Metamorphosis

To help you understand the context the story was written in, I've included here some background information that helps explain, in part, both the ideas circulating in culture (the zeitgeist, to use the German word) of the period, and their representation in the story.

First, a quick note on Germany's influence on Kafka. While technically a Czechoslovakian living for most of his life in the capital city of Prague, Kafka was raised in a German-speaking household and went to German schools. Part of what was then called the Austro-Hungarian empire, Czechoslovakia had a large population of transplanted Germans who, while they assimilated to some degree into Czech society, maintained their ties to the fatherland through language and culture. Ernst Pawel, one of the best biographers of Kafka, points out that there was a "wholehearted, not to say blind, commitment to German culture on the part of Prauge's German -- and especially German-Jewish -- minority" (214). This commitment manifested itself in Kafka's abiding love for German literature, and his abiding interest in German culture.

The story was written in 1912, on the cusp of the first war to end all wars, World War I, and premonitions of the impending conflict are found in the theme of authority in the story. The genesis of the war, in part, is based on German aspirations for power. At the turn of the century, the clear world power was Great Britain: it was said that "the sun never set on the British Empire" because of its colonial outposts flung all around the world. However, as the 20th century dawned, Germany was becoming more prosperous and wanted to become a bigger player on the world stage. Unfortunately, nations typically assert their dominance through war. What's interesting in the story is not any hidden references to the coming war; instead the belligerence of war makes its appearance in a cultural fashion. The strictures of war mean that control over the individual is more pronounced and even welcomed by the people. Any dissent is quickly, often violently, crushed. The cultural ethos of Germany, with its tendency to fall under the sway of a strong leader or authority figure, fed into the government's desire for war. Adolf Eichmann, henchman for Hitler, wrote the following comments for his autobiography: "Obeying an order was the most important thing to me. . . .It could be that is in the nature of the German." "Now that I look back . . . I realize that a life predicated on being obedient and taking orders is a very comfortable life indeed. Living in such a way reduces to a minimum one's own need to think" (qtd. in "Eichmann" 2). While in part a self-serving excuse for his role in the Holocaust, this also points to a the desire in the German culture to abide by the rules, and to look to and obey authority figures. In "The Metamorphosis" this love of authority is exhibited both by the images of dominance and control associated with Gregor's job, and the relationship between him and his father.

This relationship is also colored by the views of the prevailing psychological theorist of the time, Sigmund Freud. His Interpretation of Dreams had been published just twelve years before the story was written, and in Europe, his ideas and views on life, particularly family dynamics, were widely disseminated. While it's often difficult to discern the degree to which any outside influences affected a particular writer, Kafka left a paper trail making clear his connection to the psychologist and thinker. Writing about "The Judgement" (a story about a surreal and antagonistic conflict between a father and son) two months before he composed "Metamorphosis," he noted in his diary "Thoughts about Freud of course." Freud is perhaps best known for his theory of the Oedipal Conflict, which suggests that the tensions between a father and son are based on unconscious and unresolved incestuous desires. Another Freudian idea displayed in the story is the struggle between the id (the instinctive, irrational unconscious mind), the ego (the rationalized, conscious mind), and the superego (the mind's use of extrinsic cultural and social forces that suppress the id and foster altruistic actions). On these and other levels, the story can be read almost as a casebook on Freudian tendencies. While it is possible to read too much Freud into this, or any work, the predominance of Freudian views make it a fruitful area of study.

Moving from science to ethics, the philosophy of existentialism, was prominent among European writers and thinkers from the early 1900s to the second World War. In "The Metamorphosis," it plays an important role in the alienation of the Gregor. In short, existentialism is the belief that man is alone and free in an indifferent and often cruel world. While this view can be exhilarating -- you are responsible for your own existence and can shape it as you may -- for many writers, it signifies the absurdity of any attempt at action: in the long run, all is futile. This leads to a sense of alienation because it makes each person, to borrow the time-worn phrase, an island, a world apart and separate from others. Obviously, such a belief can lead to feelings of loneliness and isolation, which, in turn, can lead to alienation. It is this more pessimistic view that is on display in "The Metamorphosis." Or is it? You folks can decide if Gregor's actions are ultimately pessimistic or fulfilling.

From an aesthetic point of view, the story fits in with two movements, one specific and one more general, that were changing the way serious artists articulated their ideas. German Expressionism, a movement which flowered from the turn of the century until the end of WWI, saw painters and sculptors using distortion or heavily stylized techniques to express their own personal visions of reality. For some, it was an attempt to limn the unconscious and depict the raw, unfiltered perceptions that lay there. A conscious break from the more representational art of the previous century, these artists delighted in exaggeration or, more bluntly outrageousness, because only then, or so they believed, could they penetrate the deep layer of apathy, ennui, or more simply complacency, that deadened the public's sensibilities. Edvard Munch's "The Scream" (below) is the most obvious example of this.

