From "the Metamorphosis" Kafka's Post-modern Characteristics

Postmodernism is not only awkward; it is also oedipal, and like a rebellious but impotent adolescent, it cannot separate itself completely from its parent. History written on paper can be written, but culture exists in the past, present and future. A writer can write in his life a work, both modern and postmodern. The Austrian writer Kafka has always been considered the representative of modernism, so are his works understood and interpreted in the respect of modernism. Recently, with the development of postmodernism, people began to feel the postmodern in him and his works. In other countries, researchers like Hassan, the master of postmodernism, classified Kafka into the school of postmodern writers, so do some researchers in China. Living in modern time, Kafka and his works' modernism is inevitable. However, Kafka surpassed his time, to some degree; he shares the spirit with postmodern writers which explain why he is enjoyed by them. His thought and creation really carry the features of postmodernism, which can be illustrated by his masterpiece The Metamorphosis. This paper interprets its postmodern features in three respects: theme, characters and art.First, the theme of this novel, according to the deconstructionism of postmodernism, is the dispelling of family responsibility. This part mainly explains the close relation of the hero's metamorphosis and the disappearance of his family responsibility, reflected in his. attitude towards a man as a breadwinner----fear, imagination, avoiding and refusal.Secondly, Jameson argues that one of the most outstanding characteristics is the disintegration of man. Disintegration is a meaningful concept, which is in harmony with the main body's death, historical split, schizophrenia and the disappearance of emotion. These four elements in this novel expound that the hero's metamorphosis indicates the disintegration of postmodern man.Thirdly, indeterminacy is one of the essential features of postmodernism, which is also reflected in The Metamorphosis. This part interprets the indeterminacy of Kafka's literal creation from the following aspects of five indeterminate elements: theme, character, plot, and the emotion of the narrator.