Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," like may other modernist works, has a major theme of alienation. Gregor is the subject of alienation from everyone else in his life. However, Kafka does not want his readers to feel pity for Gregor. Before he becomes a bug, he lives at a distance from the people with whom he works. Because he is a traveling salesman, he rarely sees those people who work in the offices at his firm. He cannot keep relationships with those whom he meets on his travels, as he only interacts with them for short periods of time for business purposes. He also lives at a distance from his family; he locks the door every night before retiring to his room. The tension between him and his father is evident in the beginning of the story as his father shows little patience for Gregor's failure to present himself to the chief clerk. Once Gregor has become a bug, the alienation he experiences is magnified and, thus, made more obvious to the reader. His mother expresses concern for him in the face of the chief clerk, saying that he is ill in hopes that she can help excuse his tardiness. However, once she knows that he is a bug, she refuses to address him even once. His father aggressively forces him back into his room after he has caused the flight of the chief clerk.
Despite all of this alienation, Kafka does not want the reader to sympathize with Gregor. Throughout the story, from when Gregor apparently spontaneously has become a bug to when he dies, Kafka's narration remains objective. He never adopts enough of Gregor's persona in his narration to show any of Gregor's long-term thoughts about his being a bug. Even when he is narrating from Gregor's point of view, Kafka still only shows Gregor's thoughts and plans of how he can make the best out of his being a bug. This entails how he can get out of bed, get dressed, and make the eight o'clock train in time all as a bug at the beginning of the story, and how he can get food and attention toward the end of the story. Kafka never reveals Gregor's thoughts, if Gregor does have any, about how his lifestyle will entirely dramatically change now that he is a bug. Especially at the beginning of the story, when Gregor has discovered his metamorphosis, the reader would expect detailed description of Gregor's thoughts on how he possibly came to be a bug. However, Kafka provides little of such description. This subjective narration (ignoring Gregor's deep thoughts and only focusing on his thoughts that cause his actions and his actions themselves) generally does not create a strong feeling of pity for Gregor in the reader. If Kafka had wanted to give the reader a stronger feeling of pity, he could have added in his narration more of Gregor's thoughts of general desperation about his being a bug. Also, the fact that Gregor transformed into and lived miserably as a bug rather than any other animal shows Kafka's lack of intention to create a feeling of pity,
One side of his body rose up, he was tilted at an angle in the doorway, his flank was quite
bruised, horrid blotches stained the white door, soon he was struck fast and, left to himself,
could not have moved at all, his legs on one side fluttered trembling in the air, those on the
other were crushed painfully to the floor-... (104-105)
Bugs are generally among the most disgusting animals in humans' eyes, and they are certainly some of the most despised. Descriptions of Gregor's pain as a bug will more likely evoke feelings of disgust in the reader rather than feelings of pity. This is because Gregor's "blotchy" blood is described to stain the wall and his many legs are described to be "trembling in the air." It is hard for a reader to feel pity for a creature that disgusts them; if Kafka had wanted the reader to be more likely to pity Gregor, he would have had Gregor transform into and suffer as a more likable animal, such as a rabbit or a dog. It is possible that Kafka wants his audience to alienate Gregor just as those in Gregor's life alienate him.
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2 comments:
I find it quite interesting how Franz Kafka doesn't want the reader to feel sympathy for Gregor, the outcast. It actually adds a sense of differentiation of Gregor from the rest of the people in the book.
hmm, I have pretty similar thought that Kafka didn't want readers to feel sympathy for Gregor. I think Gregor was asking for this ending (death of Gregor) Because in the novel, Gregor already lost very primitive ability to be human, which is socializing. And he didn't even socialize with his own family. He had his life alone and he thought it was okay to kept doing that until he regretted that. So, i think Kafka intended readers to feel sorry when they first read the novel, but as readers read more and more(think more), Kafka want readers to do not feel sorry for Gregor.
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