Alienation in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis and Philip Roth’s The Breast: A Comparative Marxist Reading

Abstract

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis highlights the predicament of an alienated hero named Gregor Samsa who had to suffer in the hand of exploitative and dehumanizing system called institutionalized capitalism. By the same token, David Kepesh, in Philip Roth’s The Breast, is a pathetic but assertive prey of wretched impact of capitalist ideology who chooses extreme life as a safe refuge in the descent of capitalistic void. Both the novels put forward alienated life of both the characters. In their power to tolerate alienated life, there is a kind of decent heroism and human greatness. In their power to suffer, there is a spirit of resistance. Since this spirit is darted against capitalism, their alienation is Marxist in nature.