Serena Park
Middlesex School
Abstract
This paper examines how contemporary films extend the anxieties in Franz Kafka’s fiction by giving elusive systems visible forms. Kafka’s “A Hunger Artist,” The Castle, The Metamorphosis, and The Trial are read alongside The Platform, Snowpiercer, Parasite, and The Truman Show. The comparisons follow four recurring problems: suffering whose meaning remains uncertain, movement that does not guarantee progress, identities made conditional by economic value, and realities defined by inaccessible authorities. Film allows viewers to see a prison, a train, a house, or a television set, but that visibility does not fully explain how power operates within those spaces. Across literature and film, the characters’ search for purpose or recognition can lead them to repeat the rules that confine them. These narratives remain unsettling because their institutions shape ordinary behavior even when no one can justify their authority.
