The Metamorphosis [novella]

A classic in the sense that it is actually incredibly well-written and fundamentally challenges how we see ourselves and society. Many (Marx among them) have written about how money alienates human beings from themselves and others, and in this book, we see it play out in a highly-realistic way. Although I'd been meaning to read it for a while, it was finally recommended to me by an 18-year-old student of mine who speaks English as a second language - that should tell you enough about who is capable of understanding this book. This will enrich your life and your book collection.

The opening chapter of this was very chilling and uncomfy because ew, bugs… but it was honestly a tragic story. It was kinda cooked how waking up as a bug his first thought was “i’m late to work, how do i make it in time?”

It felt almost like an allegory for sudden onset severe disfigurement/disability (whether accident induced or caused by some kind of medical issue) due to the way his family found it difficult to tend to his new needs, could barely even look at him, and eventually they became lazy about it. From what I can gather (although I’ve never experienced the kind of disability i described or had a close loved one go through that kind of thing) usually it probably starts with one or a few of the family members tending show more to the disabled person’s needs, like how Greta is willing to feed her brother and bravely enter his room where his mother would have fainted, but it eventually gets tiring for people to support this person and in the worse cases (of which i think the story about the family member who turned i to a giant beetle/bug is probably the biggest shock to a family dynamic that could ever happen) they become lazy like Greta, and stop being as attentive.

Of course, I may be reading too far into the application of the story, but it does highlight a lot of the difficulties of assisting a family member who requires lots of support and attention much like Gregor; minus the many legs and exoskeleton.

Overall, very eerie and weird, and eventually tragic but also beautiful to see how the family has grown to be far more functional even though they lost Gregor. Before Gregor became a bug, he was working to earn money for the benefit of the household. By the end, his father, mother and sister are all earning good money and working hard, as well as showing love and care to one another in a way they never would have dreamt of before Gregor’s metamorphosis. show less

This story, in the translation I got, was fifty-five pages. I could have read five hundred pages of it. This has proven to be the highlight of the reading year for me, and it's not close. Finished in one afternoon, and all I want to do is restart it tomorrow and read it all again.

The storytelling is quick and avoids all the crap meant to draw out a longer piece. This story is the perfect length. There isn't a page that was unnecessary. The plot is fast paced and has high stakes like I've never seen. The exposition is brilliant, and I can't quite figure out why. But in a matter of one or two pages, I had fallen in love with every character and felt despair at the plight of Gregor Samsa.

The theme of the story is amazing as well. Over the show more course of the story, you see how hard Gregor worked for his family in the past. He entered into a field he hated after going to college and joining the military, to pay off his father's debts. He travels most days of the year for work and is rarely home. He had kept this up for a while and was prepared to work even harder to send his sister to college. However, when the roles were forced to reverse, Gregor's family refused to do the same for him. It only took months for them to give up on him, knowing he was still a member of their family, despite his grotesque form. It is heartbreaking and breathtaking. show less

Kafka's quintessential novella about transformation and alienation can be read as allegory for many worldly things, but none seem to me more fitting than that of depression's ability to turn a man into a creature; something friends and family come to regard with pity or disgust. There's a dry humor at parts but the ultimate conclusion feels like Shakespearian tragedy in this light.

When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect.

This is one of the most famous opening lines in literature, and the general concept of The Metamorphosis, which hovers on the borderline of being a short story or a novella, is one of literature’s most famous and fascinating stories. No explanation is given for Gregor Samsa’s terrible fate; he and his family must simply endure it. Almost the entire novella takes place within the Samsa family’s apartment, and over a mere 61 pages Kafka develops an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia, alienation and sheer misery at the unjustness of the world.

This is a book many students are forced to read in high school, probably show more because of its short length, like The Great Gatsby, with no consideration for the fact that high school students probably aren’t yet equipped to appreciate the themes it explores (again like The Great Gatsby). There are dozens if not hundreds of scholarly interpretations as to what The Metamorphosis is allegorising; mental illness and depression are popular ideas. If I had to throw my hat into the ring I’d suggest it’s about the struggles of adulthood, the sometimes crushing sense of responsibility, the loss of innocence; much is made of the fact that Gregor, in his early twenties, has been working as a salesman to support his recently impoverished family, and following his transformation his inability to work and provide for them leaves him with a terrible sense of guilt. On the very morning of the metamorphosis the head clerk arrives from his office, demanding to know why he has not turned up for work, and it’s almost a scene of black comedy as Gregor attempts to leave the bed and open the door, to reassure his superior that he is fit and able and enthusiastic. The fact that he has turned into a monster is of secondary concern to his job security.

This particular edition has a couple of Kafka’s other short stories at the back, presumably because the publisher wanted to pad the length out. None of them struck me as particularly memorable. The Metamorphosis, on the other hand, deserves its status as a literary classic – an enduring symbol of alienation in human society. show less

There are a number of ways of looking at the Metamorphosis, but I like to see it as an allegory which represents the slippery slope of tempered justice. In the elementary example of a child who breaks her grandmother's vase and hides the shards under the rug on a fearful impulse, how easy it is for one to neglect one's morals and resolve to cover up one's wrongdoing. And once this has been done, would it not be too farfetched to say it would be easy for the child then to lie about the vase's whereabouts when questioned about it, and thus dive further down the rabbit hole of sin? We often treat justice the same way, especially when our reputations or egos are threatened. Guilt may keep us at bay for a while, but time and familiarity are show more the greatest killers of one's conscience, and eventually it disappears altogether. (potential spoiler) This is the kind of creeping normality which happens to Gregor Samsa's family, and it is what causes them to squash the bug at last and be done with it. show less

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-metamorphosis-by-franz-kafka/

Well known, fascinating and awful; the story of a man who ceases to be a man, who finds that humanity, including his close family, collectively turns its back on him. Does his transformation represent disability? Sexual identity? Mental illness? Something else entirely? It doesn’t matter in a way; the writing is mesmerising.

It’s also thoroughly infused with a spirit of place. Kafka comprehensively conveys the feeling of those central European apartment blocks which you will find in Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Bratislava, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and dozens if not hundreds of other towns and cities throughout the former Habsburg Empire. And you really feel that you are in the show more city, with its trams, bureaucracy and social structure.

It’s a short story, but it packs a heck of a punch. show less