The perimeters of familial affection: examples with the metamorphosis, the Sooterkin, and "A very old man with enormous wings"

Summer Dorr
Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:51:34 PDT

This literary analysis--of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Tom Gilling's The Sooterkin, and Gabriel García Márquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings"-- asserts that unconditional love is not possible without a supernatural impartation, because all humans have their limitations. To further this claim, I dissect the most sacred of interpersonal dynamics, society's subgroups--the family. The four guiding perimeters of affection are societal influence--its opinion of a person; money, financial prospect; communication aptitude, whether verbal and physical speech that is understood or enjoyed; and, lastly, aesthetics: are they nondescript or pleasant to the eye? These variables determine how long a person will stay in a family's domestic space or their proverbial rolodex. These three texts have numerous similarities, most apparent is their each having a weird character interrupt a family's domestic life: hyperbolic contingencies that highlight the causes of limited or temporal affection.