1ENGLISHThere is a variety of literary characters in English literature who experience a dramaticconflict between the realistic state of affairs of the society they live in, and the idealized versionof reality, they believe in. This conflict between entities and the being of entities has beenportrayed in many literary creations, out of which The Metamorphosis by Kafka, The Dead byJoyce and Hedda Gabler by Ibsen will be discussed and critically analysed here. The Metamorphosis by Kafka clearly details the absurd and almost surreal transformationof Samsa, a human being into a vermin, that symbolically explains the state of existence of anysane human being in a detached, dehumanizing capitalist society. He is dwindled to the stature ofan insect, on a literal plane, and his body does not revolt. However, his spirit does revolt, as he isunable to reconcile himself with his new form of an insect, both on a literal plane as well as withits metaphorical implication of being an alien, detached from the capitalist system, he works in.While ideally, he strives to inhabit a world of social justice, freedom and love, he ends up gettingenmeshed in a world of continual oppression, alienation and detachment, where he is a merereplaceable factor of production to his employer, and a bread-earner in his family. His death inthe end proves his inability to cope up with the gross reality confronted in a capitalist society.The conflict between an ideal state of mind and a realist state of the world, that Kafka’s heroconfronts is not universal, and holds truth in a capitalist society only. The Metamorphosis shedslight on a society where the continual oppression of the labourers, detachment between theworkers and the labourers, created by the bureaucratic nature of the capitalist society is claimedto be the chief reason behind the alienation of mankind from humanity, and there is no way torectify things as long as one stays in a capitalist society. Again, the theme of anguish at the loss of idealism is also a central theme of Joyce’s TheDead. Life and death seem to be the two sides of the very same coin, and while the protagonist

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Idealism vs. Reality in Literature

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