Metamorphosis Vocabulary and Concepts

Kafkaesque

Having a nightmarishly complex, senseless, bizarre, disorienting quality.

Expressionism

An artistic and literary movement, particularly in northern Europe between 1905 and 1920, that sought to depict life as it subjectively felt, rather than how it objectively looked. The movement could be seen as a response to the anxiety of modern life, city/urban life, and war.

Modernity

Socio-cultural norms, attitudes, and practices arising from the 17th century Age of Reason, the 18th century Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and the Technological Revolution. Modernity is connected to things like: organization, bureaucracy, work, efficiency, data, laborers, managers, capitalists, and changing gender roles.

Patriarchy

Social organization marked by the supremacy of the father in the clan or family, the legal dependence of wives and children, and the reckoning of descent and inheritance in the male line.

Emasculation

to deprive of strength, vigor, spirit, virility, or procreative power.

Alienation

the state or experience of being isolated from a group or an activity to which one should belong or in which one should be involved.

Existentialist

a philosophical theory or approach which emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will.

Autonomy

Freedom from external control or influence; independence; the right or condition of self-government.

Satire

the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

Suspension of Disbelief

the idea that, for the world of the story to exist and for the story to move forward, audiences are willing to accept some ridiculous things.

Absurd

Ridiculous; illogical; inappropriately; wildly unreasonable.

Tongue-in-cheek

insincere or sarcastic, often in a humorous way.

Irony

The opposite of what is expected.

Perversion

The alteration of something from its original course, meaning, or state to a distortion or corruption of what was first intended.

Subversion

The undermining of the power and authority of an established system or institution.

Slippery Slope

An idea or course of action which will lead to something unacceptable, wrong, or disastrous.

Self-fulfilling prophecy

an expectation or belief that can influence your behaviors, thus causing the belief to come true.