I think there is an important contrast between his religion, Judaism, and him being trapped in his room. Trapped like he is in hell. It was almost like during the whole story Gregor was being punished. But what did he do? He worked hard for his family. Also I can see comparison on how Gregor died. He died from depression, loneliness. Kafka had problems with depression.http://www.online-literature.com/for...ies/banana.gif
I'm glad you brought up Judaism. I think he grew tired of following all the rules of Jewish living. I think that contributed to his imprisonment.
While I am of the belief that Gregor Samsa is a bug in the novella, I'll offer a different interpretation. In the story, Samsa feels neglected by both society and his family. He feels insignificant like a bug, he feels worthless in a world that has gone nuts, and constantly changing. He can't adapt, and so isolates himself from all outside contact, and perhaps Kafka wrote the story as a dream-induced hallucination in which Samsa himself believes he's a "vermin," as do the readers. But he's really not a vermin.
Favorite authors: Poe, Kafka, Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Kosinski, Faulkner, Crane, Fitzgerald, Cervantes, Joyce, Dickens
It is totally symbolic, and we all humans are kind of cockroaches despite the fact that we wear human faces. We are so much doomed to the exact state the cockroach in Kafka's Metamorphosis. We all are disabled and though physically we walk on our twos but in fact we creep on our fours like the cockroach. We creep and this modernity is what that have disabled us
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
I am currently studying Kafka's Metamorphosis at a Christian school, and maybe it's thanks to all of those Old and New Testament classes, but The Metamorphosis is littered with Christ references. There are numerous references to pains on Gregor's right side (where Christ was stabbed as he was carrying the cross), the apple and Christ bearing the weight of sins, and there are at least two references to being "nailed" to something, as in pinned down. One in particular right after the apple is thrown onto his back and before his mothers clothes fall off:Originally Posted by Camille Cooper
"..he felt nailed to the spot and stretched out his body in complete confusion of all of his senses. With his last glance he saw the door of his room burst open as his mother rushed out ahead of his screaming sister...."
To me, this screams of Christ's crucifixtion and his mother (Mary) and Mary Magdelene at his side. (Portraying his sister as Mary Magdelene also explains some of the incestual references).
However, since Kafka was Jewish, is this simply a case of seeing something we want to see?
Last edited by Granger; 01-25-2010 at 10:44 PM.
Samsa is not uncommon amongst us. At times we too roll into a vermin, being downsized into a petite, and that was just a metaphor and we are indeed in that state at times.
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
It's been awhile since I read The Metamorphosis, but I wondered about the references in the above posts about the word insect. I couldn't recall if that is the word Kafka used, so I looked up The Metamorphosis in Wikipedia and I found this interesting fact: English translators have rendered the word as "insect," but actually the word that Kafka uses literally means an unclean animal that is not suitable for sacrifice.
The metamorphosis is symbolic of many things: and isolation of an individual from society, alienation from work, the failure of family, the search for the meaning of life, etc.
But the greatest symbolic meaning is probably the search for the meaning of life. This is best shown with how Gregor's life was given purpose before his transformation because his entire family relied on him. But after his change, Gregor is no longer needed by his family and, in essence, kills himself because he is only a burden to his family at that point.
There was once down on a time a voice crying in the wilderness. A roach had discovered it and made trips to get spoils which the voice left around with each one of its shrieks.
The roach grew fat and regurgitated for the family at the end of every trip. Eventually, as all things come to an end, existential or occurring in three dimensions, the voice ceased to occur and a few centuries later, ceased to exist.
The roach had no use. It also ceased. The family survived.
did he kill himself though? or did the family kill him?
“the sense of being which in calm hours arises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source.... Here is the fountain of action and of thought....
Well, he could have krept out of the house and sought different horizons, but he didn't because he was indecisive. From the one side, he knew he wasn't wanted, but from the other he preferred to stay with what he knew, his room and his sister (who was still a bit affectionate towards him, unlike his father or mother). Kafka's figures are always a bit like him: they don't do anything positive/decisive, they only do what the situation dictates and after their ordeal readers still wonder what could have happened if his characters hadn't gone with the flow.
