La métamorphose (Ldp Litterature)

La Métamorphose révèle une vérité méconnue, les conventions disparaissent, les masques tombent. Ce récit est un des plus pathétiques et des plus violents que Kafka ait écrits ; les effets en sont soulignés à l'encre rouge, les péripéties ébranlent les nerfs du lecteur. C'est l'histoire, «excessivement répugnante», dit l'auteur, d'un homme qui se réveille changé en cancrelat. Cette transformation est un châtiment imaginaire que Kafka s'inflige. Et son personnage est celui qui ne peut plus aimer, ni être aimé : le conflit qui se déroule dans une famille bourgeoise prend une ampleur mythique. Seuls quelques éléments comiques ou grotesques permettent de libérer de l'oppression du cauchemar. L'interprétation éblouissante de Daniel Mesguich nous entraîne avec brio dans le vertige kafkaïen où le fantastique se heurte au quotidien.

Franz Kafka was born to Jewish parents in Bohemia in 1883. Kafka s father was a luxury goods retailer who worked long hours and as a result never became close with his son. Kafka s relationship with his father greatly influenced his later writing and directly informed his Brief an den Vater (Letter to His Father). Kafka had a thorough education and was fluent in both German and Czech. As a young man, he was hired to work at an insurance company where he was quickly promoted despite his desire to devote his time to writing rather than insurance. Over the course of his life, Kafka wrote a great number of stories, letters, and essays, but burned the majority of his work before his death and requested that his friend Max Brod burn the rest. Brod, however, did not fulfill this request and published many of the works in the years following Kafka s death of tuberculosis in 1924. Thus, most of Kafka s works were published posthumously, and he did not live to see them recognized as some of the most important examples of literature of the twentieth century. Kafka s works are considered among the most significant pieces of existentialist writing, and he is remembered for his poignant depictions of internal conflicts with alienation and oppression. Some of Kafka s most famous works include The Metamorphosis, The Trial and The Castle.