Establishing Identity in Alien Environment: Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”, Polanski’s The Tenant and Kishon’s Stories
Abstract
Identity formation is a process that involves both individual characteristics and cultural constructs. Dependent on family upbringing, as well as on encounter with the social and national environment, identity-formation is inevitably a complex and often painful process. This essay will attempt to convey this complexity and painfulness of establishing one’s identity through the characters in Franz Kafka’s story “Metamorphosis”, Roman Polanski’s film The Tenant and several of Efraim Kishon’s stories, and to explore whether different approaches to alien environment may contribute to undermining the hostility faced. Even though in “Metamorphosis”, Gregor Samsa’s environment is his own family, the essay will explore how this secure environment becomes alien when it does not accept identity which is different from the one that it nurtures. The Tenant will be discussed from the aspect of the alien environment of the building in Paris in which the main character of Polish origin, Trelkovsky, moves, and in which he cannot establish his own identity. The film gives the opportunity for examining the decisive role that culture and national background may have on the development of identity in an unfamiliar environment. The thesis that this essay aims to explore is whether or not a different approach, such as that of Kishon, to an environment which is equally alien as those in “Metamorphosis” and The Tenant, could lead to a more successful and less painful development and affirmation of one’s identity.
References
[2] Canby, Vincent. “The Screen: Roman Polanski’s ‘The Tenant’ Arrives”. New York Times, 21 June, 1976.
http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9B06E3DD143FE334BC4951DFB066838D669EDE
[3] Kafka, Franz. “The Metamorposis”. Trans. Stanley Corngold. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Eds. Mack, Maynard, et al. Expanded ed. New York: Norton, 1997. 2479-2783.
[4] Mack, Maynard, et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Expanded ed. New York: Norton, 1997.
[5] Nicholson, Linda. Identity before Identity Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2008.
[6] Polanski, Roman (director). The Tenant. Released: 1976.
[7] Кишон, Ефраим. Није фер, Давиде. Прев. Саша Новак. Земун: Book, 1998
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Култура/Culture by MI-AN is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.