Metamorphosis and Other Stories, by Franz Kafka

Metamorphosis and Other Stories, by Franz Kafka

In addition to Metamorphosis, this is a collection of many, many of Kafka's other short stories. Many are so short they aren't more than a few paragraphs. I find the really short ones annoying. They're only long enough to paint a picture of some commonplace event. That's boring. They're not long enough to get interesting. In fact, some of them I think should be called poems instead of short stories.

Anyway, Kafka's writing, when he gives it enough time, tends towards the absurd. Which I like! Most of his writing seems to be about ordinary people in ordinary situations, doing very strange things. For example, one of the short stories I liked was "Conversation with a Drunk". In "Conversation with a Drunk" a man comes upon a drunk in the street and takes him for and treats him like a visiting dignitary from Paris. We have no evidence whatsoever that this is the case -- he's probably just a drunk. Yet the guy is treating him like the highest of Parisian nobility. He asks the drunk many questions, many about Paris, and when the drunk doesn't answer -- because he's really trashed good, the guy acts like he is a noble who has decided he and his question are not worthy of a response… It goes on like that until the drunk begins to speak, and we see just how drunk he really is. Still the man treats him like a foreign dignitary of high birth… Other short stories I liked in this collection were "Conversation with a Worshiper", "A Visit to the Mine", "The Anxiety of the Head of Household" and "Contemplation", which is actually a ghost story of sorts.

Metamorphosis is the exception to Kafka's usual theme of ordinary people doing strange things. In Metamorphosis something very strange happens to Gregor Samsa and he reacts to it in such an ordinary way that that is what's absurd. "One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin." The story starts there, that is the first line. So he wakes up, and he's turned into a giant bug. But this does not seem to bother him very much. Yes, he recognizes the fact of what has happened, and most of his efforts are on learning how to use his new body -- the first challenge being getting out of bed. But his main concerns are about his job -- being late for work because of what's happened to him and fear for the consequences of his tardiness. He is a traveling cloth salesman, and he's already missed his morning train. His income supports his parents and sister, in whose home he is currently staying, having locked himself in his room, which is a habit he picked up traveling all the time. Only once does he look at himself and think "what's happened to me?" and that, almost in passing. Samsa's job really sucks too, because when you're late they send someone from HR over to your house to see if you're playing hooky or what. Nice professional, trusting work environment ya got there Samsa. But Gregor Samsa is the ultimate push over. As a giant bug he has no backbone, but that's ok because he didn't have one before either.

Soon after he awoke the changes he was undergoing apparently completed and rendered his voice unintelligible. After Herculean effort he manages to get himself over to the door and unlock it with his mouth. As soon as he gets the door open to explain why he never showed up for work of all things, everyone of course recoils in horror. They lock him back in and after a day or two, his younger sister starts bringing him food. It soon becomes apparent that they all realize that the giant bug in Gregor's room is in fact Gregor. They take care of him. They take good care of him, at first. Gregor's mind is still completely human, and he understands everything they say throughout the rest of the story. However, because he cannot talk, the rest of the story is downhill for Gregor. The family gradually decides their brother and son is gone and that the giant bug is really no longer him. He's such a push over that he genuinely agrees with everything they say about him, and is accepting of the abusive way they come to treat him. During the long downhill slide of relations between the family and Gregor, I kept wishing and screaming that Gregor would find a way to make contact with his family, tell them that he is still Gregor. They never tried to talk to him. They came to treat him not like a brother and son, but like an animal, later like an unwanted animal. I wanted him to get paper and pen (he had a writing desk in his room) and try to write a note with his bug legs. He could tell them he still understands everything they say and arrange for them to ask him yes/no questions to which he can nod or shake his head. He could thank them for taking care of him, which he urgently wanted to do. He could tell them which foods he likes, something his sister initially tried to determine. He could tell his sister of the plans he had to send her to study the violin at the conservatory, which he would have done last Christmas had this "misfortune" not befallen him. Communication was what was urgently needed. But he never even tried to write a note, and they never tried to talk to him. Understanding everything they said, everything he did to try to help the situation was always misinterpreted, often as the actions of a dangerous animal. When they finally decided to get rid of him, he saved them the trouble and crawled away and died instead.

So it was quite absurd and entertaining that the transformation that overtook him did not in itself seem to concern him much. He was more worried about missing work! If I turned into a giant bug, my job would be the last thing on my mind. He could have been in denial, but it was too complete and perfect for that. Thereafter, his wimped out acceptance of how his family treated him, even agreeing with all their justifications, was pretty annoying. And he never tried to make contact like I fervently hoped he would. Ultimately he just gave up and died. What a loser. But Gregor Samsa loved his family completely. Before his transformation he lived only to support them. After, he continued to love them completely and never complained about how they treated him. Of course he could not have complained to them -- he could not communicate, but he never once complained to himself either. He continued to love them completely even as they came to hate him. In the end he chose to die to make their lives easier.





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