A Theme of Unconscious in The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and The Scream by Edvard Munch

“Each individual in the world lives in three worlds: the world that is, the world that is perceived and the world that is dreamt. Each world is both separate on its own, as well as conjoined and interlinked with the other two (Hudson, 2013). ”

During sleep, the mind is disconnected from the external world but remains instinctual. The psychoanalytic take on dreaming is better understood in terms of Freud’s overall picture of the mind, which he split into id, ego and super-ego. The id is an entirely unconscious part of the mind, something we cannot gain control of, but is rather only systematically suppressed. It is present at birth, does not understand the differences between opposites and seeks to satisfy its continually generated libidinal instinctual impulses (Storr, 1989: p. 61). Freud believed that suffering threatens a from 3 sides, our body, the external world, and our relations with others. Munch and Kafka’s story both demonstrates these sides.

In “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka the character Gregor experienced pain, not only because his body changed on him but eventually his family did too. This short story shows how Gregor was feeling and what was going on around him. Kafka’s childhood experience with his father motivated him to write, the battle to free himself from his domineering dad discovered articulation in his fiction as the bashful, detached, delicate injured individual who endures and battles against tyrant powers and powers. Kafka uses this theme throughout his life and in many stories. Gregor life was not fulfilling, he hated his boss and his job as a salesman. From working everyday to catching different trains, he had no opportunities to form relationships with others, he wasn’t able to enjoy his life and do things that made him happy. Before Gregor’s physical transformation, his mental transformation had already been made.

Gregor’s life contributed to giving to others, he works to support his family, becoming an inset set him free from his repressive lifestyle. He has freedom now. His transformation eventually pushed his family away more. “ at the time Gregor sole desire was to do his utmost to help his family to forget as soon as possible the catastrophe that had overwhelmed the business and thrown them all into a state of complete despair. ” Gregor overheard his family talking about their financial situation and feels that it’s his fault because he was the source of income and there is nothing he can do about it. In the short story “The Scream” by Edvard Munch is based on inner feelings, his most terrifying feelings, and emotions.

Expressing agony of the obliteration of human personality by an unifying force. Edvard suffered several traumas early in his life. His mother and older sister died of tuberculosis before he turned 15, one of his younger sisters was diagnosed with mental illness, and his brother died as a young man. A sickly child himself, Edvard took to art to occupy time spent indoors. Munch’s most famous painting, The Scream, has been taken as an illustration of helplessness and anxiety in World War II-era Existentialist thought. But it communicates the experience of fear and dread. Munch responded to nature and culture around him, most of his paintings used the same themes, love illnesses and death. As also seen in the painting the frieze of life. “Munch experienced a moment of existential crisis. In what sounds like a panic attack, Munch describes feelings of exhaustion while overwhelmed by an almost violent wave of anxiety. Like most panic attacks, Munch’s experience by the fjord was a lonely internal struggle, as his two friends walk on without him, completely unaware of the artist’s upset (Shabi, 2013). ”

However, Munch and Kafka’s short stories reflects an artist’s conscious efforts to capture unconscious experience. The unconscious mind and memory shape reality as much as reason does, Human reason must come to terms with the irruption of uncontrollable, violent forces from the unconscious mind. how we perceive, understand, experience, interpret and respond to reality has concrete and practical repercussions in both our intrapersonal and interpersonal relationships. reality is something both subjective and objective. What I mean is that objective reality, say the existence of the physical universe, does not necessarily depend on subjectivity to be real. But then, subjective reality, say the experience of an emotion, impulse or dream, doesn't necessarily depend on objective reality for its existence. The subjective world is as real as the objective world. Both have their own reality.

For example, Munch uses bright colorful imagery to express his chaotic emotional state in that moment, both in his poem and in his painting. Munch draws attention to the momentary intensity of the landscape with brightly saturated, contrasting colors as the “red” sky ignites above the “bluish black” water. Munch also states that he colors reminded him of blood.

So on, The Metamorphosis is without a doubt a very surrealist short story. At the point when Gregor Samsa gets up one morning to find that he has changed into a bug, the surrealists thought that "one could join inside a similar casing, components not regularly discovered together to deliver outlandish and startling impacts" is presented, as this Goliath and extremely odd human-turned-bug stays in the plain ordinary setting of a condo. I think it is additionally important that the plain clench hand sentence specifies that Gregor rises and shines from "agitating dreams"; the surrealists painters frequently sought their fantasies for motivation and they support the oddness they had always wanted and attempted to convey that to their works of art. To incorporate, the room is by all accounts little however it was only the ideal size before he changed.