Modern European Literature: Research Portfolio of Franz Kafkas The Metamorphosis - Essay Example

? Research Portfolio of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis Biography Franz Kafka, the genius behind The Metamorphosis, was Jewish and was born in Prague in the present Czech Republic in 1883. Although he was engaged many times, he never married and that he lived the life of a loner. The famous modernist writer Kafka was known to have a difficult relationship with his father, which he indicated when he wrote “Letter to His Father,” a letter of honesty when it came to his ill feelings concerning his father (“Notes on The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka”) Kafka took a job at an insurance company after he graduated. He hated this job and although he found a good position in the Workmen’s Accident Insurance Institute, he still thought that his job interfered with his writing career. He became a vegetarian in order to keep himself calm and to protect himself from the effects of his many illnesses, both real and imaginary. He gave up his insurance job because of illness. Finally he died of tuberculosis in 1924 at the age of 40 (“Notes on The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka”). Prominent in every biographical version of Kafka is the fact that he had a difficult time with his father when he was growing up, and that he had traumatic experiences as a youth, and that his father’s domineering nature terrorized him and his life. This is said to have been the psychological reason behind his failure in his engagements. Moreover, the more important thing is that, with his pessimism, “Kafka knows that he can never escape his role as the victim” and that this could be the reason why he was so absorbed in his literature (Fischer). Thus, Kafka used his writing as a means to sublimate his resentment towards his father. Kafka wrote in his letter to his father that he had a troubled relationship with him, while saying that they never really talked openly. Moreover, for Kafka, he believed that “something is wrong between [him and his father], and that [the latter is] partly responsible for it, albeit through no fault of your own” (Kafka 19). This means that although he did not blame his father entirely for having been naturally cruel to him, Kafka believed that his father had influenced him, and that much of what he had become was because of him. Reception According to J. Stephens, the personal life of Franz Kafka is reflected in The Metamorphosis. Based on the story, the relationship that Gregor shared with his father is actually similar to that shared by Franz with Hermann Kafka. In fact, the violence that Gregor experienced as a vermin being thrown apples at by his father is the same as the violence and strict nature of Kafka’s real father. Moreover, the bug or vermin that Gregor Samsa turned into could represent how Kafka felt after being abused by his father. Moreover, The Metamorphosis could only be what Kafka felt or imagined his death would be like (Stephens). On the other hand, according to Wayne Booth, “The narrator in [The Metamorphosis] may be more or less distant from the reader’s own norms, like physical and emotional ones” (Booth 180). This means that the story of The Metamorphosis is actually unique or in a sense “distant” from the usual things that a normal reader usually is engaged in because it presents a transformation of a human being into an insect yet the whole story goes on as any normal human story would and even the transformed Gregor does not notice its own physical transformation. The genre is therefore not physically the same as a normal one with all human or all animal characters. Moreover, the emotional tone of the story also deviates from the traditional norm of sympathy towards a helpless creature, which is actually the family’s son anyway. Instead, the story focuses on the idea that the characters are cruel even to a helpless vermin, especially when Gregor’s father was throwing apples at him. Booth did not explain his statement above but at least his definition of “distant” is not that far from the aforementioned explanation. Hess’ essay, entitled “Gregor’s Legs,” the author asserted that the insect form of Gregor is somehow a result of an emotional or mental disorder. It is like a representation of a “dream-like world, the state of man before he thinks, the part of him that is prehuman and early human” (Hess 61). In short, the vermin-like form is a representation of man’s instincts or instinctual nature. This happened because Gregor may actually be longing for something which is instinctual and that somehow he has been going against his instincts to be greedy and selfish of his time and money, but he has to do a lot of sacrifices for the family and for his job. The pressure in him – which is the pressure to conform to society’s image of a good and responsible son – must have caused his instincts to find a way to make them known to him. Indifferent as he is, perhaps the best way then for the instincts of Gregor