EXPLORING THE ROLE OF GRAMMATICAL DEVICES IN CREATING ATMOSPHERE AND THEMES IN KAFKA’S METAMORPHOSIS

Abstract

This research explores the role of grammatical devices in creating atmosphere and conveying themes in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, with a particular focus on sentence structure, voice and modality, and tense and aspect. The study aims to investigate how these grammatical features contribute to the development of a surreal, oppressive, and psychologically complex narrative environment, and how they reinforce central themes such as alienation, existential anxiety, helplessness, and familial estrangement. Guided by research questions concerning the identification of key grammatical strategies and their functions within the text, this study adopts a qualitative research approach, employing detailed textual analysis to examine fifty excerpts under each grammatical category, resulting in a total of 150 excerpts analyzed. The analysis demonstrates that Kafka’s complex and compound sentences generate suspense, mirror the protagonist’s disoriented perception, and regulate narrative pacing; the use of passive voice and modal verbs conveys limitations on agency, social invisibility, and internal conflict; and the strategic manipulation of tense and aspect highlights temporal continuity, prolonged states of suffering, and contrasts between past normalcy and present transformation. The findings reveal that these grammatical devices are central not only to the aesthetic quality of the novella but also to its thematic articulation, creating a narrative environment that immerses readers in Gregor Samsa’s psychological experience and amplifies the sense of existential absurdity. The study contributes to literary linguistics and stylistics by providing an in-depth examination of the interplay between grammar and meaning in literature, demonstrating that a grammatical analysis can yield profound insights into narrative construction, mood, and thematic development, and highlighting the value of combining linguistic and literary approaches in textual interpretation.