Comparison of Kafkas Metamorphosis and Dalis The Metamorphosis of Narcissus :: comparison compare contrast essays

Comparison of Kafkas Metamorphosis and Dalis The Metamorphosis of Narcissus The painting that I chose to compare to the novel Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, was painted in 1937 by Salvatore Dali. Dali is an established Surrealist painter, who, like Kafka, explored his own psyche and dreams in his work. Dali invented a process, called the paranoiac critical method, which is used in this painting, to serve his creative process. As Dali described it, his aim in painting was to materialize the images of concrete irrationality with the most imperialistic fury of precision...in order that the world of resourcefulness and of concrete irrationality may be as objectively evident...as that of the exterior world of phenomenal reality.1 The rich landscape, seems to be limitless in detail. Dali rendered either detail of this landscape with precise accuracy, striving to make his paintings as realistic as possible. In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a beautiful young youth, who fe ll in love with his own reflection, and then drowned while trying to embrace himself. His body was never recovered, but a flower, which was named after him was. The left side of this painting shows the kneeling Narcissus, outlined by the craggy rocks of what could only be Cape Creuss. On the right side of the painting, the scene has morphed into a more idyllic and classical scene, in which the kneeling Narcissus has become the statue of a hand, holding a cracked egg, from which emerges The Narcissus flower. This painting reminded me of the first chapter of Metamorphosis, where the main character, Gregor Samsa, first realizes that he is confronted with a ludicrous fate in the form of a gigantic insect. In both Kafkas and Dalis work, I noticed that they both implement a certain receding technique. Dali tends to put an object (In this case, Narcissus) In the foreground, and the background of the painting tends to be very crisp and detailed, yet unimportant, compared to Narcissu s. I feel the same way about Gregor, I see Kafka writing this twaddle with mainly Gregor in mind, as the main character and narrator. Kafka puts this puzzled victim in the story as a clerk, yet that element of the story tends to receded in to the plot of the story.