A symbol of the hopeless response to the despair facing modern man, this iconic image, with its distorted, cadaverous figure issuing a silent scream to a barren landscape, is an apt symbol of the alienation facing modern man.

In a similar fashion, Egon Schiele's garishly colored and distorted "Self Portrait" (right) reflects the sense of self-loathing that permeates Gregor's thoughts in "The Metamorphosis." Read with these art movements in mind, the distortion and exaggerations in the story are meant, like the paintings of the German Expressionists, to depict Kafka's view of reality and to jolt the reader out of complacency and into a direct connection with art.

More broadly, German Expressionism fit into the Modernist movement, which rebelled against the prevailing bourgeois ethos. Kafka and other modernists revolted against the middle-class notions of propriety and sense of moral superiority by refusing to conform to their expectations. In an 1904 letter to Oskar Pollak, Kafka sets out his aesthetic of literature, an aesthetic which mirrors the modernist intention to shock the audience:

Thus, in "The Metamorphosis," his experiments with point of view, plot and characterizations, as well as his conception of reality, which apparently included rather startling transformations (and the odd, unsettlingly casual manner with which they are accepted) amount to a thumb in the eye of convention. This story is not Chicken Soup for the Soul.

All of these elements, along with the X factor -- the genius of the artist -- are part of the background of this challenging work. Feel free to look for ironic and black humor as well.

Modernism: A general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant‐garde trends in the literature (and other arts) of the early 20th century, including Symbolism , Futurism , Expressionism , Imagism , Vorticism , Ultraismo, Dada , and Surrealism , along with the innovations of unaffiliated writers. Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th‐century traditions and of their consensus between author and reader: the conventions of realism , for instance, were abandoned by Franz Kafka and other novelists, and by expressionist drama, while several poets rejected traditional metres in favour of free verse . Modernist writers tended to see themselves as an avant‐garde disengaged from bourgeois values, and disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles. In fiction, the accepted continuity of chronological development was upset by Joseph Conrad , Marcel Proust , and William Faulkner , while James Joyce and Virginia Woolf attempted new ways of tracing the flow of characters' thoughts in their stream‐of‐consciousness styles. In poetry, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot replaced the logical exposition of thoughts with collages of fragmentary images and complex allusions . Luigi Pirandello and Bertolt Brecht opened up the theatre to new forms of abstraction in place of realist and naturalist representation.

Modernist writing is predominantly cosmopolitan, and often expresses a sense of urban cultural dislocation, along with an awareness of new anthropological and psychological theories. Its favoured techniques of juxtaposition and multiple point of view challenge the reader to reestablish a coherence of meaning from fragmentary forms. In English, its major landmarks are Joyce's Ulysses and Eliot's The Waste Land (both 1922 ). In Hispanic literature the term has a special sense: modernismo denotes the new style of poetry in Spanish from 1888 to c.1910 , strongly influenced by the French Symbolists and Parnassians and introduced by the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío and the Mexican poet Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera . For a fuller account, consult Peter Childs , Modernism (2nd edn, 2007 ).

"modernism." The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Ed. Chris Baldick. Oxford University Press, 2008. Oxford Reference Online. Web. 13 November 2010.

The German word for debt, "schuld," also mean guilt and self-hatred -- which makes it easy to understand why Germany has one of the lowest rates of credit default in the western world.

"Eichmann, in Memoirs, Tries to Explain His Psyche." New York Times, 15 August 1999, sec. 4: 2.

Pawel, Ernst. The Nightmare of Reason: A Life of Franz Kafka. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1984.

1. How does Kafka show Gregor is alienated from his family, society, and his co-workers? Be prepared to cite specific quotes
2. Compare the cartoon with the story itself. In particular, look at the reactions of the boss in the cartoon and the reactions of the family. Look for similarities.
3. Why does Gregor turn into "monstrous vermin"? Consider the connotation of the words.
4. How does Kafka characterize the family? Look, especially, at the descriptions surrounding the first time each character is introduced.
5. Compare the first line of the Bantam edition with the version in your Norton anthology and consider which one is better and why.
6. Describe Grete's treatment of Gregor in each of the sections. How does it change? Some critics have called this a story, not about Gregor, but about the family -- could this be true? How? Do they change as well? How?
7. Trace Gregor's adaptation to his new body (find at least three examples -- a hint to start p. 17). Does he accept his fate? Why? What does this suggest about humans identifying/adapting to their circumstances?
8. Why is Gregor so upset about Grete and his mother clearing his room? What had he been "on the verge of forgetting" (32)? Why does he want to keep the cut out of the girl (what would Freud -- who Kafka read -- say about her and Gregor's actions)?
9. Does Gregor just give up and die (see 51)? Does this fit in with his character? Why or why not? Could he be considered a sacrificial lamb? How?
10. What is the mood of the final paragraph of the story? Consider the setting and the actions of the characters? What words and actions suggest this? What is Kafka suggesting, by their feelings towards their dead son, about the ultimate fate of humans in society?

