Morphed

Many thanks to the twenty participants in Monday's meeting on Kafka's "Metamorphosis." It certainly confirmed the results of Professor Stanley Corngold's study in which he put forward one hundred and thirty different interpretations of the story.

Members of the group also enlightened us on sundry related topics such as the similarity of Gregor Samsa's name to the Sanskrit word "samsara," which means rebirth and renewal, and the diet of the dung beetle.

I realized at the end of the evening that I had forgotten to pose my "big question": If one reads "Metamorphosis" as a fable (i.e., of a man who turns into an insect, and of the reactions of his parents and sister to this circumstance), then what is the moral to be drawn from it?

I could attribute my lapse to being "under the influence" of Kafka, in whose world trivial questions can become quite important (and vice versa). At any rate, responses are welcomed.

"The Metamorphosis" : Questions for Discussion

Interpretive Questions

Why does Gregor worry about his job when's he's been transformed into a giant cockroach?

Why did the chief clerk show up at Gregor's home to inquire why he was not on the early train? (p.97)

Why does Gregor have no appetite for fresh food? (p.112)

Why do his sister's "ministrations" oppress Gregor (p. 117)?

When Grete sees Gregor on the wallpaper, Kafka tells us it "was the first time she had directly addressed him since his metamorphosis (p. 124)." Why not before?

Why does Mr. Samsa throw the apples at Gregor (p. 127)?

Why did the three lodgers have a "passion for order," especially in the kitchen (p. 133)?

Why did the charwoman wear an ostrich feather, and why did it annoy Mr. Samsa (p. 145)?

Are the changes Gregor's transformation engenders in his family -- in his father especially -- healthy?

Why does Greta finally decide that the Samsa family household can no longer continue under such conditions?

Is Gregor's decision to disappear a charitable or pathetic act?

Evaluative Questions

If you take the story at its face value (i.e., that Gregor could be transformed into an insect), are the characters' actions believable?

--Are we made to feel at all curious as to why Gregor turned into and insect?

--Does it matter?

Is Gregor Samsa a hero?

Textual Analysis

pp. 120-124, from "And this time he did not peer out from under it" to "fell down onto the middle of the big table."

pp. 135-137, from "Gregor's sister began to play" to "she kept free of any ribbon or collar."

pp. 143-end of story, starting with "At that the door of the Samsa's bedroom opened and Mr. Samsa appeared in his uniform ..."

Kafka-esque?

Franz Kafka's story The Metamorphosis is a fable of a man, Gregor Samsa, who awakes one morning to find himself changed into a giant insect, and of his family's efforts to deal with their former breadwinner's radical transformation.

Elif Batumen recently published a piece in the September 26th New York Times Magazine, "Kafka's Last Trial," on the legal battle over roughly one-third of Kafka's literary estate. This estate, which had been held by Kafka's friend and literary executor, Max Brod, was passed upon Brod's death in 1968 to his former secretary Esther Hoffe. When Hoffe died in 2007 at age 101, her will decreed the transference of the legacy to her daughters, who stated their intention to sell it to the German Literature Archive in Marbach, Germany. The National Library of Israel, however, has claimed rights to the estate under the term's of Brod's will. The case is now being argued in the Israeli courts.

Kafka's work published during his lifetime (which included the Metamorphosis) amounted to less that 450 pages. According to Batumen, however, recent estimates are that a new book on Kafka's work has been published every 10 days for the last 14 years. "Kafka studies now proliferate at a rate inversely proportional to that of Kafka's own production," Elif Batumen writes.

How do we account for the enormous fascination with Kafka? It must have something to do with Kafka having lived on so many levels as an outsider. He was born and raised in Prague of Jewish parents during the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and he wrote in German.

He was also a literary outsider. According to Werner Hoffmeister's World Book article on Kafka, he has been identified with Expressionism, Surrealism and Existentialism, yet "his writings do not belong to any particular literary school." You just have to read Kafka on his own terms. Some advice on how you do this comes from no less an august literary man than Albert Camus, who wrote (in his essay "Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka") : "Kafka's entire art consists in forcing the reader to re-read."