to show themselves to him is through his hideous physical transformation into an insect. Hess also pointed out that the transformation of Gregor into a vermin represented a Freudian regression into the phallic stage characterized by Oedipus complex and fixation on the genitals for pleasure or physical gratification. This is evident in the fact that “he feasts on garbage, lives in filth and frightens his family members” (Hess 62). This happens, as the author explains, because of Gregor’s innate need for sexual affection and perhaps the affection of a woman – something that both Gregor in the story and Kafka in real life did not truly have. Moreover, Gregor’s transformation and his regression in a Freudian sense may only be one way for him to elicit love and care from his otherwise uncaring and unloving family (Hess 64). This regression is more or less like the regression that happens among adults and the elderly when they want to receive love and care. In many cases, people naturally get sick whenever they want to elicit affection, love and care from someone like their loved ones. If, therefore the degree of one’s sickness is proportional to the need for love and affection, then Gregor’s transformation into a vermin – which is treated in the novel as a form of illness – is basically an extremely great need for love. Gregor’s physical transformation therefore carried with it the message of a need for love. Unfortunately, his family members were not able to get it. Moreover, Gregor had erotic and incestuous daydreams, and this somehow proves that he has a need for “power” and at the same time a need to control his sister Grete (Hess 63). Nevertheless his incestuous and erotic feelings and daydreams are only a sign not of love but “a quest for dominance” (Hess 63). In fact, according to the author Hess, there are several instances in the story where Gregor seeks power – especially in the fact that he wanted to preserve his position as breadwinner of the family as he in his vermin-like existence struggled to reach the door and get to work. Moreover, the dominance that he feels as a breadwinner and the one that accompanies his incestuous thoughts may actually just be oedipal longings as part of his regression to the phallic stage. In short, Gregor may just be acting with “selfish, child-like behavior and fantasy” as a result of such a psychological regression (Hess 63). However, it is interesting to note that the motivation here this time is not the need for love and affection but for dominance – something that Gregor may not have had through all these years that he was paying the family debts and the rent of the apartment. Dominance is indeed very attractive to people who have been working day and night, without any choice or with very little or no time for themselves anymore. Criticism According to Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is actually a way to “[kill] all metaphor, all symbolism, all signification, no less than all designation” (22). This means that through the use of a metamorphosis of a human being into an insect or an animal, the novel does not suspend the reader in judgment of the resemblance of Gregor with an animal or one living an animal-like existence but that in order to emphasize the gravity of Gregor’s problems and needs for affection as his image of himself, Kafka used a metamorphosis to demonstrate these things. Moreover, through his vermin-like existence, Kafka wants to show the reader how negative such sacrifices are and how negative it is for Gregor to make others dependent on him until the toll takes on him. Moreover, according to the authors used Gregor’s pain and sounds in order to make the reader understand that “language stops being representative in order to now move toward its extremities or its limits” (23). Kafka’s emphasis on the emotion of pain as well as on the sounds created by the vermin itself somehow teaches the reader that language is not enough to reveal emotions and that language is not enough to narrate or describe pain or even how an insect things. For Sokel, in his article “Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’: Rebellion and Punishment,” the physical transformation of Gregor into a vermin could have been a way for him to unconsciously escape responsibility: “We see then that Gregor’s body was beginning to feel the strain of his work too hard to bear when the metamorphosis occurred, [thus] freeing him of any further responsibility” (206). This means that that Gregor may actually only be avoiding work and shirking his responsibilities. Gregor seems to be a diligent man and so he deserves a reward for being that. However, little does the reader know that Gregor himself hates his job so much, and so his unconscious has resulted in such a transformation. The vermin, therefore, is what Gregor really is on the inside, both in truth and possibly in his opinion – lazy and animal-like. In fact, Gregor’s rebellious nature is also evident in his daydreams: “Gregor’s daydream…embraced not only freedom from the