I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn't shake us awake like a blow on the skull, why bother reading it in the first place? So that it can make us happy, as you put it? Good God, we'd be just as happy if we had no books at all; books that make us happy we could, in a pinch, also write ourselves. What we need are books that hit us like a most painful misfortune, like the death of someone we loved more than we love ourselves, that make us feel as though we had been banished to the woods, far from any human presence, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is what I believe.

How does the story support this idea? How does it "bite and sting"? How is it an "axe"?

Goldstein, Bluma. "Bachelors and Work: Social and Economic Conditions in 'The Judgment,' 'The Metamorphosis' and 'The Trial'." The Kafka Debate. Ed. Angel Flores. New York: Gordian Press, 1977. 147-175. Print.

"money became the alienated character of the relationship with the family -- with money Gregor kept the family fed and quiet, idle and dependent, a gathering of vegetating subhuman beings" (Goldstein 156).

"His entire existence as a worker and person reflects the total disaffirmation of human beings: the disaffirmation of their great creative potential, their productive inner resources and actual talents, their vital relations with other people and with their environment, of the possibility of community and commitment to creating a human life for themselves and others" (Goldstein 158).

From a conversation with Gustov Janouch while looking at an illustration by George Grosz:

K. "That is the familiar view of Capital -- the fat man in a top hat squatting on the money of the poor."

K. "You say 'only!' In people's thoughts the allegory becomes an image of reality, which is naturally a mistake. But the error already exists here."

K. "I would not say that. It is both true and false. It is true only in one sense. It is false, in that it proclaims this incomplete truth to be the whole truth. The fat man in the top hat sits on the necks of the poor. That is correct. The fat man oppresses the poor man within the conditions of a given system. But he is not that system. He is not even its master. On the contrary, the fat man is also in chains, which the picture does not show. The picture is not complete. For that reason it is not good. Capitalism is a system of dependencies, which go from the inside out and from the outside to in, from above to below, and from below to above. All is dependent, all stands in chains. Capitalism. Capitalism is a condition both of the world and of the soul"

K. "I don't know. In any case we Jews are not painters. We cannot depict things tactically. We see them always in transition, in movement, as change. We are story-tellers" (qtd. in Goldstein 157).

Sokel, Walter H. "From Marx to Myth: The Structure and Function of Self-Alienation in Kafka's ‘Metamorphosis'." The Metamorphosis. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. 105-116. Print.

"his vermin existence as such embodies exploitation as the essence of human relations. By embodying parasitism in his shape, Gregor objectifies the guilt of his entire society. This guilt had originally shown itself in his father when he secretly cheated his son and furtively put aside his son's earnings to form 'a modest capital' Reversing their roles, the son now becomes exploitation in its most honest clearly visible form . . . . Gregor literally becomes what his father had committed in stealthily performed acts" (Sokel 111).

Eggenschwiler, David. "'Die Verwandlung, Freud, and the Chains of Odysseus." The Metamorphosis. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. 71-93. Print.

In a 1917 notebook entry, K. wrote "Psychology is the description of the reflection of the terrestrial world in the heavenly plane, or, more correctly, the description of a reflection much as we, soaked as we are in our terrestrial nature, imagine it, for no reflection actually occurs, only we see the earth wherever we turn" (qtd. in Eggenschwiler 73).

"the metamorphosis symbolizes a rebellious assertion of unconscious desires and energies, the primitive and infantile demands of the id" (Eggenschwiler 75).

Two months before writing M. K. wrote in his diary, "Love between brother and sister -- the repeating of the love between mother and father" (qtd. in Eggenschwiler 89).

Greenberg, Martin. "Gregor Samsa and Modern Spirituality." The Metamorphosis. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1988. 19-35. Print.

"precisely as a noisome outcast from the human world Gregor feels the possibility of relief, of final relief. Only as an outcast does he sense the possibility of an ultimate salvation rather than just a restoration of the status quo" (Greenberg 28).

"This metamorphosis is a path to the spiritual rather than the bestial" (Greenberg 33).

"nobody sentences Gregor to his death in life except himself. His ultimate death, however, his death without redemption, is from hunger for the unknown nourishment he needs. What kills Gregor is spiritual starvation" (Greenberg 33).

Thiher, Allen. Franz Kafka: A Study of the Short Fiction. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1990.

"as Kafka's letters to Milena make clear, he had trouble seeing sexual attraction as anything other than a defilement of the wholeness of being. But sexuality is all-persuasive in Kafka's work. It is a kind of snare that no Kafkan hero avoids, or perhaps really wants to avoid, as one sees in the entanglements that Eros creates in terms as varied as 'The Judgement' or The Castle. Eros threatens the desire to move on and stay in motion" (Thiher 27-28)