Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka published in 1915. it generally tells a stry of a travelling salesman, Gregor, who wakes up and finds himself transforme into a monstrous insect-like creature.

The story is totally a tragedy. Although Gregor was a saleman, he tried his best to support his family. He wanted to send his sister to better place for furthering violin skills and use his income to pay his father's debt. However, after his family found him become a insect, everything changed. He became a drag of the whole family, and gradually no one cares about his life.

Gregor concerned and cared his family thoughout his whole life,but his family eventually abandoned him and were so indifferent about his death. They decided to go out having a picnic, and the story stoped with endless sorrow.

The Trial and The Parable of the Doorkeeper

First of all, I have to say Kafka's work is really abstract and hard to understand.As I was watching the movie, I could not really get the idea of the story.

The Trail is one of Kafka's best-known works. Basicly, it tells a story of the main character Josef K who gets arrested after waking up in the morning. However,he does not even know what his crime is, and finally get executed by two people late at night.

As for the parable of the doorkeeper,in my opinion,it is just the forshadow of the death of Josef K.The doorkeeper does not let Josef go though the door, and tells him that there would be more and more doors with doorkeepers if Josef enters in the door now.As the doorkeeper says, it implies Josef K will never win and get rid of the trial, and in the end, he has to face the destiny of death.

Two Avant-Garde Groups and Movenments

Der Blauer Reiter:

• It was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany.
• Der Blaue Reiter was a movement lasting from 1911 to 1914, fundamental to Expressionism, along with Die Brücke which was founded the previous decade in 1905. 
• The name of the movement is the title of a painting that Kandinsky created in 1903, but it is unclear whether it is the origin of the name of the movement as professor Klaus Lankheit found out that the title of the painting had been overwritten. Kandinsky wrote 20 year later that the name is derived from Marc's enthusiasm for horses and Kandinsky's love of riders, combined with both love of the colour blue. For Kandinsky, blue is the colour of spirituality: the darker the blue, the more it awakens human desire for the eternal. 
• Proponents of De Stijl sought to express a new utopian ideal of spiritual harmony and order.

Die Brücke:

• Die brucke in English means "The bridge" 
• The movement was started by a group of expressionist from Germany. 
• the had a huge influence on the "evolution of the creation of expressionism"  
• Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernest Ludwig Kirchner, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff

Dadaism:

• It is a cultural movement that bagan in Switzerland during World War I
• From 1916 to 1922
• The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature-poetry, art manifestos and graphic design.
• The theme of Dadaism is anti-war and anti-art
• Three representatives: Tristan Tzara, Mercel Dunchamp and George Grosz.

Pop Art:

• It is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the later 1950s in the United States
• It presented a challenge to traditions of fine art by including imagery from popular culture such as advertising, news, etc
• Pop art employs aspects of mass culture, such as advertising, comic books and mundane cultural objects. It is widely interpreted as a reaction to the then-dominant ideas of abstract expressionism, as well as an expansion upon them.
• Three representatives: Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp and Kurt Schwitters.