Post #4- I can't stop writing about Metamorphosis

When I read the phrase "resists interpretation" I can't think of a more fitting short story than Metamorphosis. Kafka's story probably has about 10 million different interpretations, and most of them are probably valid. The title Metamorphosis draws attention to the transformation itself. Perhaps this is what is key to the story's meaning. The story's unusual structure, with the climax (transformation) at the beginning of the story, and continued narration after the death of the main character (a transfer from following Gregor to a more omniscient point of view) can be reasoned, but not with certainty. There are many ideas about the economic implications of the story and the personal implications of the story. Kafka seems to manipulate the story to create infinite questions in the reader's mind, and then to purposefully avoid answering a single one of them. Gregor transforms, but why? Why does the story continue after his death? Why isn't his transformation a bigger deal? Why does his father throw the apple at him? The events are there in the text, but the reasons behind them are not, and the reader is left to come up with his/her own opinions about the story. If Kafka's personal life is examined, it seems deceptively simple to connect Gregor's relationship with his father to Kafka's own relationship with his father, but the story is much to complex to lend itself to this one oversimplified interpretation.

Post #3- setting morals aflame

"Iago, as Harold Goddard finely remarked, is always at war; he is a moral pyromaniac setting fire to all of reality.......In Iago, what was the religion of war, when he worshiped Othello as its god, has now become the game of war, to be played everywhere except upon the battlefield."
--Harold Bloom

Harold Bloom first remarks that Iago is always at war. This is certainly true, in more than one way- Iago is constantly and infinitely at war with himself, as the evil and hellacious character in Othello. Though he is extremely able to manipulate his peers, he is constantly uncertain of himself and his motives, and is "always at war" with himself. He is also at war with the other characters of the play and is constantly innovating ways to manipulate those around him. Indeed, the image of Iago as a "moral pyromaniac setting fire to reality" seems appropriate, ignoring the redundancy of the diction. As he proceeds through the play and manipulates his wife, his superior, and his peers, Iago has in fact burned reality to the ground in an attempt to create his own reality. Unfortunately for Iago , in the end he loses control of the fire that he has started. Though we as the audience do not witness Iago's "religion of war, with Othello as its god," we are aware of it. And when things do not go Iago's way in this religion, there is a shift created by Iago himself into Iago's own self-created war of manipulation and deceit. And, of course, manipulation and deceit have no place on the honorable battle ground.