Moments of Being

       Part one of the book Siddhartha has many cool descriptive passages and quotes. These quotes really make one think of nirvana. One thinks about how to achieve peace and happiness in our every day life. This book really shows how in this modern time one has so many things they must look out for that it is hard to live in the moment and be happy. For students it getting a good education so you can raise a family and be some what wealth. Hessa is also very good at conveying descriptions that make one feel at peace or seea new light. "He looked around as if seeing the world for the first time. How beautiful and mysterious! Here was blue, here was yellow, here was green; sky and river were flowing; forests and mountains stood fixed: Everything was beautiful and mysterious and magical and magical, and in the midst of this was he , Siddhartha, in the moment of his awakening, on the path of himself" (Hesse 35). In this passage Siddhartha has almost become enlightened and is seeing more of the world around him then he as ever noticed. This relates to a "Moment of being" which is a experiences that we will remember for the rest of our lives. Hesse really does a good job on describing the passage in a way that makes you relate to that feeling and makes you feel like you have just had a great realization too.
       Another idea that is prevalent through out part one is Siddhartha ignorants. When one starts to read this book they do not think that Siddhartha will have any bad quality's. The book is about a religious figure and so one would assume that they have almost every good quality. This is not true for Siddhartha. One can see when reading the book that when Siddhartha begins his training and has some experience he becomes ignorant and feels like he knows all about his practice. He even goes as far to tell the Buddha about a flaw in his doctrian that shows how he believes he knows much more then he does. "There is one thing in particular, O Most Venerable One, that I have admired in your teachings. Everything in your doctrine is utterly clear, is proven; you show the world as a perfect chain, a chain never and nowhere interrupted, an eternal chain forged of causes and effects. Never has this been so clearly beheld, never so irrefutably presented. In truth, it must make the heart of any Brahmin beat faster when, through your teachings, he is able to glimpse the world as a perfect continuum, free of gaps, clear as a crystal, not dependent on chance, not dependent on gods. Whether this world be good or evil, and life in it sorrow or joy—let us set this question aside, for it is quite possibly not essential. But the oneness of the world, the continuum of all occurrences, the enfolding of all things great and small within a single stream, a single law of causes, of becoming and of death, this shines brightly forth from your sublime doctrine, O Perfect One. But now, according to your very same doctrine, this oneness and logical consistency of all things is nevertheless interrupted at one point; there is a tiny hole through which something strange is flowing into this world of oneness, something new, something that wasn't there before and that cannot be shown and cannot be proven: This is your doctrine of the overcoming of the world, of redemption. With this tiny hole, this tiny gap, the entire eternal unified law of the world is smashed to pieces, rendered invalid. May you forgive me for giving voice to this objection.”(Hesse 28)In this citation Siddhartha is talking to Buddha and pointing out his flaw. He is told that opinions are sometimes bad which is also referenced by Joseph Campbell. This is where one feels that Siddhartha is talking out of ignorance which can be a bad quality. Even though this quality slows Siddhartha sown now in the future it could be non-existent.

Death by Isolation

Tyler Lund

Pd. 1

4/21/14

Death by Isolation

            Throughout The Metamorphosis there are many lessons. A lesson that is shown clearly throughout the story is that one always has the opportunity to leave their circumstances and change their life in order to make it better. One can choose to be happy and fulfilled or isolated and taken advantage of.  In this story Kafka introduces Gregor who has many chances and opportunities to see that his life is not where he wants it to be but he proceeds to ignore the truth, blind himself to reality and do nothing about it. This results in Gregor becoming isolated from his family through his own choices and ultimately results in his death. When looking at the many literary techniques Kafka uses such as vampirism, modernism, communion and more, one will clearly see how Kafka conveys this moral lesson in his writing.

