Worthless Work And Meaningless Lives In Kafkas - Essay Example

Worthless Work and Meaningless Lives in Kafka’s (1915) “The Metamorphosis” and Sillitoe’s (1959) “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” December 8, 2015 Worthless Work and Meaningless Lives in Kafka’s (1915) “The Metamorphosis” and Sillitoe’s (1959) “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” When people complain that they are stuck in the rat race, working to make other people rich and living to buy things to impress others, their concerns are not at all different from Gregor Samsa of Kafka’s (1915) “The Metamorphosis” and Smith of Sillitoe’s (1959) “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner.” Samsa woke up as an insect, and realized how empty his life was. Smith, though younger than Samsa, had an early understanding of how the rich controlled society, so that the lower class would remain chained to work all their lives. These are short stories about two men, who have opened their eyes to the pointlessness of work, in specific, and human life, in general. Samsa and Smith show the worthlessness of work that is centered on money and following social expectations, which makes life meaningless in the absence of loving human relationships and autonomy. Samsa was bored with his job, a job that made him feel worthless because he felt no meaning in his everyday work duties; however, he must continue because of his social role as his family’s breadwinner. Samsa complained of being a salesman that made him stay “[d]ay in, day out on the road” and where he experienced the “stresses of trade [that] are much greater than the work going on at head office,” and having to deal “with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart” (Kafka, 1915, p. 4). He criticized the monotony of his work, where he did not enjoy his daily tasks and could not have enough time and energy to form close and happy social relationships. In addition, Samsa complained of waking early for work, when the rest of his peers did not. He worked hard, yet he felt poor, since he was forced to work more to pay off his parent’s debts and to support his family’s daily needs. Samsa felt complete boredom from work, but the demands of his social roles and responsibility as a man and as a son pushed him to work every day. Samsa gave his all to his company, but got nothing back significant in return but more work and less time to enjoy life. Like Samsa, Smith believed that work was not meaningful, but something made up to keep the working-class busy, so that the rich could remain lazy and wealthy. Work itself was not meaningful because the rich had the authorities to monitor movements and ensure that people worked as usual. When Smith talked to the Borstal governor, he described his “lily-white workless hands” in opposite to his shabby “shimmy and shorts” that he used when he ran around for practice (Sillitoe, 1959, p. 3). In other words, the elite did nothing to get rich, while the lower class worked hard every day to merely survive. In addition, Smith described that the authorities were meant to check on the lower class. The police are “all on the watch for Outlaw blokes like [him] and [them, the lower class]-and waiting to phone for the coppers as soon as [the poor] make a false move” (Sillitoe, 1959, p. 4). He is saying that the lower class had no meaningful work, when they did it for the sake of the rich. Smith criticized the role of work in a society that only increased the gap between the rich and the poor. In connection to pointless work, Samsa learned how meaningless life was because he based it on the philosophy of living to work, and not working to live. For just one day that he did not come to work, his boss sent the manager to find out what happened. Samsa thought: “The boss would […] cut short all objections with the insurance doctor’s comments; for him everyone was completely healthy but really lazy about work” (Kafka, 1915, p. 6). His thoughts reflect the general sentiment of his class- that they only lived to work, and that doing so has tired many of them enough to want to stop working. Furthermore, Samsa learned that life was meaningless because, after working for his family and then losing his job, he was suddenly unimportant to them. His own mother could not even look at him. Apparently, they only valued him as a breadwinner, and not as a dependent. The story shows how Samsa becomes a symbolic insect because of the dehumanizing process of living in a materialistic world. He did not deeply connect to his family and other people anymore because of the pressures from working. He also sacrificed his life for them, but they did not value him anymore when he stopped giving them money. Life becomes meaningless when it is based on working and living for money only. Smith felt the same way too, that life was meaningless because of worthless work. Work is supposed to give people a sense of achievement and autonomy. Smith said he only felt happy when he was running far and alone: “And this long-distance running lark is the best of all, because it makes [him] think so good that [he learns] things even better than when [he’s on his] bed at night” (Sillitoe, 1959, p. 4). He saw himself as a lark that has freedom and power to become what it is meant to be. He even had freedom to think while running, which he believed was something so many others lost because of their daily hard work. In addition, running gave Smith a sense of identity, as he controlled his running and felt confident that he would win: “And apart from that, what with thinking so much while [he’s] running [he’s] getting to be one of the best runners in the Borstal. [He] can go [his] five miles round better than anybody else [he knows]” (Sillitoe, 1959, p. 5). Running provided him reason to live by having reason to improve himself. These feelings of freedom and meaning were not present in his normal life. Smith reflected on the meaningless of living for people like him who had no real freedom in an authoritarian society. He said that he felt “like the last man in the world” because “all those three hundred sleepers behind me are dead” (Sillitoe, 1959, p. 3). He added: “They sleep so well I think that every scruffy heads kicked the bucket in the night…” (Sillitoe, 1959, p. 3). Smith is saying that they are dead because they do not want to see the meaninglessness of their lives. They would rather be blind and numb by going through their ordinary lives. Samsa and Smith are two lonely people because of their awareness for the worthlessness of working. Their stories show that, if people devote most of their life working and if working is pointless, then life is meaningless too. Life is meaningless because people live to work and for money. They are insects with no humanity. They are dogs too to the upper class who control their lives through tiresome work and through the authorities. Samsa and Smith found no happiness in these realizations, only bitterness for society that used and dehumanized them. References Kafka, F. (1915). “The metamorphosis.” Planet Pdf. Retrieved from http://history-world.org/The_Metamorphosis_T.pdf Sillitoe, A. (1959). The loneliness of the long distance runner. New York: First Vintage. Read More