Edwin Honig
The Making of Allegory
“Each
character in the story may be taken as
a personification of some particular defect,
essentially related to G’s instigative needs”allegory reversed. Personification is usually
first and then discovery through this
transformation. Here G discovers himself
through others, and this new identity of his
coming from others’ points of views is what
causes his metamorphosis.
“Kafka’s
Gregor Samsa has already been
judged when the story beings”-Gregor
has no chance of redemption, his fate is
already chosen. It’s as if the climax (the
judgment) happened before the story
even started. There is no hope for
Gregor.
“His
dilemma is that he must challenge,
grapple with, and seek protection from the
judgment that society places on him for
deserting his word, and at the same time
accept the judgment, the guilt he actually
feels, “lying down”.”-Gregor’ fight in this story
is not against his metamorphosis but against
the vision society and he has of himself for
being useless. His conflict is with himself,
with his guilt.
“What
he becomes to his family and to
himself as he lies in bed: simply a huge
detestable bug.”
“As he is seen by each in turn, there is a
cumulative and recapitulative sense which
confirms his physical metamorphosis.”-G
becomes a horrid bug because it is exactly
the way his family sees him. To each he is
useless and repulsive like a bug which is why
he turns into one. His physical metamorphosis
is the image the world has of him.
“and
as a result of G’s metamorphosis,
his father, formerly a sick useless old
man, turns into a vigorous job-holding
bank official”- G helps his father
emerge from his useless state of being.
“It
is as though the family needed first to
have the goad of the boarders’ social
disapprobation in order to swallow its own
distaste and personal chagrin, before finally
expressing its own real feelings overtly.”Almost like the family needed a reason to
resent G. They were looking for an outside
perspective because they didn’t know if
because they were family they were being
biased about the situation. The lodgers’
disapproval is the last straw for the family.
“This
exposure of an exaggerated
debasement gradually provokes a series of
reactions among successive characters, who
thereby assist in dramatizing the hero’s
identity.”-dramatic effect of story not
caused by the actually situation but by the
reactions of his loved ones. If the family had
supported and accepted G as a bug the story
would say to love each other no matter what.
His transformation wouldn’t have been tragic
like it is.
“G’s
situation is a limbo where the
forces of appositional entitiesdark/light, animal/human, lust/love,
seeming/being, despair/faith”- G is
torn by many different things. Shows
how he’s in between and cannot make
up his mind.
“The
distorted relationship between
himself and others, which he has
permitted or encouraged to grow”suggest G’s alienation is his own fault.
“Final
criticism seems not to be leveled
against society so much as against G,
who sinks into his dilemma because he is
unable to find his real self.”-author
points out G’s downfall is his own fault.
The criticism of the story is that G did
not find himself.
“Instead
of finding his many actual
identities, he shrinks and is finally
converted into nothingness.”- G epiphany
is also his downfall. Because he decides
to show himself he becomes nothing.
“no
moral closure”
“Ends with stark critical question of
the individual and society”-very
negative end. Kafka is trying to make
us think….or realize something about
the world we live in?
Max Bense
Kafka’s conception of
being
Max Bense
Max
(1910-1990)
Bense was a German philosopher who
studied mathematics, logic and aesthetics.
He was a professor of the philosophy of
technology, scientific theory, and
mathematical logic at the Technical
University of Stuttgart.
Many of his works such as “aesthetic
Information”, “Aesthetica, an Introduction to
New Aesthetics” involved the theme of
aesthetics.
The Classical Conception of Being
(page 140-141)
“In the classical conception of being the
fiction of a distinctive world which
represents itself as a real world is
constantly maintained and at best
aesthetically and ethically varied
between being and seeming, perfection
and imperfection.”
The Non-classical conception of
Being
“On
the other hand, the fiction of the
distinctive world is either given up from
the start or successively destroyed.”
What is called surrealism […] comes
under the non-classical conception of
being, in which the fiction of the
distinctive, real world no longer exists.”
