Kafka's Metamorphosis - a review

[I do not know if I do justice to this page by posting this one- I mean its a review and all, not a very well written one, nor all that profound in the ideas that it expresses. This was intended for a girl who's currently doing her masters in the field of Mass Communication, and hence a brief and unsuccessful attempt to try and put up a scholarly face. However it would be perhaps a lack of honesty on my part were I to put up only stuff that are dear to me, and not stuff that do not show me in my comfort zone. For it is easy to like a man for his virtues, but a man with virtues alone is not really a man. The book was one of my favourites, and i do not dare to think that anything i write could ever compliment it, so what the heck, what have I to lose, anyway?]

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka comes up as one of the most horrifying and brilliant works of the twentieth century. Published in the year 1915, its rather awkward size places it somewhere in between a novel and a short story, and is therefore often categorized in the bastardized genus of a novella. However, the ideas expressed and the immense influence that it has had on the literature that followed places it no lower than an epic. It is often the case that a novelist of the abstract is placed under the indiscriminate title of 'existentialism'. But such a narrowing down of the ideas would hardly do justice to a man of the stature of Kafka.

The story is rather short. Gregor Samsa, a young traveling salesman is burdened down by financial anxieties ever since his usually meek-mannered father loses his business in its entirety. Since then the onus of winning bread for their family of four (the father, an invalid mother, a pretty and kindly younger sister aged seventeen and Gregor himself) has fallen on Gregor's shoulder and as yet he has stood up to the challenge gracefully, earning enough to allow his family to put up in a respectable station (there are debts yet to be paid though, and he's not quite on firm ground yet, one of the creditors being his own boss). The family is typical nineteenth- early twentieth European middle-class who consider their station in life above all else and have little regard for 'menial' offices (otherwise why would a family of four need hire the services of a maid when the money was so desperately needed elsewhere?). Under the circumstances, we might imagine his consternation when one morning Gregor wakes up to find that not only he's late for the 6:45 train, but he's also been miraculously transformed into an insect or a bug of some sort (The exact species of his metamorphosed form is not explicitly stated, but the cleaning lady has taunted him by calling him a dung beetle. We will take her word for it!). However he's somehow managed to retain his human dimensions, and that has only helped in making him all the more hideous in the eyes of people. Now the metamorphosis has also taken away his power of speech (actually his speech seems to him all the more distinct while others cannot perceive anything beyond a bestial cry. He also complains of indistinct vision. However, the problem is not too severe). His rather taxing job requires him not to spend a day away from work without a valid reason and therefore when he does not open the door to his room (he always sleeps with the door locked, a traveller's precaution) his family is not a little worried. So Gregor, incapacitated to the extent of neither being able to answer their calls nor to get up and open the door himself, feels as if all hell has broken loose when he hears his boss entering their apartments nagging about the former's lack of dedication to his work. The poor parents can try to make it up to him, but all in vain as Gregor himself cannot arrive on the scene. Finally as his sister is about to fetch a doctor, and the maid a locksmith, Gregor, after a huge struggle and no little loss to himself manages to open the door. But even as he expects complete understanding and co-operation from his family on this issue, the total shock and horror on their faces is something that knocks all the hope out of him in an instant. His boss staggers downstairs with his hand to his mouth and his father mercilessly drives him back to his own room. To his own room he is thus confined, living only on the food (leftovers and trash mainly) that his sister condescends to give to him without the least kindly speech or the sympathetic smile (However that does not mean that she's stopped caring for him though, as she routinely gives him his food and also cleans his room). Days pass by, and Gregor little by little learns to ease his pains a bit. He even develops certain amusements for himself, such as crawling all over the walls or hanging from the roof). Indeed its only to allow him to play his little games with greater ease that his mother and sister decide to empty his room of all the furniture and such, that they think might be in his way. However, when they remove the stuff one after the other, the rebellious in him suddenly awakes, as is the case with people devoid of any human sympathy for long, and when it comes to a framed photograph from a magazine clip on his walls, he jumps on it and clings to it as if for dear life, and that scares the wits out of the two women, as it seems to them that he'd done it especially to scare or to insult them, and ever since delegate the responsibility of feeding Gregor or cleaning his room to a cleaning woman.

