’s Antigone and in Euripides’s Medea the Chorus is both a tool for characterization and representation of theme; however, the ways they function in their respective plays are noticeably different. The differences in the way the Choruses function in each respective play make the name of the character â€Å"the Chorus† a homonym, same name different meaning. The Chorus in Antigone functions to incorporate the technique of metatheatre. The purpose of metatheatre is to provide a separationRead MoreMedea Written by Euripides993 Words   |  4 PagesMedea . Medea written by Euripides tells the tale of a woman scorn. Medea is set in a city called Corinth. The play starts off in front of Jason and Medeas house. The play is a tragedy that shows the tragic ending of a family. For Medea was betrayed by her husband and exiled from the city. With such a tremendous act of betrayal is Medea a victim of love or is she a villain who has no mercy. Her motive makes her a deceiving victim, for Medea is a villain that is playing the role of a damsel inRead MoreThe Gendered Struggle: Comparing and Contrasting between Masculine and Feminine Perceptions of Honor in Two Cultures1597 Words   |  7 Pagesbetween Medea and Hamlet are numerous. Both are stories about revenge that end in the controversial main character sacrificing everything in order to preserve one of the most important markers of identity of their time: honor. Medea was a controversial character in ancient times not only because of her filicide, but because she asserted that women hav e honor, an idea that was not the norm in Greece. In sharp contrast to her is Hamlet, the tragic hero that was honor-bound by his society to avenge

Animal Cloning It Must Be Stopped free essay sample

It seems that ever since the movie Jurassic Park came out into theaters, scientists have been on a cloning frenzy. In Jurassic Park, the lead scientist, Dr. John Hammond, combined DNA from dinosaurs with amphibian DNA to give life to a dinosaur species. He then took that DNA and cloned it to produce more dinosaurs. This movie led scientists to believe they could clone animals just as Dr. John Hammond did in the movie. Scientists have been trying to clone nearly everything from house pets to cows for beef production, with thoughts of cloning humans in the future. Scientists have also been trying to bring back extinct animals into current environments. However, cloning is not as grand as it is hyped up to be. The methods scientists use to clone an animal have a very high failure rate. If the clone is what scientists call successful, then the clone will have a very high chance of having many different abnormalities after birth. We will write a custom essay sample on Animal Cloning: It Must Be Stopped or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Due to the many problems associated with cloning, cloning must be forbidden. Researchers have been trying to successfully clone for many decades. The first time the idea of cloning became real was in 1885 when a German Biologist, Hans Adolf Edward Dreisch, cloned a sea urchin. According to the Health Sciences Department at the University of Utah, Dreisch separated the two-celled embryo in a process called artificial embryo twinning, which allowed each cell to form into two sea urchins (â€Å"The History of Cloning†). In 1902, another German scientist, Hans Spemann, tried Dreisch’s process with a more complex embryo, a salamander. Using Dreisch’s experiment, Spemann found that the process could succeed only up to a certain stage of development depending on which species’ eggs were used. Many years later, in 1952, two American Biologists, Thomas King and Robert Briggs, performed a new process called nuclear transfer with a frog embryo. The Health Sciences Department of the University of Utah states that â€Å"Briggs and King transf erred the nucleus from an early tadpole embryo into an enucleated frog egg† (â€Å"The History of Cloning†). This allowed for the nucleus to form in the new cell, however, this was one of the only successful tries they had completed. Thirty-two years later, Steen Willadsen, a scientist from Denmark, created the first successful mammal from a nuclear transfer. Using a lamb embryo, he sent an electrical shock to a separated cell to fuse to an enucleated egg – an egg that has had the nucleus removed. He then planted the new embryo into the womb of a different mother sheep, which gave birth to new lambs (â€Å"The History of Cloning†). In 1996, after countless tries, Ian Wilmut and Keith Campbell produced Dolly, another sheep cloned from an adult somatic cell, which is a cell that has already been formed for a specific function in an animal. After Dolly, scientists wanted to move to bigger organisms, which led to a group of scientists from Oregon in 1997 to take a primate embryo cell and fuse it to an enucleate primate cell. Following Dolly’s and the primate’s birth, questions began forming about human cloning, and controversies began to arise with people wondering if science would contin ue with human cloning. Once Jurassic Park aired, it brought ideas and thoughts to scientists about bringing back extinct animals and endangered animals. So in 2001, a group of scientists cloned an endangered species, a gaur – a species of wild cattle. Unfortunately, it