"If Kafka's “The Metamorphosis”strikes anyone as
something more than an entomological fantasy, then I congratulate him on having
joined the ranks of good and great readers…for we can take the story apart, we
can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the
other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will
vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss "(Vladimir Nabokov).
Far be it for us to quibble with Nabokov. But agree, with each reader brings
different minds which can fabricate different ideas and views of Franz Kafka’s
tedious, although clever, fantasy of wordplay. For, literature is only an art
that is perceived on an open canvas as the portrayer sees. For we are all interpreters,
and media inspires everyone differently. At first the long drawn out melancholy
words, sentence after sentence, of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis reeked of monotone as I read. However, after a
little background research and a second read through the sadness of Gregor’s
experience spewed from the pages. Soon my mind raced with images and then
music. Modest Mouse’s “Doing the Cockroach” soon filled in the background of my
mind.
In “The Metamorphosis” Gregor discusses his dread of his
jobs duties. He explains the,
“worries about making train connections, bad and irregular
food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to
know anyone or become friendly with them” (Kafka 4). Gregor longs for days to
sleep in and not have to worry about the traveling world. As he awakes one
morning Gregor finds all of his salesman troubles have diapered. However, he is
now transformed into a beetle.
As I read through these lines Modest Mouse “Doing the Cockroach” first came to mind. Modest Mouse, a folk band from the 90’s, are
known for their awkward keyed lyrics and underlining messages. In “Doing the
Cockroach” Modest Mouse sings about how we are all as worthless as a cockroach.
“This one's a doctor
This one's a lawyer
This one's a cash fiend
taking your money
I believe they are relaying that no mater you job or power aren’t
we all miserable just riding the train of life, trying to make it day by day to
get by.
I decided to mash up the two for the obvious reasons. One,
both suggest the main character in a beetle of some sort. Two, on a deeper
level, both to me tells a story about society and how we as people go along
with what we are told or expected to do. Finally, I feel “Doing the Cockroach”
is a perfect companion to Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”.
Work Cited
Nabokov,
Vladimir. “Lecture
on "The Metamorphosis" by Vladimir Nabokov” Kafka.org. The Kafka
Project, 6 January 2012. Web. 31 May 2012
Kafka , Franz. The Metamorphosis. Tribeca Books,
1915.
("There is at this moment a beetle the size of god's ass on the table
about six inches from the t-writer. It is worse than anything Kafka
ever dreamed, so big I can see its eyes and the hair on its legs — Jesus, suddenly it leaped off and now circles me with a menacing whir")
At first the long drawn out melancholy words, sentence after
sentence, of Franz Kafka’s The
Metamorphosis reeked of monotone as I read. However, after a little
background research and a second read through the sadness of Gregor’s experience
spewed from the pages. At a deeper look and a little persuasion from Barry
Creamer, a ministry blogger from Criswell
College, it became apparent
that Gregor’s misfortune and misery was in fact a reflection of Franz Kafka’s :
The Metamorphosis is in
the realization that Gregor himself is Kafka’s prodigal—the prodigal who never
“comes to himself,” never seeks help, never turns back, and never experiences
the warm embrace of life-, purpose-, and for-giving grace in the arms of his
true father or family. For genuine existentialists those experiences are as
unrealistic as the love of Kafka’s father was (or appeared to be) to him. (That
same sadness is mirrored by the family’s relief at Gregor’s loss rather than
persistent pursuit of his restoration.) (Creamer) With this it can be assumed
that Kafka portrays similar aspect of his own metamorphosis in his analogous
story.
As a young man in the 1900’s Kafka inexplicably resembled
Gregor in The Metamorphosis as the weary
saddened dung beetle. Kafka too found himself pressured by his lethargic and
indifferent father to provide stability for his family. While growing up in the
bureaucratic wasteland of Prague, Kafka described his town as broad modern
streets of dreams, disguised with traces of the old ghetto, with its dreary
alleys, reeking taverns, ubiquitous corruption to be more real than the
palpable for the residents of the new city (Sokel).