As the story unfolds, one can see that Gregor’s choices lead him to becoming more isolated.  When Gregor first wakes up he thinks about his job and how depressing it is. He thinks about why he is working and how he hates it. Gregor comes to the conclusion that he works to pay for his family’s expenses. “‘It’s already seven o’clock’ he told himself at the latest striking of the alarm clock, ‘already seven o’clock and still such a fog.’ And for a little while longer he lay quietly with weak breathing, as if perhaps waiting for normal and natural conditions to re-emerge out of the complete stillness” (Kafka 9).  Here, Gregor is in bed and is procrastinating getting out of bed because he hates his job. This shows that he is feeling depressed about his life right now but is continuing to work to support his family.  In addition, this state of loneliness and depression shows how Kafka was a modernist writer. Many people in the modernist era where depressed from the war and the theme of depression throughout the book shows Kafka’s modernist thinking. One can also see clearly that Gregor is trying his hardest to provide for his family even though they do nothing for him. They are sucking the life out of him and using him. Gregor does not see this because he wishes not to see it. He has the choice to make alternate decisions and stop helping his blood sucking family and start helping himself but he chooses not to. As the story goes on one can see how Kafka incorporates vampirism into the story of Gregor. Vampirism is seen throughout literature as when characters suck the life out of each other and use ones resources to benefit themselves. “He wakes up in the morning – actually the evening, now that I think about it – and says something like, 'In order to remain unread, I must steal the life force of someone whose fate matters less to me than my own” (Foster 21). When thinking about Vampirism a character that comes to mind is the Father. When Gregor turns into a bug and his Father realizes he can no longer work he disregards him because he no longer provides any value. The Father was only using Gregor to get the money Gregor worked so hard to earn. Because he wished not to see his Father as a vampire Gregor becomes continually isolated. Gregor always had the chance to leave his family but instead he stayed and was subjected to more isolation from his family. Gregor’s inability to see what is really happening is one of Kafka’s uses of humor in the story. Kafka’s joke is on the reader. If one reads the story and dismisses it as stupid, they are not getting the message in the same way that it is lost on Gregor.   Kafka is saying that if the cannot understand then they are what is wrong with society and humans as a whole. This relates to how children are raised and how society has taught them to see humor and why they are not able to grasp Kafka’s humor. “And it is this, I think, that makes Kafka's wit inaccessible to children whom our culture has trained to see jokes as entertainment and entertainment as reassurance” (Wallace 3).  Here, Wallace is saying that kids used to seeing humor as entertainment rather than also having a message. They don’t see Kafka’s humor because it is shown in a different way than they are used to. The humor of Gregor is that the reader is not seeing the choice Gregor has to leave his family and is therefor not seeing his own opportunities to change his life and make it better for himself.  Kafka’s lesson is that people always have the choice to leave their situation and that one must always be open to the truth because it can hurt you in the end when you ignore it. This is what Gregor experienced, he blinded himself from the truth and in turn died from his choice.

                As the story continues one can see many more instances where Gregor is subjecting himself to isolation. As Gregor wakes up and finally opens the door for the others he sees a picture of himself from when he was in the military. “Directly across on the opposite wall hung a photograph of Gregor from the time of his military service; it was a picture of him as a lieutenant, as he, smiling and worry free, with his hand on his sword, demanded respect for his bearing and uniform” (Kafka 20).  The picture reminds Gregor or how happy he was then. This reference to the war is also another example of modernism in Kafka’s writing. Even though Gregor can go back to the military and possibly be happy like he was, he continues to stay to help his family after they have done nothing for him. If he didn’t blind himself from the truth about his family he would go and have a happier life but instead he isolates himself even more. This Isolation from Gregor shows the exact opposite of some of the Existentialism ideas. Gregor chooses to isolate himself from his family. By doing this he is not acting as one with his family. One of the ideas of existentialism is that we as people act as one. Gregor is doing the exact opposite and is subjecting himself to isolation which is hurting himself in the long run. Later in the story Gregor finds out things that should upset him but because of his blindness they do not. One example is when Gregor find out that he has already paid off the debt his Father owed “True, with this excess money, he could have paid off more of his Father’s debt to his employer and the day on which he could be rid of this position would have been a lot closer, but now things were doubtless better the way his Father had arranged them” (Kafka 37). The fact that the Father has not told Gregor that his debt has been paid off relates to the idea of vampirism again. The Father has not told Gregor because Gregor then might stop working for the family and follow his own dreams. One can see that the Father does not care for Gregor and is only using him for his money. Gregor, upon hearing this news blinds himself from the truth and says that it all happened for the best. He still believes his Father to be a good man and in turn is more isolated even though he has the chance to leave his situation. The Father and family portray other ideas in the story as well. One is communion. Foster talks about how communion is shown through literature and usually represented by food or eating. “Whenever people eat or drink together, it’s communion. For some reasons, this is often met with a slightly scandalized look, communion having for many readers one and only one meaning. While that meaning is very important, it is not the only one.” (Foster 9) One can see that in the Gregors case he and his family never show an act of communion. This shows how isolated Gregor has chosen to be from the family. He has put himself in a position where he does not eat with them. This idea of communion is also very ironic in the story. Gregor in the end dies from starvation and a deadly wound inflicted by his Father throwing an apple. This is ironic because Gregor has felt that he is part of the family when he has not shared one of the most personal experiences with them the act of eating together. He ends up dying from the opposite of communion. Gregor does not wish to see that the family is not willing to risk sharing resources with him and yet Gregor has shared everything with them.

