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The Metamorphosis, which tells of how a young man, Gregor Samsa, wakes to find himself transformed into a horrid beetle-like
creature, is quintessential Kafka and deservedly the most famous of his works. Written during Kafka's first period of intense
creative activity in late 1912, it was one of the few pieces published during his lifetime.
The basis of the short story can be found in the author's tense relations with his father, his sense of isolation, failure
and guilt, but also of unjust rejection. The role of Gregor's sister Grete, too, can be related to Kafka's feeling of betrayal
by his sister Ottla, the one member of his family in whom he believed he had an ally. Despairing of his ability to write,
he noted that he was good only to be swept up with the household rubbish, and that is the fate of his hero. Kafka senior had
called his son's friend, a Yiddish actor, a flea-ridden dog and a vermin. It was a condemnation which the writer believed
extended to himself. In the story the disgusting verminous creature of the metaphor becomes flesh. Kafka explores the narrative
possibilities that emerge from taking a metaphor literally, and discovers a series of haunting images for his potentially
suicidal inner condition. The hero's physical state, the details of his environment and his movements all assume symbolic
significance. Because the grotesque fantasy set against a realistic background is like a bad dream, it seems to call for psychoanalytic
interpretation and there have been no lack of Freudian commentaries on it, in which an Oedipus complex inevitably provides
the focus.
The story concentrates on dramatic confrontations and says as much about family tensions as it does about the psychology of
the hero or the author. Understanding between Gregor and his parents and sister, impossible after his physical transformation,
was far from perfect before. However, neither that nor any other circumstance is advanced to explain his metamorphosis. Kafka
describes its consequences. The family's first reaction of shock and horror becomes one of resigned frustration and finally
of relief when Gregor dies. Unable any longer to rely on Gregor as sole breadwinner, his parents find a new sense of strength
and purpose within themselves. That development, like Gregor's increasing hopelessness, appears absolutely logical and even
inevitable. So, too, does the sister's growth in confidence and responsibility—another metamorphosis, one might say.
The brief last scene of spring sunshine, family unity, and hope for the future after Gregor's death contrasts tellingly with
the blackness of the preceding episodes. Grete, it is revealed, has ripened as Gregor has wasted away. Life, it seems, triumphs
over a useless freak, but The Metamorphosis brings no Nietzschean glorification of vital strength. For here the life force
is linked with social conformity and insensitivity. Gregor's demise is scarcely a victory for human values. The contrast between
the outwardly animal hero and those around him brings some cruel ironies. The existence from which he is excluded hardly seems
a desirable one. The three lodgers who, for a time, dominate the Samsa household reveal that conformity can mean loss of individuality.
They insist too much on bourgeois values and show no appreciation of Grete's violin playing, which Gregor imagines might furnish
the nourishment he cannot otherwise find.
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Despite strong hints that his attachment to his sister is potentially incestuous, his reaction to the music may be read as
a longing for spiritual satisfaction, even redemption, which is absent in the materialist society of which the Samsas are
part. His duty to his family has apparently been defined almost exclusively in economic terms. It is possible to account for
his alienation as a product of capitalist labour relations which, as Marx argued, dehumanize the worker. Gregor certainly
felt that his work as a travelling salesman was a denial of his freedom and dignity.
Yet the story establishes no cause for the hero's condition, nor does it allow a conclusive allocation of blame. It shows
that love can scarcely be divorced from possessiveness, or responsibility from tyranny, but that a life without them is a
form of living death. The demands of family, society, even of time (Gregor becomes oblivious to the clock and the calendar
that once dominated his every moment) seem intolerable and yet to require recognition if the self-esteem of the individual
is to be maintained.
The Metamorphosis is told largely from the hero's point of view. It offers no explanations. The dividing line between the
third-person narrative and style indirect libre is very fluid and the narrator never reveals his identity or standpoint. The
result is a remarkably open text which has elicited an immense number of different interpretations. It has been seen as a
sadly sick, but more often as an acute, vision of reality. Yet critics have not even agreed whether the story's elusive meaning
is essentially psychological, sociological, existential, or religious, and some have argued that it deals with the gulf between
art and life or the relation of language to reality. For the text seems to imply much more than it states, to challenge its
readers to explore the possible significance of its every detail, to escape from the hero's perspective in order to appreciate
its black humour, and to discover its universal relevance.
It would be wrong, however, to place sole stress on the intellectual challenge of a story whose impact is dramatic and overwhelmingly
emotional. Its three carefully paced sections each culminate as Gregor tries to make contact with his family and is met with
determined rejection. The repetition lends weight to the impression of tragic inevitability. Its exceptional power to haunt
the imagination, together with its undermining of certainties, has earned The Metamorphosis its place of prominence in the
history of 20th-century world literature.
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