KAFKA AND METAMORPHOSIS

Who was or is Kafka?

Franz Kafka, an “assimilated” non-believer was born to an ambitious and bullying

shopkeeper and the daughter of a wealthy brewer. Kafka’s ambivalent take on authority- his ability
to respect it, rebel against it and blame himself – seems to come mainly from his strained
relationship with his father , Hermann Kafka. Partly under his father’s influence he pursued law
and became a clerk for an accident insurance office. Kafka was a prolific writer who spent most of
his free time writing but he himself burned 90 percent of his works beacause of selfdoubt and later
on, in his will he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all his works but Brod ignored his
instructions and had much of his works published. The Trial , The Castle , Amerika are some of
Kafka’s celebrated works.

This takes us to our topic of discussion - THE METAMORPHOSIS

‘One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself
transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin’ . Thus begins “The Metamorphosis” published in
1915, cited as one of the seminal works of fiction of the twentienth century. The novella
commences with an unusal beginning , where the readers are inserted into what seems like the
“middle of the story” as it makes us wonder what really happened. Gregor Samsa was a travelling
salesman , after his transformation into a monstrous vermin he was confined within his room . He
now ponders over his job which he characterizes as being full of "temporary and constantly
changing human relationships, which never come from the heart". He toiled day and night as he was
the sole breadwinner of his family and worked hard to pay off his father’s debts. As Gregor now
tries to get hold of himself he realises that his employers had come to check on him and one of them
flees the apartment as they see the ‘vermin Gregor’. Gregor not taking a day off and doing the job
he hates shows how there is no escape from the ‘rat race’. Gregor’s father is now deeply ashamed of
his son who worked like a dog all these years and doesn’t spare a moment in kicking him back into
the room which gets Gregor injured.

Gregor slowly yet reluctantly adpats to his identity. His family keeps him locked as he
is of no use to them , his sister Grete is the only person who is willing to take care of him. Gregor
has now found new pastimes such as crawling across the room so his sister removes the furniture
but keeps the sofa so that he can hide whenever needed. Even though Gregor has come at peace
with his new identity he is still human from within. This is seen as he tries to save the portrait on the
wall of a woman clad in fur but his mother fainted at the sight. Once he followed his sister out of
the room but was immediately chided by his father who threw apples at him . This left him severly
wounded. Gregor’s father becomes the clear depiction of how society treats someone who isn’t
commodious to them anymore. This brings us to the questiotn ; Who are we working this hard for?
Amidst this race of life aren’t we actually forgetting to live? Life is momentary and as unpredictable
as this life is the only thing certain is the end . The crazier part is that we get to decide how to spend
each moment until the ‘end’.

As the story moves forward Gregor is now completely alienated, his family members
had found jobs and increasingly begin to neglect him. They had rented a room of the apartment to 3
male tenants who was not informed about Gregor. One day the charwoman who briefly looks in on
Gregor neglects to close his door fully. Tempted by Grete’s viloin Gregor crawls out of the room
and is met with the tenants . The tenants then leave the apartment complaining of unhygienic
conditions and even threatened to take legal action against the Samsa family. Grete , was now tired
of taking care fo Gregor annd realises his existence to be a burden and further asks her parents to
get rid of “it”. The use of the pronoun ‘it’ shows how Gregor isn’t considered as a living thing
anymore, his futility renders him a burden to the family. Gregor is now aware of the fact that he is
unwanted , he then laboriously takes himself to his room and dies of starvation before sunrise. The
charwoman is the one who discovers Gregor dead and notifies the family and disposes of the
corpse. Gregor receives no honor even in face of death, not as a son, not as a brother, not even as a
human. As the story ends , the Samsa’s take a trip to countryside to look for a smaller house inorder
to save money . The parents realise that even though taking care of Gregor had made Grete paler
she’s still beautiful and that they should find a good husband for her. The story ends with yet
another metamorphosis – of Grete completely opposite to what happened to Gregor.

As Gregor Samsa stuggles to reconcile with his humanity with his transformation,
Kafka weaves his readers into a web that deals with absurdity of existence and the alienating
experience of modern life . The different array of themes here goes over existentialism -What are
we? What is life? Is it just a series of events we must overcome? What is our purpose? Do we
actually need one to live? Or is it just another imprecise ideals of civilisation?
Through "The Metamorphosis," Kafka beckons us to confront the uncomfortable truths
lurking beneath the surface of our everyday existence, urging us to embrace the absurdity of life
with courage and compassion. In the end, Kafka's masterpiece transcends its status as a mere work
of fiction, serving as a timeless testament to the human condition and the enduring power of
literature to illuminate the darkest recesses of our souls.