            In the story there are many more examples of Gregor attempting to excuse his family when in reality they are just hurting him. In one passage Gregor watches his family through the crack and thinks about what they will do if he can’t work. “But how would things go if now all tranquility, all prosperity, all contentment should come to a horrible end? In order not to lose himself in such thoughts, Gregor preferred to set himself moving and crawled up and down in his room” (Kafka 28). Here, Gregor is feeling scared for the family and what they will do without him. He is failing to see that the family is simply not even worrying about him and is disregarding him. As soon as Gregor is unable to work the family no longer treats him well. Because Gregor has no value they simply do not care for him, much like vampires. Gregor is trying to see them as good people when in reality they are bad. This is another example of Gregor having the chance to leave and live a better life but he stays and gets hurt even more. As Gregor keeps isolating himself from his family he inflicts more pain on himself physically. In the beginning of the story Gregor attempts to open the door and in turn hurts his mouth. "Unfortunately it seemed that he had no real teeth. How then was he to grab hold of the key? But to make up for that his jaws were naturally very strong; with their help he managed to get the key really moving, and he did not notice that he was obviously inflicting some damage on himself, for a brown fluid came out of his mouth, flowed over the key, and dripped onto the floor” (Kafka 18). Here, one can see that Gregor only cares for his family and will risk his physical well-being to help them. This shows how Gregor is isolating himself and is so focused on helping his family that he is willing to go through enormous amounts of pain to do so. He keeps shielding himself from the idea that the family will in fact not do the same for him. Even in the end of Gregor’s life Gregor still proceeds to think of his family as good people and when he is dying he thinks of the love they have given him. Gregor still covers his eyes from the truth of his family which goes to show Kafka’s moral lesson. “He remembered his family with deep feeling and love. In this business, his own thought that he had to disappear was, if possible, even more decisive than his sister’s. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three o’clock in the morning” (Kafka 71). Gregor, even in death, does not accept the fact that his family treated him poorly. Even with all the opportunities for Gregor to leave he does not. In the end Gregor is essentially the only one to blame for his torture throughout his life and his untimely death. Because he refused to see the bad in his family he was subjected to the horrible reality of isolation. This is Kafka’s moral lesson that one always has the option to leave his situation for a better one.

            In the story The Metamorphosis Gregor is constantly shown by his family that they do not care for him as a bug and would be better off if he was gone. They take advantage of his work and life in order to better their own lives.  They refuse to acknowledge his humanity and yet he continues to forgive them and think about how good they are.  Even though this is clear to the reader Gregor constantly refuses to see the truth that is shown to him and he becomes more and more isolated.  His isolation from his family finally kills him. Kafka story illustrates and shows the reader the moral lesson that one always has the option to make their life better and is not ever forced to do something in their life they wish not to.  As Gregor cannot believe this truth and refuses to change he pays the ultimate price.