The fact that Gregor no longer went to work meant that the family finances were on the decline once again and all the three family members had not only to take up jobs but also hire lodgers. These lodgers were a grim set of people with flowing beards. So it happens that one day when they sit to dine, they hear Gregor’s sister playing the violin in the kitchen. She is immediately requested by them to continue the performance from where they could feast their lascivious eyes upon her, to which they all, eager to please, agree. Now Gregor loved his sister and the music, and this was all that he could bear. He could see that none in the room were the least interested in her recitals and therefore he slowly stepped through the open door of his room and tried to tug at her dress, to call her up to his room where she could be fully appreciated and where he could tells her all the rosy plans he’d laid out for her. But the mere perception of his presence was sufficient to bring down the house and that was the last they’d see of the lodgers. Now everyone realized that the time for charity was past since this new Gregor was totally insensitive to their needs, and his isolation was complete. In fact his father bombarded him with apples to scare him away, one of which god embedded in his back and hurt like hell. For company, he’d only have the cleaning woman once a day who used to drive him to great despair by taunting him, as mentioned earlier, and who’d threaten to hurl a chair at his back at the slightest display of anger. So Gregor, now a picture of utter neglect, no longer cares to touch his food or think of his family, and eventually slips into his grave. And now that their ordeal is finally over, the family learns to smile once again and face life with a whole new vigour.

It is not uncommon that someone like Kafka scribbles a few lines and we spend our whole lives trying to interpret them. The theme of Existentialism was introduced at the start of the discussion, and there is little doubt that this story does have some of the features of the philosophical and literary movement brought on by Sartre and co. Existentialism principally deals with the ‘me-ism’ of ‘myself’, i.e. the way we think of our selves to be unique to us. It is reasoned that the world around us is exactly the way we see it or choose to see, and the importance of science or God is therefore nullified. In fact if tomorrow, we choose to define walking as flying, then that alone makes us qualify as birds! Therefore existentialism stresses the fact that man is the maker of his own destiny. Kafka doesn’t really uphold this particular aspect of Existentialism. In fact, a lone man’s fight against the forces of destiny is also the theme of much of his later work (such as The trial and America) as much as it is of The Metamorphosis, and mostly it is a lost battle.

The Metamorphosis is all about one of those nightmares that you have where everything goes wrong and the only consolation for you is the knowledge that you’re really dreaming. However, what if from one of these dreams you never really wake up? Gregor, as with the dreamers, never really accepted his metamorphosis as a change for eternity. He’d throw it off his mind as a traveling salesmen’s occupational infirmity, nothing more, in fact a condition that will pass from mere rest cure or medical help. But the lack of acceptance of the truth is the reason why Gregor tries to hold out against the adversities for so long. Hence the novel, despite the apparently tragic end is as much about psychology as about hope. Psychology – because it deals with that miraculous mechanism of the human mind, that apparent restraining force that prevents the system from a total breakdown in situations of extreme stress (Gregor slowly acquires greater command over his newly begotten faculties and even tries to amuse himself after a while by hanging from the roof and such). This illustrates Man’s adaptability – the reason why it is sometimes argued that the child of the ghetto fares no worse than the rich kid in the penthouse. And all the while, it can be observed that the metamorphosis brought no greater sorrow to Gregor himself than the rest of the family. And hope – because it concerns the biggest puzzle for philosophers everywhere since the beginning of time – namely, why are we here? The metamorphosis does not choose to answer this question directly but decides to sidestep it. It basically gives out the message that the ‘here’ is really defined in terms of our existence, and the existence part cannot be questioned. However it does shed some light on the question, why it is that we choose to remain here, and the answer is simply because we refuse to acknowledge our own destiny even to our innermost selves. This is the reason we always keep the faith, we marry, multiply and eventually die. It is no secret that our sorrows almost always outnumber our pleasures by a great extent, and yet we choose to keep the farce going! This is what is called hope, and hope is the biggest reason to live.

It is often the case that works of the likes of this are termed allegorical, which in this case seams a rather lame and superficial treatment of the subject matter. Kafka, it is my innermost belief was far too subtle an author to stoop to all that. Gregor’s metamorphosis was real, real as the ground that I walk on! The story also illustrates Kafka’s view of the psychological differences of the human sexes and a certain lack of sympathy in men. The attitude of the father towards Gregor shows the reason why men never stop to ask for directions. They are too wrapped up in their own selves and the pseudo-soundness of their own beliefs to give a damn about others. And it also shows man’s fear of the unknown or things beyond their comprehension. It goes to explain why it is that non-conformists are despised so much, and why in the medieval scientists and heretics were burned at the stake.

All in all, the possibilities it opens up are immense, a reason for its enduring popularity and its immense influence. Indeed, but for Kafka, authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and even J.D. Salinger might never have existed. Kafka died on 3^rd June 1934 at the mere age of 41 leaving behind a legacy so rich that even 41 centuries are far too short to exhaust it.

yours sincerely

jude