Isolationism Explored in Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude"

Isolation is a very common issue that many writers juggle with in their writings. It can be found in Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis" and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude." Both of these literature works contain the concept of isolation as well as its resulting effect on the subjects. These two works presented the use of isolationism differently. Kafka only wrote about the one "person" forced into isolation by others else while Marquez wrote about an entire community forced by a few into suclusion. However, the ending results were still the same-the extended isolations of Gregor Samsa and the city of Macondo eventually led to their downfalls through a chain reaction of events.

After waking up to find "himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect" (Kafka 1), Gregor could only think about the repercussions of being late for work. He made numerous futile attempts at trying to get out of bed safely so that he could "put on his clothes and above all eat his breakfast" (7). However, after the chief clerk came to check up on him and Gregor's condition was revealed, Gregor was forced into isolation by his father, who "had merely the fixed idea of driving Gregor back into his room as quickly as possible" (31). The process of being forced into isolation inflicted a lot of physical pain onto Gregor because of his enormous size and unfamiliarity with the proportions of his new body.