Ashley Edmonds

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

A Modest Metamorphosis







"If Kafka's “The Metamorphosis” strikes anyone as something more than an entomological fantasy, then I congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and great readers…for we can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss "(Vladimir Nabokov). Far be it for us to quibble with Nabokov. But agree, with each reader brings different minds which can fabricate different ideas and views of Franz Kafka’s tedious, although clever, fantasy of wordplay. For, literature is only an art that is perceived on an open canvas as the portrayer sees. For we are all interpreters, and media inspires everyone differently. At first the long drawn out melancholy words, sentence after sentence, of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis reeked of monotone as I read. However, after a little background research and a second read through the sadness of Gregor’s experience spewed from the pages. Soon my mind raced with images and then music. Modest Mouse’s “Doing the Cockroach” soon filled in the background of my mind.

In “The Metamorphosis” Gregor discusses his dread of his jobs duties. He explains the,
“worries about making train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them” (Kafka 4). Gregor longs for days to sleep in and not have to worry about the traveling world. As he awakes one morning Gregor finds all of his salesman troubles have diapered. However, he is now transformed into a beetle.

As I read through these lines Modest Mouse “Doing the Cockroach” first came to mind. Modest Mouse, a folk band from the 90’s, are known for their awkward keyed lyrics and underlining messages. In “Doing the Cockroach” Modest Mouse sings about how we are all as worthless as a cockroach.
“This one's a doctor
This one's a lawyer
This one's a cash fiend
taking your money
Tasty but worthless” (Modest Mouse)
I believe they are relaying that no mater you job or power aren’t we all miserable just riding the train of life, trying to make it day by day to get by.

I decided to mash up the two for the obvious reasons. One, both suggest the main character in a beetle of some sort. Two, on a deeper level, both to me tells a story about society and how we as people go along with what we are told or expected to do. Finally, I feel “Doing the Cockroach” is a perfect companion to Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”.


Work Cited 

  •  Nabokov, Vladimir. “Lecture on "The Metamorphosis" by Vladimir Nabokov” Kafka.org. The Kafka Project, 6 January 2012. Web. 31 May 2012
  •  Kafka , Franz. The Metamorphosis. Tribeca Books, 1915.

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Metamorphosis

 

  ("There is at this moment a beetle the size of god's ass on the table about six inches from the t-writer. It is worse than anything Kafka ever dreamed, so big I can see its eyes and the hair on its legs — Jesus, suddenly it leaped off and now circles me with a menacing whir")




At first the long drawn out melancholy words, sentence after sentence, of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis reeked of monotone as I read. However, after a little background research and a second read through the sadness of Gregor’s experience spewed from the pages. At a deeper look and a little persuasion from Barry Creamer, a ministry blogger from Criswell College, it became apparent that Gregor’s misfortune and misery was in fact a reflection of Franz Kafka’s :
The Metamorphosis is in the realization that Gregor himself is Kafka’s prodigal—the prodigal who never “comes to himself,” never seeks help, never turns back, and never experiences the warm embrace of life-, purpose-, and for-giving grace in the arms of his true father or family. For genuine existentialists those experiences are as unrealistic as the love of Kafka’s father was (or appeared to be) to him. (That same sadness is mirrored by the family’s relief at Gregor’s loss rather than persistent pursuit of his restoration.) (Creamer) With this it can be assumed that Kafka portrays similar aspect of his own metamorphosis in his analogous story.

