The Intrinsic aspects of a short story "Metamorfosa" by Franz Kafka

ABSTRACT

Literature is one of great creative and universal means of communicating the emotion, spiritual or intellectual concern of mankind. Literature is also the writing on the study of books valued as works of art (prose, poetry, drama and novel).

People read literature because of a hunger information or amusement or solace. Therefore, literature exists because it pleases people. It pleases people by imitating life or more precisely by displaying its writers’ visions of life as it is or as the writers think it should be.

Literature itself is divided into two. Those are escape literature, which is written purely for entertainment, to help us pass the time agreeably. It takes us away from the real world; it enables us temporarily to forget our troubles. Its object pleasure only. Then interpretative literature, which is written to broaden and deepen and sharpen our awareness of life. It takes us through imagination, deeper into the real world. It enables us to understand our troubles. Its object is pleasure plus understanding. It makes us understand the reality of life better.

Short story, like other stories, has intrinsic aspects. Intrinsic aspect is including setting, character, plot and theme. In this study the writer focused her study on the intrinsic aspect.

Short stories range from the short short story to the novelette or novella. Between these two types is the short story proper, which Edgar Allan Poe described as ،،the prose tale.” Edgar Allan Poe was one of the American master of short story writers. Poe was the first who formulated some critical and technical principle that distinguish short story and long story.

“Metamorfosa” is one of kafkas’ works, which the writer has already chosen. The characteristic of kafkas’ works are cloudy, mysterious and inexplicable.

The methodology of this thesis is qualitative research. The qualitative research deals with narrative description. In collecting the data, all data about the four elements of intrinsic those are setting, character, plot and theme, was searched in library and from some references taken from internet. Then those data were analyzed.

The result of this study is that ،،Metamorfosa” has single effect, simple plot and setting, few characters, which are the characteristics of short story, and theme.

،،Metamorfosa” has only one physical setting, that is the apartment of Samsa family, which placed in Charlottenstrasse street. It has one line plot, from the exposition, the conflict, the rising action and the resolution. The exposition happens when Gregor Samsa wakes up from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect. The problem begins when his family neglects him as they are too busy with their job and when they want to get rid of him. The rising action is when Gregor realizes that his death is essential to the happiness of his family. The climax is when Gregor dies by his own choice, so that his family gets a happiness in their life. ,The climax is also the resolution of story and most of events in the story happened chronologically. The theme is about freedom and escapism, and the only means of escape turns out to be death.