Name __________________________________________________
Malanga/CCA
Literary Terms Worksheet for Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis
Directions: Find two examples, either direct quotes or paraphrase, for each of the literary
terms. Complete this worksheet by the end of the novella and be able to explain your choices
in an essay format to be assigned later. Give the page numbers where you found your
examples.
1. Surrealism: a movement in art and literature in which reality mixes with the bizarre and
imaginary.
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2. Kafkaesque: relating to the writings of Franz Kafka, in which characters and their lives
show their alienation from society. Their lives seem pointless, and these characters lack
personal relationships.
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3. Animalism: humans are driven by their physical appetites and not their spiritual needs.
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4. Allegory: a work in which the characters and events represent other things and
symbolically express a deeper moral or political meaning.
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5. Metaphor: the comparison of two unlike objects, or a person with an object, without
using like or as.
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6. Symbolism: an object, action, or idea that represents something other than itself.
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7. Situational Irony: something that happens in a story that suggests the opposite of what
is expected.
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8. Verbal Irony: something that is said in a story that suggests the opposite of what is
expected.
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9. Dramatic Irony: when the audience knows something the characters do not.
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10. Gallows Humor: humor that arises from stressful, traumatic, hopeless, or lifethreatening situations.
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11. Anagnorisis: the point in the plot at which the protagonist as a tragic hero recognizes his
or her true identity or discovers the true nature of his or her situation.
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12. Tone: the attitude or approach the writer takes toward a subject or a character or the
story.
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