died three days after birth. The scientists still consider the experiment successful since the gaur survived past birth. After the cloning of the gaur, a different group used a goat’s enucleate egg cell as surrogates for a bucardo – a Spanish mountain goat, which died shortly after birth as well. Cloning animals was just the first step scientists needed to start cloning humans. Although scientists have not been successful with human cloning, there have been many who have tried, and who are currently trying to clone humans. With minimal change in the process of cloning over time, it can lead to many problems. One reason cloning should be forbidden is because there is a very high failure rate. The high failure rate is caused by the processes that cell biologists and other scientists use to clone an animal. A process they can follow is called artificial embryo twinning. The Health Sciences Department of Utah University states that in artificial embryo twinning, an embryo is divided into separate cells (â€Å"The Risks of Cloning†). One way an embryo can be separated is by a single strand of hair separating the cytoplasm, a similar procedure Hans Spemann performed when separating salamander cells. The separated cells are then inserted into the uterus of a mother, where they finish developing. When separating the cells, the main reason why cloning fails is because the entire nucleus is not collected or it was not separated correctly by the scientist during the process. Another process that can occur is that scientists first obtain an egg cell from an animal, and then remove its nucleus with a sharp pipette. The scientists will hold the egg cell by using a blunt pipette to keep it in place. They then collect a nucleus from a different animal – the one they want to clone – and place that nucleus into the enucleated egg cell, as shown in Image 1, by using a different sharp pipette. According to an article in Science News, scientists then use a â€Å"jolt of electricity or other stimulus to trick an egg into dividing as if it had been fertilized by a sperm† (Travis 250). After the egg starts dividing, it grows until it’s ready to be inserted into the uterus of a mother animal (Travis 250). For this process, the electricity or other stimulus used to trick the egg to start dividing may cause irregular division, which causes the high failure rate. At an interview, Rudolph Jaenisch, a biology professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stated â€Å"with cloning, you are asking an egg to reprogram in minutes or, at most, in hours† (Kolata). With these eggs reprograming that fast many problems can occur, causing the rate of success to range between 0.1 to 5 percent (â€Å"What Are the Risks of Cloning?†). This means for every 500 tries, zero to twenty-five clones could be made. When scientists cloned a sheep to produce Dolly, they had tried 277 times, only to produce one clone (Park 56). When the scientists cloned the gaur, out of the 692 egg cells, 81 grew and divided into groups of around 100 cells. Out of those 100, 44 were placed through the process of in vitro into 32 surrogate mothers. Out of those 44, only one, which they named Noah, had survived (Begley 56). Because cloning has such a high failure rate, cloning must be outlawed. When dealing with endangered and extinct species, cloning should not be used to reintroduce the species. First, when cloning endangered or extinct animals, most of the population would lack genetic diversity because there are not that many preserved or live animals to take the DNA from (â€Å"Why Cloning Won’t Save Endangered Animals†). With the lack of diversity, it would be very hard for the species to evolve with the changing environment, so if a disease would arise and one animal contracted the disease, the rest of the population would most likely become infected with the disease as well. Along with the lack of diversity, the lack of space is also a problem with cloning for de-extinction and endangered species to reintroduce these animals to the environment. De-extinction is the process of bringing back to life extinct animals. For example in 2003 scientists tried to clone a Pyrenean ibex, commonly known as a bucardo, which is a type of Spanish mountain goat. The l ast one of the species had died from a tree falling on it (Begley 56). Scientists had predicted and assumed that cloning the bucardo would be faster and easier because of the shorter gestation period compared to the endangered gaur. Although one bucardo survived to birth, the goat died shortly after death (Vogel 2). If there are multiple cloning successes of extinct or endangered animals, there would need to be space in the animal’s natural habitat to re-introduce these animals so they can reproduce and continue living. This is a problem because most of the space where these animals used to live has been either damaged or taken over by humans. Also, if humans truly want to re-introduce these extinct or endangered animals to the wild through cloning, they will have to spend the money and energy to make new space. However, if space and habitats are made, there’s no promise that the environment will be maintained until the animals can thrive on their own. A main reason animals had become endangered or extinct was because of humans hunting the animals or natural disasters. For example, the mammoth was hunted for its fur and its tusks, the dodo bird was hunted for food, and so was the bucardo. If these animals are reintroduced into the wild, back where their habitats are, there is no guarantee humans will not hunt them again, driving the animals back into extinction. Stuart Pimm, who wrote an article for National Geographic about the hunting of re-introduced animals that stated, â€Å"Reintroduce a resurrected ibex to the area where it belongs, and it will become the most expensive cabrito ever eaten.