As a young man in the 1900’s Kafka inexplicably resembled Gregor in The Metamorphosis as the weary saddened dung beetle. Kafka too found himself pressured by his lethargic and indifferent father to provide stability for his family. While growing up in the bureaucratic wasteland of Prague, Kafka described his town as broad modern streets of dreams, disguised with traces of the old ghetto, with its dreary alleys, reeking taverns, ubiquitous corruption to be more real than the palpable for the residents of the new city (Sokel). During his time in Prague Kafka was faced with the infant death of two brothers and constant moving that would soon send young Kafka into a state of instability. Both Hermann Kafka (father) and Julia Kafka (mother) were industrious people and instilled the necessity of work to Kafka at an early age. Although, Kafka did exceptionally well in his jobs, first at the Assicurazioni Generali, an Italian insurance company, and later with the Worker's Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia,  he often took long time off as an escape from fear of becoming just another pencil pusher (Wiki).  During his time off Kafka tried several attempts to purse his writing, but was shattered by his father when he wanted him to take charge of his brother-in-law Karl Hermann's asbestos factory, which took up a lot of his time until 1917 (when it was shut down) and literally almost drove him to suicide. (Wiki)

In  "The Metamorphosis" the latter Gregor spends his days pressed up against the window staring out onto the gray, contemplating thoughts of his earlier days. Gregor soon begins to fit the role as the unfit beetle, pondering over the meaning of his existence.
“Then he crept up on the window sill and, braced on the chair, leaned against the window to look out, obviously with some memory or other of the satisfaction which looking out the window used to bring him in earlier times.”  (Franz Kafka)
As a direct reflection of Gregor, Kafka in his depressed years at the firm was also known to have spent endless hours gazing out his bedroom window contemplating his purpose.
Kafka also developed early in life an inordinate sense of guilt. The idea of the insolubility of the most ordinary, even human problems depressed his youth and later inspired his art, Gregor in “The Metamorphosis” (Phillip Rahv 62).

Inevitably, when comparing Kafka’s life struggles of his time, with those of Gregor, the distressed insect, the similarity of the two are evident. This could be assumed as an arguable result of the unstable and depressed ethnicity Franz Kafka lived in. During his time he faced numerous hardships and obstacles that a young Jewish man went through in those times.


 
Work Cited

  • Barry Creamer. “The Prodigal Son Parable” 2012. Criswell College. 24 May 2012 Web
  • Wikipedia. “Franz Kafka” 2012. Wikipedia. 24 May 2012 Web
  • Sokel, Walter. “Franz Kafka as a Jew” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 18.1 (2012): 233-238.Web
  • Rahv, Phillip. “Franz Kafka: The Hero As Lonely Man” The Kenyon Review. 1.1 (1939): 60-74.Web
  • Kafka , Franz. The Metamorphosis. Tribeca Books, 1915.

Friday, June 1, 2012

The Metamorphosis Decades Apart


"If Kafka's “The Metamorphosis” strikes anyone as something more than an entomological fantasy, then I congratulate him on having joined the ranks of good and great readers…for we can take the story apart, we can find out how the bits fit, how one part of the pattern responds to the other; but you have to have in you some cell, some gene, some germ that will vibrate in answer to sensations that you can neither define, nor dismiss "(Vladimir Nabokov). Far be it for us to quibble with Nabokov. But agree, with each reader brings different minds which can fabricate different ideas and views of Franz Kafka’s tedious, although clever, fantasy of wordplay. For, literature is only an art that is perceived on an open canvas as the portrayer sees. For instance one artist, Carlos Atanes, an underground filmmaker, adapted in his 1994 “The Metamorphosis of Franz Kafka”; which entwines, loosely, the original story with Kafka’s reality. However, both tails circulate around one meaning Why do we exist? What does the transformation of Gregor Samsa symbolize? However, when inquired in different decades the meaning takes on a different sense.

In the original text, “The Metamorphosis”, Kafka paints a scene based out of a dying Central European town in 1912. Based on the speculation that Kafka portrays similar aspect of his own metamorphosis in his analogous story, one could assume the grey town is a shadow of his hometown of Prague. During the early 1900’s, post the rise of capitalism, Prague was a combination of ethical barriers. At the time Prague was segregated by Czechs, Jews and Germans, endeavoring to industrialize the advancing city (Tramer 305).  As Prague crept into the new age, Kafka described his town as broad modern streets of dreams, disguised with traces of the old ghetto, with its dreary alleys, reeking taverns, ubiquitous corruption to be more real than the palpable for the residents of the new city (Sokel). Where families struggled to survive, however managed to wear a lucrative mask, Kafka developed early in life an inordinate sense of guilt. The idea of the insolubility of the most ordinary, even human problems depressed his youth and later inspired his art, “The Metamorphosis” (Phillip Rahv 62).

