In reading Kafka’s Metamorphosis for class last week, I noticed that the novella is framed in a way that highlights one of its central — if not the central — thematic concerns of the text. Figuratively, frames are a way to organize and structure reality. If you consider a photograph, it is framed or composed in such a way as to present the real world in an organized and predictable fashion. It’s frame includes certain elements while it excludes others. All of the components of the text (novel, photograph, poem, film, etc.), then, tell a unified story which is often an expression of the values of the framer (artist, writer, photographer, etc.).
Kafka presents Gregor’s metamorphosis in such a way, and he gives textual clues to this rhetorical function based around how women are framed in the narrative.
