For my online literature classes and those classes that took the exam online, I have finished grading your submissions and grades will be posted shortly. I wanted to offer examples of how I evaluated each answer. Firstly, you were asked to write a paragraph response as your answer to each question. Some just answered the question with a sentence; this minimum response earned you the minimum score; i.e., unsatisfactory. As the directions stated, I looked for conciseness, specific evidence, and vocabulary use.
The following represents a strong answer to a question on Kafka’s Metamorphosis:
Gregory metamorphoses into some kind of bug, of which is not clearly stated. I think the point of the transformation was to switch the structure of the family and show the differences before and after. In the beginning, Gregory is the sole breadwinner for the family. He has made work his life and likes the fact that he is caring for them. However, work is the only element that even exists in his life at all. His father even comments on the fact that he wished Gregory had more to do in the evenings than just work all day. I think Gregory becomes a physical representation of what he had already become; which was essentially a “worker bee” or in his case bug. Bugs are systematical and usually lack emotion, which is the only thing that maintains as the old Gregory, but is still evident in his distancing himself. Gregory had done nothing but take care of his family, a task of which they were now in charge. His metamorphosis is what sends the family in a better direction. Before, they did nothing but sit in chairs, or “lolligag” all day, until they had no choice but to get up and take care of themselves. It was in Gregory’s misfortune that the family was able to grow. Grete was a typical teenager and ends up metamorphosing herself into a woman as each individual transforms into an actual family. Their father begins working again, which was a task he hadn’t done in many years. The metamorphosis was the push the family needed, even if it distanced Gregory from them.
The answer is concise, but detailed. It addresses the question with specific textual details and uses the metamorphosis as a central theme.
This next answer does not earn as high of a score as it does not supply as much specific textual evidence and erroneously links Kafka with the Industrial Revolution:
Gregor morphs into a bug, a dung beetle. He is living a life of total boredom, trying to fulfill the expectations of his lazy, boring, ineffective family. He is working to enhance not his life but theirs. He dreams of making his sister happy and keeping his father and mother comfortably worthless. He doesn’t have a life of his own. Kafka uses this extreme example to depict the helplessness and alienation one feels when they are caught up in the mundane, pointless inevitability of humans going about trying to make an income and somehow losing sight into what really matters – outside the four corners of one’s existence. Gregor had become just another ‘cog in the wheel of life,’ that so many of Kafka’s generation felt during the rapid growth of the Industrial Revolution.
While this answer is correct, it lacks thew specificity of the first.
Next, this answer represents the minimum that would score a passing grade:
Gregory metamorphosed into a dung beetle and although there is never an answer as to why he did so, one can theorize that the purpose of his metamorphosis was for the benefit of his family. His parents became self reliant again and his sister grew into a beautiful woman who was strong enough to make the final stand against continuing to care for Gregory.
While technically correct and supportable, it supplies no textual evidence beyond a cursory reading.
Finally, the following answer would be rated as unsatisfactory. No textual evidence is supplied to support the conclusion of the last sentence — a conclusion that might be unsupportable. More care could have been taken in composition, too:
Gregory metamorphosed into a giant bug. I think he transformed to escape the treatment that his family was giving to him. They always wnted him to take care of them and support them that they really could of cared less about him actually being there and treating him like a human being. This was a chance for his family to wake up and realize that Gregory was not always going to be ther and be able to take care of him. I think the bug symbolized freedom.