Assuming that events are symbolic to his life, Gregor is also faced with similar obstacles. In the story the protagonist, Gregor, undergoes a gruesome transformation into a retched dung beetle. With his transformation Gregor became compulsorily distant from his work, society, his family and eventually himself. Which before long has him pondering what he knows, or thought he knew, and asking What is my purpose?. Given the obstructions Gregor faces, the meaning can be concluded that humanity is susceptible to forcibly reforming to an authority. Rather susceptible to settle for an expected job, lifestyle, or accepted idea, Kafka suggests that we are all insects in society, going through the same routine, decade after decade, week after week, day in day out, that eventually the custom becomes instinct. 


 
Throughout history there has been compelling evidence of illicit force being used to reform humanity. For example, during the early 1900’s life for Jews in Prague changed from tolerable to unbearable. This was a result of the uprising of German Nazis in the 1920’s. Reputations of Neo-Nazis racial propaganda ripped through the population of Central Europe, inevitably causing the segregation of communities. With popularity of the regimes fascist views growing, Jewish families living in Prague were stricken of rights and suppressed in the community by their fellow, Czech and German, Spaniards.

“Our personal problem was not, in fact, what our enemies were doing, but rather what our friends did,” stated Hannah Arendt, Jewish German-American political philosopher, to a friend about her escape from a death camp in Germany,1940 (Hannah Arendt). In Carlos Atanes film adaption of Kafka’s original work; that is exactly the lesson Gregor learned. Atanes’ placed the Samsa family right in the middle of late 1930’s fascist tainted Prague. Effects of Jewish segregation faded in and out from outside the family’s house, while inside, a half man half bug, Gregor tries to understand and cope with his unfamiliar form. Gregor’s transformation into an insect, or Ungeziefer, with a human-like appearance also echoes a grim realization of the Jewish torment. Ungeziefer, German for unclean animal not suitable for sacrifice, is a term that the Nazis used to refer to the Jews (Bruce 113).  
Gregor’s figure in the causes his family to lose their companionship for him, like the betrayal Jews experienced by their neighbors and friends. After all, how could an unclean animal not suitable for sacrifice really be a human?

Even though both Kafka and Atanes symbolic morphing toys with the question, Why do I exist, what is Gregor’s purpose? The times of the events are different, ultimately causing two different conclusions. In one Kafka suggest the formation of Capitalism and falling into uniformity. However, Atanes implies the same meaning; he strengthens it by adding symbolism of the Jewish population’s suppression by society during the German reign. Given each portrayal of “The Metamorphosis” the way an artist decides to set the scenery ultimately affects how an audience receives the underling question or meaning.



Work Cited
  • Nabokov, Vladimir. “Lecture on "The Metamorphosis" by Vladimir Nabokov” Kafka.org. The Kafka Project, 6 January 2012. Web. 31 May 2012
  • Tramer, Hans. “Prague-City of Three Peoples” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 9.1 (2012): 305-339.Web
  • Sokel, Walter. “Franz Kafka as a Jew” Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. 18.1 (2012): 233-238.Web
  • Rahv, Phillip. “Franz Kafka: The Hero As Lonely Man” The Kenyon Review. 1.1 (1939): 60-74.Web
  • Arendt, Hannah. “Hanna Arendt” fembio.org. Notable.Women.International,  Web. 31 May 2012
  • Kafka,Franz. Corngold, Stanley.  The Metamorphosis: A Norton Critical Edition. W. W. Norton & Company, 1996. Print.