Kafka was an eternal doubter/hesitater. He couldn't take a decision on whether to really marry his first fiancée and Gregor prefers to stay with his family although he isn't happy. He decided t stay with his job because he didn't know what would happen if he didn't do that stupid work. Exactly what happened to Kafka himself. He was appalled but stayed with it. He didn't have enough self-confidence to be himself, was scared of criticism from his father (who saw him as a failure, even compared to a criminal, and thus condemned his son to a lifetime of imposed psychological failure). Had he had a bit more self-confidence, he might have lived longer and might also have done something more worthwhile in his life.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Those are great points.
What I'm wondering though, is if he died via intentional suicide (all it says is he began to feel weak but content as he looks out the window or whatever and the next morning the maid finds his body) or if it was the slow but steady result of his lack of seeking different horizons. I guess either way is a form of suicide, huh?
“the sense of being which in calm hours arises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source.... Here is the fountain of action and of thought....
Good point. In my recollection (it is a few years ago that I read Die Verwandlung), it was the fact that someone (was it his father?) chucked al apple at him that got stuck in him that brought on this disease. But the animosity that produced the attack that was motivated out of fear for him (was it when he tried to listen to his sister playing the violin for the lodgers?), came way down the line and Gregor knew at that point that he wasn't wanted anymore, but he kept trying and thought it would get better.
But yes, what is suicide, after all? The issue I suppose becomes really poignant when you think about the similarities with the Jews as (learned) people who were discriminated against and what it came to in the end. Thankfully Kafka didn't have to see that anymore, although his sisters did. Ironically one of his sisters willingly volunteered a) to be deported (she was married to a non-Jew and wasn't supposed to go, but she did out of solidarity) and b) volunteered for the last children's transport from Theresienstadt (by far the best CC you could be in, it was supposed to be a model of what was in Poland, the Red Cross approved it) to Auschwitz. I don't need to say where she went with the children when she arrived. The sheer naivety and meekness astonishes you somehow. How long some people exonerate and stand things just because they can't tear themselves away, because they fear what is outside.
But Kafka would not have liked me to parallel these two things.
Let's just say it's an interesting issue and that Samsa loved his family too much to go so that he eventually perished, not by anyone's fault...
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
Ridiculous to think of the Holocaust in these terms. You are very IGNORANT of the actual situation. And hence, racist.Good point. In my recollection (it is a few years ago that I read Die Verwandlung), it was the fact that someone (was it his father?) chucked al apple at him that got stuck in him that brought on this disease. But the animosity that produced the attack that was motivated out of fear for him (was it when he tried to listen to his sister playing the violin for the lodgers?), came way down the line and Gregor knew at that point that he wasn't wanted anymore, but he kept trying and thought it would get better.
But yes, what is suicide, after all? The issue I suppose becomes really poignant when you think about the similarities with the Jews as (learned) people who were discriminated against and what it came to in the end. Thankfully Kafka didn't have to see that anymore, although his sisters did. Ironically one of his sisters willingly volunteered a) to be deported (she was married to a non-Jew and wasn't supposed to go, but she did out of solidarity) and b) volunteered for the last children's transport from Theresienstadt (by far the best CC you could be in, it was supposed to be a model of what was in Poland, the Red Cross approved it
But Kafka would not have liked me to parallel these two things.
Let's just say it's an interesting issue and that Samsa loved his family too much to go so that he eventually perished, not by anyone's fault...
Look, if you are upset about Remembrance Day, that's fine, but I suggest you read the thought behind it. Indeed, there is a course of thought in Judaism which expresses the same thing I said here. The point of it is that some did not see their suffering as a problem to themselves (which would make them leave, no doubt), but as a necessity. That comes from Rabbinic teachings. Not from deniers (I can see what you're thinking here). It is that which I wanted to point out, although, as I said, Kafka didn't like his things to be discussed in interpretative ways, because he said he didn't want his work to be interpreted.
Still it is nice to think how prophetic his works can be.
Stop it or I'll report you.
One has to laugh before being happy, because otherwise one risks to die before having laughed.
"Je crains [...] que l'âme ne se vide à ces passe-temps vains, et que le fin du fin ne soit la fin des fins." (Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, Acte III, Scène VII)
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