In literature, the message that is seen in the text all depends on the reader. There are many point of views and styles of literary criticism which the reader can choose to follow. Each style is completely different philosophy, so thus each criticism finds different messages than the others. A philosophy that is used in literary criticism is existentialism. Dealing with human existence and condition, existentialism was founded in the 1920s, during the time when colleges were only for the scholars, and literature first moved to the universities.
             Existentialism is often a form of literary criticism that is overlooked. Its influence on literature is there, but hardly ever recognized. Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature gives a brief description of existentialism as "A family of philosophies devoted to an interpretation of human existence in the world that stresses its concreteness and its problematic character. The philosophers involved were Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, Jean-Paul Sarte, Gabriel Marcel, and Marice Merleau-Ponty. According to the existentialist, people have the desire to act, not just know the situation. Also, the ego is not made when a person is born, but instead is shaped in a unique way for each person. All the "big" questions of society, according to existentialism will never be answered with science, thought, or reasoning. (Merriam Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, 397)
             The biggest concepts seen in "The Metamorphosis" are subjectivity or ambiguity and isolation. In "Existentialism," an Internet article, to arrive at "the truth" a person acts on their own thoughts and decisions. A person's perspective will always be different from another because he has his own decisions and experiences that guided him to where he is in life. Because of that, a person who takes part of the action will always have a better understanding tha...