The Sons Symbolism Essay

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The Sons by Franz Kafka was an interesting book, that contained three short stories, and the letter that he wrote to his father. The most important story to me was The Metamorphosis and the symbols that he used throughout the story. The most interesting symbol was food. My project is about how Kafka uses food to symbolize Gregor, the main character, and his family’s relationship and their feelings towards each other. He shows symbolizes this in three main ways. The first example is the apple that his father threw at him. The second example is Gregor’s hunger throughout the story. The third example is the food on their table. The apple was the most important and obvious example to me. When his father threw the apple at him, it was symbolizing the father’s negative feelings towards Gregor. However, as the one…show more content…
When the table is described to have food on it, the relationship between Gregor and the family is healthy and everything is alright. However, when there is not food on the table, it again shows the family’s negative feelings towards Gregor. The first example is when the father goes back to eating breakfast after waking Gregor up. This means that there is food on the table, and he has not yet seen Gregor so everything is alright between them. The first example of food not being on the table, is when Gregor startles his mother and she jumps up on the table and knocks over the coffee pot which spills all over the floor. Then, later on in the story, Gregor’s mother and sister sit at the table which is empty. This shows their negative feelings towards Gregor. Lastly, is when the boarders come to stay with them. While they are there, there is food on the table, but the family is never sitting at that table while the food is on it. The boarders sit in the family’s spot and eat the food, which really shows that Gregor’s relationship with his family is a very negative

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