This study will examine the theme of personal transformation in four works of fiction, Frank Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, and Stephen King's The Shining. The protagonists in all four works undergo dramatic and permanent transformations in their consciousnesses and lives. The common essence of these transformations is the alienation from the rest of the human race which each of these protagonists experiences. Three of the protagonists die unpleasant deaths in this alienated state, while the fourth--Gulliver--lives, but in a state of bitter estrangement from his fellow humans. The works to various degrees offer satirical portrayals of politics, as well as similar portrayals of non-political realms. The use of satire in each work serves to illustrate the growing division between the protagonist and other human beings. The attack on politics is a means of showing the corruption and madness of society in the view of three of the protagonists, while the fourth--Kafka's Gregor Samsa--maintains to the end his denial of his alienation and the evilness of those around him.
Samsa experiences growing physical, emotional, psychological and spiritual isolation from his family and others and is unable to overcome that isolation. He dies in a state of complete alienation from other human beings, but he maintains to the end a remarkable blindness to the inhumanity of others around him. Kafka's message is certainly open to interpretation, but Samsa can be seen as either a saint among monsters, whose transformation into a bug is a reverse metaphor for the pureness of his enduring humanity, or as an idiot who refuses to see the truth of human corruption even when it costs him his body, his mind and finally his life.
Samsa is a traveling salesman who awakens one morning to discover that he has, indeed, been transformed into a bug, apparentl...