People did not understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than previously ..” ~ The Metamorphosis from Franz Kafka1
Metamorphosis is a short novel that you can finish reading in a few hours. But those few hours can truly set you thinking for several days. The book starts off like a comedy and you keep expecting the protagonist to wake up from his dream or for him to transform but you reach the end of the story and it is quite difficult to come to terms with the tragedy of it all.
The Story
Gregor Samsa is a traveling salesman with a hectic schedule and is the sole earner for his family. He doesn’t like his job nor his micromanaging boss but he cannot quit since he needs to take care of his family. He is an exemplary worker who has not called in sick in his five years of service and yet he is afraid of being fired on the spot by his boss.
He wakes up one day and finds that he has changed into a giant bug (or cockroach). His biggest concern is that he will not be able to catch the train and go to work and that his boss will misunderstand that he is slacking. And that turns out to be the case. When Gregor is delayed, the Head Clerk comes to his home and asks him to come out assuming that he is hiding in his room after having done something wrong.
With great difficulty he manages to roll over and get out of bed and open the door. Everyone is shocked, the Head Clerk runs away. From that day onwards everything goes awry. His family slips into poverty, his father starts working as an assistant, his sister starts working as a salesgirl, they get some boarders home for rent, etc. Though initially sympathetic to his plight, gradually it gets to a state where they blame him for all their misfortunes. They think that they will be ruined unless he is dead. In the end, Gregor dies heartbroken and the family is relieved.
Reflection
I was reminded of the story of the leper2 in the Bible. Over the years, I’ve heard a lot of sermons on this story which is usually given on the second Sunday of the lent. The story is the same but the interpretation and the message is always different. But it could also be that the same message is perceived and understood differently.
Leprosy or any kind of skin disease was deemed to be a curse. After contracting leprosy, some people would go away from their families and stay with other lepers outside the city gates. Some people would be driven out by their family. In some cases, family would take care of the lepers but the society would ostracize the family and sometimes force them to send the leper way. Regardless of the way people treated them when the disease started, they almost always ended up being alienated and outsiders to the society.
The fear of alienation and the pressure of the society is real. Many times, people give more than what is needed for a job, sacrifice their sense of self for a relationship or to be part of a group - just not to be alienated. Then they lose their ‘self’ completely and become a bug only to get into the situation that they feared the most - being alienated. I guess the key is to ‘give it all’ and “do more” only for something that is “your true calling” and not when you don’t like it every day. But the unfortunate thing is also that most of the people in the world do not have that choice. The technological advances of the 21st century have not solved world hunger and disease yet. Improving the quality of life seems quite far off.
Another thing was family’s view of life when misfortune hits them. When you have a misfortune and you compare yourself against others, you begin to believe that only you are riddled with problems and everyone else has an easy life.
“The main thing holding the family back from a change in living quarters was far more their complete hopelessness and the idea that they had been struck by a misfortune like no one else in their entire circle of relatives and acquaintances.”
Footnotes
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The Metamorphosis (AmazonClassics Edition) free for Prime members. ↩
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Story of the Leper - Matthew 8:1-4, Mark 1:40–45 and Luke 5:12–16 ↩