† A cabrito is roasted goat, and because the reason the ibex became extinct was that humans hunted it for food, if they bring the animal back, Pimm states that it would just be eaten again. If these animals became extinct again, it would have been a waste of resources to try to have the animals thriving in the wild by cloning. With hunting, loss of resources, and space, cloning should not be continued especially with endangered and extinct animals. Finally, cloning should be forbidden because if an animal is successfully cloned, there are many abnormalities associated with it that have a high chance to occur. Before birth, pregnancy failure is very common with cloned embryos. A cause of pregnancy failure can be connected to chromosomal abnormalities because of the unnatural division of the embryo through cloning. With chromosomal abnormalities, the missing or damaged genes cause irregular division, which damages the embryo (Schmidt 2). Also with cloning, the embryo may form irregularly, causing the fetus to become extremely large and develop abnormally in the placenta (Schmidt 2). This enlargement is termed large offspring syndrome, or LOS for short. According to Mette Schmidt, an Associate Professor with a PhD in Veterinary Reproduction and Obstetrics at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, individuals that have LOS develop â€Å"extremely large umbilical veins and arteries and abnormal, asynchronous growth of organs wit h musculoskeletal deformities† (2). These abnormalities result in large internal organs such as the lungs, heart, and liver. With larger organs, the likelihood of a miscarriage is very high and puts the mother at risk while giving birth. If the animal does not have a miscarriage, the likelihood of weak labor, extended gestation, or dystocia, which is disordered or ineffective contractions of the uterus, is also increased with cloning. If a clone does survive and has LOS, the animal will be born much larger than normal or have skeletal abnormalities. Newborns may also have oxygen-depravity, which leads into respiratory problems or death (Travis 250). The cloned animal’s bones and muscles also may be abnormally weak after birth, which prevents them from moving. Even if the newborn seems normal, problems may arise later in life. For example, Dr. Ryuzo Yanagimachi at the University of Hawaii cloned mice, and when they were born, they seemed normal; however, they become massively obese even when receiving the same amount of food as other identical mice that were not born by cloning (Kolata). Clones can also develop diseases and other infections more rapidly than normal births. An example of this is when the baby gaur was born, he seemed normal, started to walk and act like a gaur, however, overnight, the guar developed a bacteria called clostridium, which causes diarrhea in newborns, resulting in death the next day even with antibiotics (Vogel 2). With cloning, the embryo can develop incorrectly, which causes many abnormalities, and even death to individuals, which is why cloning should be forbidden because of its unpredictability. Even with these problems, there are scientists who want to continue from animals on to humans. These scientists want to move forward to use human cloning to treat illnesses. The process scientists would be using is the nuclear transfer process they have been using for many years with cloning animals. Scientists arguing for cloning humans â€Å"every species is different, and it remains possible that it will be easier and safer to clone humans than it is to clone other species† (Kolata). However, the same problems are just as likely in humans as they are in any other species. To argue against scientists who want to continue to cloning humans, Rudolf Jaenisch states, â€Å"Our experience with animal cloning allows us to predict with a high degree of confidence that few cloned humans will survive to birth and of those the majority will be abnormal† (â€Å"Goodbye Dolly†¦and Friends?† 711). Cloning needs to stop because if it continues, there’s a greater chance human cloning will occur and fail, causing a backlash against science by the public. Cloning needs to be prevented from occurring because of the many issues associated with the process. Throughout the history of cloning, abnormalities from incomplete division cause a high failure rate. However, even if it successfully births an animal, there is not enough space for the animals to thrive in the wild. People should not look forward to dinosaurs in the future, because there comes a point in science where the energy spent researching and trying to come up with a solution is too great, which is why cloning needs to be stopped now, not later.