How It Relates to Kafka’s writings
“It is certain that essential parts of
Kafka’s writings also belong to
Surrealism and constitute surreality in
the sense of a world in which the
distinction between real and unreal
constituents no longer has any
ontological meaning.”
The Metamorphosis
“And accordingly the obervable, real
accuracy of the unreal found in Kafka’ or
his percision with the imaginary […] does
not signify an odd state of affairs: rational
precision in the unreal is not itself anything
unreal, as it is confirmed by the impression
awoken for example by “the
metamorphosis” of Gregor Samsa into a
“monstrous vermin”.
Ralph Freedman
Kafka’s Obscurity
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Ralph Freedman’s
Born in Hamburg, Germany, and emigrated to the
United States in 1940.
He served in the in the United States Army during
World War II.
He graduated from the University of Washington
in Seattle.
He holds a master's degree in philosophy from
Brown University and a doctorate in comparative
literature from Yale.
Hesse scholar, he has taught at the University of
Iowa and, since 1965, at Princeton.
Freedman has studied Hesse's manuscripts on
deposit in Germany and Switzerland for several
years and has traveled throughout the region of
Hesse's homelands.
“Kafka’s fiction evolves as a
problem-solving activity.”
In Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, this activity
relates to Gregor’s condition:
Gregor as a bug = problem
Nobody wants him and he’s hated not only by his
family but by the rest of the world. Instead of
being loved he’s rejected and is a problem for
the Samsa family.
Gregor’s death = solution
Sadly, Gregor’s death is the only solution for
everyone including himself. Everyone in the
novel is set free from this horrid vermin that
“destroys” their lives. The family celebrates his
death.
“ The objective author-observer introduces his
character into a carefully specified world. Keeping
all elements constant, he then observes his
character’s adjustment to a particular change.”
“The story develops all consequent changes in
both the hero and the world.”
“ it is concerned with different ways of knowing
reality, of exploring the shifting relations between
self and the world”
In each of these quotes, the concept of change
dominates the novel. Gregor has changed
physically and mentally. The “changed” Gregor not
only has an impact on himself but on everyone
around him including his family. There is also an
adjustment in this state of metamorphosis which is
illustrated in the beginning with Gregor’s new life
form… a bug!
“only physical appearances and perspectives seem
to be changed while Gregor’s essential self appears
unchanged.”
“But these changes are not wholly generated from
within Gregor’s transformed shell. They are also
conditioned by the world’s reactions to his
condition.”
Gregor is judge by his physical appearance, yet his
inner soul, his own person hasn’t changed. No one
cares to make even the slightest effort to see this.
In the end, even Grete says that Gregor is not at
all the same. Gregor’s inner-self is destroyed by his
outer appearance, judged by the rest of the world.
“The wound eats more and more deeply
toward the center of his self, his human
consciousness and memory.”
Once his father throws the apple, it no
longer remains just a physical wound but a
psychological one as well.
. “ self-consciousness begins to dim and, with
it, his sense of time. In the end, the
obliteration of time coincides with Gregor’s
obliteration”
Gregor’s life is like a timed clock that once
you loose track of it you’re gone. In this
case Gregor’s loss of time cost him his life.
Gregor’s change leads to a adjustment for his
family:
The father: Becomes the “authority” again,
getting a job, and taking care of his family.
The mother and daughter need to adjust
themselves to Gregor’s new needs.
“ For the helplessly observing Gregor, its change
has become irrevocable.”
For Gregor, this change is irreversible, even
before this transformation into a bug that he
already is.
 “He had in fact been a vermin, crushed and
circumscribed by authority and routine, before
the actual transformation had taken place:”
Freedman ends his critic with Gregor’s
death and his family’s reaction toward it.
“his physical universe and paradoxical
liberation from the bondage of himself (
the true and final transformation of the
hero), the family we infer, had been
similarly constricted and set free.”
“Gregor’s extinction has, in the end,
“Construction and freedom, obliteration
and awareness of existence, equally apply”
Gregor’s death not only liberates him from
the hatred, and unloving atmosphere that
surrounds him, but also liberates his family.
THE END