During his time in Prague Kafka was faced with the infant death of two brothers
and constant moving that would soon send young Kafka into a state of
instability. Both Hermann Kafka (father) and Julia Kafka (mother) were industrious
people and instilled the necessity of work to Kafka at an early age. Although,
Kafka did exceptionally well in his jobs, first at the Assicurazioni Generali,
an Italian insurance company, and later with the Worker's Accident Insurance
Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia, he
often took long time off as an escape from fear of becoming just another pencil
pusher (Wiki). During his time off Kafka
tried several attempts to purse his writing, but was shattered by his father
when he wanted him to take charge of his brother-in-law Karl Hermann's asbestos
factory, which took up a lot of his time until 1917 (when it was shut down) and
literally almost drove him to suicide. (Wiki)
In "The Metamorphosis" the latter Gregor spends his days pressed up against the
window staring out onto the gray, contemplating thoughts of his earlier days.
Gregor soon begins to fit the role as the unfit beetle, pondering over the
meaning of his existence.
“Then he crept up
on the window sill and, braced on the chair, leaned against the window to look
out, obviously with some memory or other of the satisfaction which looking out
the window used to bring him in earlier times.” (Franz Kafka)
As a direct reflection of Gregor, Kafka in his depressed
years at the firm was also known to have spent endless hours gazing out his
bedroom window contemplating his purpose.
Kafka also developed early in life an inordinate sense of
guilt. The idea of the insolubility of the most ordinary, even human problems
depressed his youth and later inspired his art, Gregor in “The Metamorphosis” (Phillip
Rahv 62).
Inevitably, when comparing Kafka’s life struggles of his
time, with those of Gregor, the distressed insect, the similarity of the two
are evident. This could be assumed as an arguable result of the unstable and
depressed ethnicity Franz Kafka lived in. During his time he faced numerous
hardships and obstacles that a young Jewish man went through in those times.
Work Cited
Barry Creamer. “The Prodigal Son Parable” 2012.
Criswell College. 24 May 2012 Web
Wikipedia.
“Franz Kafka” 2012. Wikipedia. 24 May 2012 Web
Sokel,
Walter. “Franz Kafka as a Jew” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 18.1 (2012):
233-238.Web
Rahv,
Phillip. “Franz Kafka: The Hero As Lonely Man” The Kenyon Review. 1.1
(1939): 60-74.Web
Kafka , Franz. The Metamorphosis. Tribeca Books,
1915.
"If Kafka's “The Metamorphosis” strikes anyone as
something more than an entomological fantasy, then I congratulate him on having
joined the ranks of good and great readers…for we can take the story apart, we
can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the
other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will
vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss "(Vladimir Nabokov).
Far be it for us to quibble with Nabokov. But agree, with each reader brings
different minds which can fabricate different ideas and views of Franz Kafka’s tedious,
although clever, fantasy of wordplay. For, literature is only an art that is
perceived on an open canvas as the portrayer sees. For instance one artist, Carlos
Atanes, an underground filmmaker, adapted in his 1994 “The Metamorphosis of
Franz Kafka”; which entwines, loosely, the original story with Kafka’s reality.
However, both tails circulate around one meaning Why do we exist? What does the transformation of Gregor Samsa
symbolize?However, when inquired in
different decades the meaning takes on a different sense.
In the original text, “The Metamorphosis”, Kafka paints a
scene based out of a dying Central European town in 1912. Based on the speculation
that Kafka portrays similar aspect of his own metamorphosis in his analogous
story, one could assume the grey town is a shadow of his hometown of Prague. During the early
1900’s, post the rise of capitalism, Prague
was a combination of ethical barriers. At the time Prague was segregated by Czechs, Jews and
Germans, endeavoring to industrialize the advancing city (Tramer 305).As Prague crept into the new age, Kafka described
his town as broad modern streets of dreams, disguised with traces of the old ghetto,
with its dreary alleys, reeking taverns, ubiquitous corruption to be more real
than the palpable for the residents of the new city (Sokel).