job, but also aggressive action against the boss” (Sokel 207). This is evident as he feels “intense anger” when the chief clerk arrives (Sokel 207). However, since he is a vermin now, then Gregor has an excuse for not working. Moreover, in the article “From the patient’s point of view: medical ethics and the moral imagination,” it is stated that one lesson in life that the transformation of Gregor Samsa teaches is “the sort of mistake that we are likely to make when we…are tempted to believe that it is logically possible for one to transpose one’s identity into another being” (Elliot & Elliot 174). Somehow, the transformation of Gregor shows the reader that no one among us in this world can possibly expect himself to completely understand another human being nor can he expect anyone expect to completely understand him. Thus, Gregor actually opens himself and the reader to the sad fact of life – there is no true understanding and that life can be unfair because of that. Moreover, in the story, even as a vermin, Gregor was not able to receive the love and understanding that he somehow unconsciously needed from his family. According to Straus, in her article entitled “Transforming Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis,’” the physical transformation of Gregor into a vermin has implications regarding the kind of society where one is during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. Thus, according to the article, Gregor’s transformation is actually “a parabolic reflection of…self-exposure and self-entombment [and] self-dehumanization” (Straus 651). This means that the society in which The Metamorphosis was written is actually one which is highly materialistic and will therefore dehumanize the individual and spiritually transform him into something similar to a vermin. Moreover, the metamorphosis that Gregor undergoes may be “Kafka’s fantasy of a gender role change” or a typical man’s wish to be a women of his times (Straus 655). Feminism is also an issue during the time that Kafka wrote the novel. Thus, it is possible that Gregor had envied his sister and mother – that although they did not have much responsibility and duty – at least they are loved for who they are, and that they are not put to blame for whatever they did. Conclusion The implications of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis in real life are numerous and are indeed worth mentioning. First, the life of Gregor reflects that of Kafka in real life especially when it comes to father-son relationship. Second, the cruelty of the father towards a helpless vermin is overwhelmingly different from what is instinctual in society, thus life is truly much harder for Gregor than for anyone else. Third, the transformation was a result of instincts showing themselves to Gregor, who has long ignored them. Fourth, the transformation was a regression of Gregor into the phallic stage, which is a time for eliciting love and care. Fifth, the transformation as well as the incestuous thoughts was also a sign of an innate need for dominance. Sixth, the change may actually be a testament to the power of metamorphosis over metaphor and the weakness of language vis-a-vis emotion. Seventh, the transformation may have been a sign of rebellion against the authority of work. Eighth, it is a sign that Gregor has to accept the fact of life that no one can truly understand another nor put himself in another person’s shoes – which translates as an unfair life. Ninth, the transformation of Gregor reflects the self-dehumanizing role of work in a society governed by the industrial age. Lastly, the fact that Gregor turned into a vermin may actually reveal his need for assuming a feminine role, for the women did not have much significance during that time in society. Truly, we learn a lot from Gregor’s physical transformation. Top of Form Bottom of Form Works Cited Booth, Wayne. “Distance and Point-of-View: An Essay in Classification.” 2012. Massey.ac.nz. 1996. Web. 8 Dec 2013. Deleuze, Gilles & Guattari, Felix. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1986. Web. Elliot, Carl & Elliot, Britt. “From the patient’s point of view: medical ethics and the moral imagination.” Journal of Medical Ethics 17 (1991): 173-178. Fischer, Christian. “Writing the Unwritable: Exploring the Difference in Kafka’s Letter to His Father.” The Kafka Project. 2007. Web. 8 Dec 2013. Hess, Karen. “Gregor’s Legs.” Essais. n.d. Web. 7 Dec 2013. Kafka, Franz. Dearest Father. Trans. Hannah & Richard Stokes. Reading, Berkshire: Cox & Wyman Ltd., 1953. Web. “Notes on The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.” Enotes. 2004. Web. 7 Dec 2013. Sokel, Walter H. “Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’: Rebellion and Punishment.” Monatshefte 48:4 (1956): 203-214. Stephens, J. “Franz Kafka’s Personal Life reflected in TheMetamorphosis.” The Kafka Project. 2007. Web. 8 Dec 2013. Straus, Nina Pelikan. “Transforming Franz Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis.’” Signs 14:3 (1989): 651-667. Read More