Nice to Kafka you

       Reading Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion, makes one see many similarities between this piece of writing and Kafka's writing. In this piece of writing it is basically talking about the symbolism of a meal and how in literature it can mean different things. One thing he mentions is the symbolism of communion. A meal is a very friendly ritual as in it is shared with some of the closest people in you life. "The act of taking food into our bodies is so personal that we really only want to do it with people we're really comfortable with" (Foster 8). Here, Foster is talking about how sharing a meal with someone is very personal. This is why when you go on a first date with someone dinner can often times feel awkward and strange because you are not as personal with that person then your friends or family. When you eat dinner with your family it feels very comfortable and open because in your life you are very open with those people. When people are not allowed to eat with other people it makes them isolated from the group. One can see examples of this is Kafka. Gregor, when turned into a bug, never again shares a meal with his family. In fact, in the end Gregory dies from starvation. One can see that Gregor was isolated from the most personal ritual a family can have. A meal also shows that the people around you are willing to take a risk for you. By sharing there resources with you they are showing you that they trust you and that they are willing to take that risk for you. "While it doesn't feel particularly important thematically and, moreover, it’s as far from traditional notions of communion as we can get, it nevertheless constitutes a shared experience."(Foster 9) Here, Foster talks about the sharing experience of food. Sharing like stated before is showing that the person is willing to take a risk and share a human need with you. This shows the very personal relationship you have with that person. We can see in Kafkas writing that the family is not willing to take the risk of losing there resources    for Gregor. By not giving him proper food and letting him starve it shows how isolated Gregor is from the family.

        In the Piece by Foster Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires IT is basically talking about what vampirism is and relating all the Dracula story's to literature. Vampirism is basically a person who is selfish and does not have the desire to help other people. In turn this person often lures people in his his power or attractiveness to turn them into him. "Always, he’s alluring, dangerous, mysterious, and he tends to focus on beautiful, unmarried (which in the social vision of nineteenth-century England meant virginal) women. And when he gets them, he grows younger, more alive (if we can say this of the undead), more virile even.
Meanwhile, his victims become like him and begin to seek out their own victims." Here, Foster is talking about the traits a vampire has. Like stated before they often lure people in to make them more like them. This can relate to Kafkas The Metamorphosis. One can see that the Dad is symbolic of a vampire or Dracula and what he does in the story is turn his wife ans sister against Gregor. At the beginning of the story one can see that the Dad hates Gregor once he is turned into a bug. The mother and sister through the story progressively start to dislike Gregor more and more. One can see that this is much like a vampire in that they turn there pray into them. Foster also talks wbout how vampires suck the life out of people they think are lesser then them. 'He wakes up in the morning – actually the evening, now that I think about it – and says something like, 'In order to remain unread, I must steal the life force of someone whose fate matters less to me than my own.'” (Foster 21) One can see a similarity  to Gregor. When Gregor dies it is because his family has put him in bad conditions and literally sucked the life out of him. Because his Dad thinks Gregor is less then him he leaves him to die and sucks all human remaining traits from him. In fosters Two pieces one can see many similarities with Kafka and the examples given are just a few of the vast number of similarities.

Empathy of the Human Race

     Empathy is the ability to share and feel peoples pain and emotions. Even though it is debated that people are born with or learn empathy, there are many different people who experience it differently. Some people Cant really feel the pain of others and don't really connect with them.While other people will totally relate to one person and feel there emotion and what they are going through. One story that can show the reader pain and make them relate to it or in other words feel empathy is The Metamorphosis. In this story the reader is put in the perspective of Gregor who has been turned into a bug. The way Kafka writes the story make one feel as if they are feeling the emotions of Gregor. One example of this is the long and tiring sentence that Kafka writes. This makes one relate to the sleepy and tired emotions of Gregor. Also, another example is the relationship with his family. Gregor feels isolated from the family and not as one. Here the reader really can feel those emotions and feel like they are being isolated. This makes the reader in the end feel like the family is mean and makes them dislike the family. Empathy can also be synthesized and a fake emotion or a emotion that is not yours can trigger the same neurons in your brain as the person feeling them. This is explained in Jeremy Rifkins video on empathy and shows that humans can feel emotions from other people and they will be the same as if they felt them.  
       existentialism is defined as many ways, but one prevalent fact that I found was in a lot of the definitions is that existentialism is a way that humans can keep on leaving and not destroy them selves. One thing that must be done to survive is to live and act with each other. In Jeremey Rifkins video he talks about all the classes that humans have made up such as religious class blood ties and so on. In order to keep living humans must make connections with the human race and identify with everyone in the world. This again connects to empathy and that every one shares emotions. If every one in the world feels together there will be more done to help those in pain or who are suffering  because we all feel like family. In today's world there are many examples where humans don't act as one, such as corrupt governments. In dictator ships or corrupt governments not all people get a far say and are represented un equally. This does not go twords the goal of all humans working together.