Where families struggled to survive, however managed to wear a lucrative mask,
Kafka developed early in life an inordinate sense of guilt. The idea of the
insolubility of the most ordinary, even human problems depressed his youth and
later inspired his art, “The Metamorphosis” (Phillip
Rahv 62).
Assuming that events are symbolic to his life, Gregor is
also faced with similar obstacles. In the story the protagonist, Gregor,
undergoes a gruesome transformation into a retched dung beetle. With his
transformation Gregor became compulsorily distant from his work, society, his
family and eventually himself. Which before long has him pondering what he
knows, or thought he knew, and asking What
is my purpose?. Given the obstructions Gregor faces, the meaning can be
concluded that humanity is susceptible to forcibly reforming to an authority. Rather
susceptible to settle for an expected job, lifestyle, or accepted idea, Kafka
suggests that we are all insects in society, going through the same routine,
decade after decade, week after week, day in day out, that eventually the custom
becomes instinct.
Throughout history there has been compelling evidence of
illicit force being used to reform humanity. For example, during the early
1900’s life for Jews in Prague
changed from tolerable to unbearable. This was a result of the uprising of German
Nazis in the 1920’s. Reputations of Neo-Nazis racial propaganda ripped through
the population of Central Europe, inevitably causing
the segregation of communities. With popularity of the regimes fascist views
growing, Jewish families living in Prague
were stricken of rights and suppressed in the community by their fellow, Czech
and German, Spaniards.
“Our personal problem was not, in fact, what our enemies
were doing, but rather what our friends did,” stated Hannah Arendt, Jewish German-American
political philosopher, to a friend about her escape from a death camp in
Germany,1940 (Hannah
Arendt). In Carlos Atanes film adaption of Kafka’s original work; that is
exactly the lesson Gregor learned. Atanes’ placed the Samsa family right in the
middle of late 1930’s fascist tainted Prague.
Effects of Jewish segregation faded in and out from outside the family’s house,
while inside, a half man half bug, Gregor tries to understand and cope with his
unfamiliar form. Gregor’s transformation into an insect, or Ungeziefer, with a
human-like appearance also echoes a grim realization of the Jewish torment. Ungeziefer,
German for unclean animal not suitable for sacrifice, is a term that the Nazis
used to refer to the Jews (Bruce 113).
Gregor’s figure in the causes his family to lose their companionship
for him, like the betrayal Jews experienced by their neighbors and friends.
After all, how could an unclean animal not suitable for sacrifice really be a
human?
Even though both Kafka and Atanes symbolic morphing toys
with the question, Why do I exist, what
is Gregor’s purpose? The times of the events are different, ultimately
causing two different conclusions. In one Kafka suggest the formation of
Capitalism and falling into uniformity. However, Atanes implies the same meaning;
he strengthens it by adding symbolism of the Jewish population’s suppression by
society during the German reign. Given each portrayal of “The Metamorphosis”
the way an artist decides to set the scenery ultimately affects how an audience
receives the underling question or meaning.
Work Cited
Nabokov,
Vladimir. “Lecture
on "The Metamorphosis" by Vladimir Nabokov” Kafka.org. The Kafka
Project, 6 January 2012. Web. 31 May 2012
Tramer,
Hans. “Prague-City of Three Peoples” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 9.1 (2012):
305-339.Web
Sokel,
Walter. “Franz Kafka as a Jew” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 18.1 (2012):
233-238.Web
Rahv, Phillip.
“Franz Kafka: The Hero As Lonely Man” The Kenyon Review. 1.1 (1939): 60-74.Web
Arendt,
Hannah. “Hanna Arendt” fembio.org. Notable.Women.International, Web. 31 May 2012
Kafka,Franz. Corngold, Stanley. The Metamorphosis: A Norton
Critical Edition. W. W. Norton &
Company, 1996. Print.
