The metamorphosis - Essay Example

“Notoriously Ambiguous” What Is Vermin In Kafka's The Metamorphosis? The early twentieth century was a time of much upheaval in the Western world. After the Victorian era, and before the tragedy of World War I, modernism began to develop as militarism (sadly, temporarily) declined. It was in the type of environment that Franz Kafka's seminal short story The Metamorphosis evolved. Published in 1915, The Metamorphosis – or Die Verwandlung in its original German – opens with the bald statement that “One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin” (Kafka, 1).

This immediately shows the reader that this novella adheres to the modernist schools of thought, as it reveals an impossible event without even hinting at a reason for it. This motif continues through the story as Kafka refuses to even entertain an explanation for Gregor's horrific transformation. That has not stopped reams of scholars trying to discern, internal to the text, why the protagonist would have undergone such a metamorphosis and why he fails to react with shock to the change. This paper will look at the character development of Gregor, of his family, and the setting, to show that the characteristics of 'vermin' were an appropriate yet strangely ambiguous analogy of early twentieth-century industrious life.

First, however, the implications of that heavily-laden word “vermin” must be considered. The meaning of the original German – Ungeziefer – is slightly different, of course, but even in translation the words used to describe Gregor's transformation is rich in connotation, if “notoriously ambiguous” (Anderson, 78). 'Vermin' denotes multiple small animals or insects, usually disease-ridden or otherwise objectionable, which are commonly found infesting a home or other building much to the dismay of its non-verminous residents.

Their presence is often difficult to control. Examples of vermin are rats, ants, or cockroaches. Although Gregor is a large-bodied individual, as opposed to a small-bodied collective, the rest of this definition serves to externally portray both the protagonist's emotions and his fate. One of the clearest pieces of information that the reader is given about Gregor is that he is unhappy. Although he is “sad” (Kafka, 24) after his transformation, this sadness mostly comes about through other people's reactions to his “revolting form” (21); small snippets of information about his life in a human body reveal that Gregor's mood has barely adjusted in order to match his physical change.

In the first few paragraphs of the novella, as Gregor wonders “what has happened to [him]” (2), his mind turns instead to his hateful job. “It can all go to Hell!” (2) he exclaims, in a pique of rage which reflects the nature of contemporary industry. As a salesman, Gregor must wake up early everyday and work tirelessly at an unfulfilling job. The reader also learns that Gregor only continues to work at his much-loathed job in order to support his family – his boss is a creditor of his parents, and his low wage pays for his parents' and sister's (admittedly sparse) lifestyle.

The lack of mental evolution from Gregor's human to insect self suggests that the metamorphosis had been gradual – that is to say, that Gregor's mental transformation had already happened. Stifled by his work, Gregor had already completed the mental change into a drone-like insect, and the narrative only joins him at the point of his physical metamorphosis. This is borne out by the fact that Gregor's mother can understand his speech for a short while after he changes (3). The vermin takes over his mind and body gradually, before the novella even begins.

His family – mother, father and sister – represent different points of the spectrum of possible reactions to one's family member transforming into a giant insect. Gregor's sister accepts her brother's new form, by attempting to find out what food he likes (13); his mother holds out hope that her son will one day return as human (17); and his father completely rejects the new Gregor, even permanently (though unintentionally) disabling his son by throwing an apple at him (20). However, all of them are somewhat repulsed by the “horrible vermin” (1), and in the end none of them grieve his actual death.

It is as if his family see Gregor's physical metamorphosis as his death, but are too preoccupied to grieve him fully then because of their new-found financial worries. Taken as a whole, the family's reaction to Gregor's transformation makes this story one of triumph over grief and loss. It answers the question of “what if you could watch your loved ones grieve for you?” Gregor's parents and sister initially struggle to survive without him to provide for them, but the novella ends with the realization that “all three had jobs which were very good and held particularly good promise for the future” (32).

Although our protagonist suffers and dies, the novella ends with the remaining family members taking a stroll and reflecting on how much easier their lives will be now they are rid of their son and brother the beetle. Gregor's unhappiness and negativity clearly had a detrimental effect on family life; he enables his family to not exert themselves in physical labor to support themselves, which has a surprisingly bad influence on everyone. His is an inadvertent position, to be sure – he only works (at his specific job, at least) to pay off a debt his parents had been otherwise unable to resolve.

But for some reason, once Gregor loses his capability to work, the debt miraculously disappears. The Metamorphosis is, in this sense, almost an idealized agricultural novel such as those penned by Thomas Hardy – Gregor's industriousness is set in sharp and detrimental relief to the age-old earners of sewing and taking in lodgers, to which his family have to resort. Perhaps the title 'metamorphosis' refers not to Gregor, but to his family. Gregor's personification is telling of contemporary working conditions – the freshly unified country of Germany was obviously a culture which demanded more of its workers than they could give.

Over the previous century, Germany had been highly militarized, with Bismarck in particular leading the nation in war against war against other European countries. In this lull after the conflicts of the nineteenth century and before World War I, modern Germany was a gray, dismal and dingy place. Gregor describes the view from his bedroom window as “austere” (9). As the home of Gregor the vermin, early twentieth century Germany comes across as a very unpleasant place to live. It is not just the nature of Gregor's new body which is “notoriously ambiguous” (Anderson, 78).

As a 'vermin', it is true, his outer shell reflects his internal feelings – the callousness with which his family treats him is manipulated into something bigger when his form turns into something truly repulsive. This can almost be seen as the same kind of self-destructive rebellion evident in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's earlier story The Yellow Wallpaper (1892) (Gallagher, 125). But the very title is ambiguous – is the metamorphosis, as a positive word usually associated with rebirth, Gregor's obvious change, or his family's more subtle one?

Kafka leaves this, and many other questions in the text, cleverly open, so that The Metamorphosis can be a tale of grief, of succumbing, or even of the damning nature of modern industry. Works Cited Anderson, Mark. “Sliding Down The Evolutionary Ladder? Aesthetic Autonomy in The Metamorphosis.” In Harold Bloom. Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2008. Print. Gallagher, David. Metamorphosis: Transformations of the Body and the Influence of Ovid's Metamorphoses on Germanic Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries.

Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi, 2009. Print. Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Trans. David Wyllie. ProjectGutenberg. ProjectGutenberg.com. August 16, 2005. Accessed May 20, 2011. Web.