Kafka Related to Real Life

      In Kafkas The Metamorphosis, through out the book there were many citations that had a small hint of depression and emptiness. These citations showed the depression and emptiness that was prevalent through out Kafka's life. I Thought that this was one of the most prevalent and fascinating things. After reading and researching Kafka it seemed like there was a lot of depression in his life. In this story I could see many examples and relate these back to his life and certain points in his life. This is one of the reasons I really liked this story.  One example of this is when Gregor first wakes up and notices he is a bug. "pitifully thin in comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes.‘What’s happened to me,’ he thought." As Gregor wakes up an notices he is a bug and he described himself as ugly and unproportional. This seems to be a very depressing part in his life because after this he goes on to think about what he is doing with his life. He says then that he has worse things to worried about then being turned into a bug. Another part where you can see Gregors depression is when he is in the dark house at the beginning of part two. "said Gregor to himself and, as he stared fixedly out in front of him into the darkness," In this citation and many more parts of the story Gregor talks about the darkness and how dark it is in the house. This shows emptiness and depression in his life. Also, It shows how he has no one to really care about in his life so he is empty. Another example of the Depression is in part three of the story. "And for that very reason he would’ve had at this moment more reason to hide away, because as a result of the dust which lay all over his room and flew around with the slightest movement, he was totally covered in dirt." In this citation Gregor moves around the room he basically lives in and as a result moves all this dust and dirt which falls on him. This shows the lack of care for the conditions he is living in and how his family has basically giving up on him and does not care about him. When the dirt settles on him he also has no care because that is simply the least of his worries. Because of the many citations in The Metamorphosis, One can see many examples of depression in the story. Because of the analysis that we do in this class I can now see the parts of the story that are examples of his life. This part of reading this story was my favorite
     In Kafka's The Metamorphosis I thought that Isolation was a incorporated in the story a lot and really well. Like I said in the first paragraph, one of the biggest reasons I like this story is because of how Kafka puts his pain and isolation in to his writing so well. This really makes me think back to his life and think about what was going on at the time to maybe have inspired this writing. One example of this Isolation is in the first paragraph when he has waken up. "Gregor was startled when he heard his voice answering. It was clearly and unmistakably his earlier voice, but in it was intermingled, as if from below, an irrepressibly painful squeaking which left the words positively distinct only in the first moment and distorted them in the reverberation, so that one didn’t know if one had heard correctly." Gregor has just tried to speak to his parents for the first time since he has woken up. Here Gregor has lost his voice and it seems to be not understood by his parents. This is where one can see his isolation from his family. He has basically lost all connections with anyone. His voice is his source of identity and authority and without it he is no one and cant connect with anyone. He is basically isolated from his family and anyone else. Another example of isolation is in the second paragraph. "‘What a quiet life the family leads’," Here Gregor has just woken up and is waking around his house. He uses the words "the family" and this shows that is isnt saying it as if he is a part of the family. Instead of using "are family" or "my family" he isolates himself and say the family implying that he is not a part of it. One can see examples of isolation in the third paragraph as well. "People had grown accustomed to put into storage in his room things which they couldn’t put anywhere else, and at this point there were many such things, now that they had rented one room of the apartment to three lodgers. These solemn gentlemen (all three had full beards, as Gregor once found out through a crack in the door)" There are two examples of isolation in this citation. First, Gregor is living in a place where people store there stuff. This is showing that Gregor is not recognized by anyone as a person anymore and is isolated from his family because he is set to live in a storage room with unused things like him. Second, here Gregor has not connection with the outside world except for a crack in the wall. He is isolated from the world except for a crack where he can get the information about his family. All these examples of Isolation really relate to his life and how he never was really married. This is really cool to me because his own life experiences are relayed in his writing. This is by far the best reason on why I liked the story.