"I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound and stab us...We need the books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."

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Born in 1883 into a middle-class, German-speaking
Jewish family in Prague
Studied law
Worked at an insurance company in order to support his parents
Had very little time to devote to his writing
Contracted tuberculosis in 1917 and was supported by his sister and parents
Had few relationships, broke two engagements and lived with a woman on his deathbed.
Suffered from clinical depression, social anxiety, and several other illnesses triggered by stress
Died in 1924 from starvation when his tuberculosis worsened and could not swallowed

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Felt he was an outsider
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Jewish in Catholic Prague – didn’t feel he had anything in common with his heritage (or himself for that matter)
Obsessed with being “Sickly” – both physically and mentally
 Lonely - forced privacy, aversion to sexual relations
Perceived human beings as being trapped by authority in a hopeless world – stems from issues with his own father from which he felt he was always trying to escape: "My writing was all about you; all I did there, after all, was to bemoan what I could not bemoan upon your breast. It was an intentionally long-drawn-out leave-taking from you."
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Became frustrated at having to support his family
Had to work in a meaningless bureaucratic job where he was just another pencil pusher

 The city
 Dehumanization
 Modern means of production—division of labor
 Sense of worthlessness
 Acceleration of life and travel
 Mechanization, bureaucracy
 Class stratification

 Metamorphosis: A traveling salesman is turned into a bug in the first sentence

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Seeks to reproduce not objective reality but the subjective reality which people, objects, and events arouse in us
 Depicts a psychological or spiritual reality through distortion and/or exaggeration
 Presents the distorted, exaggerated situation as if it were completely real
Emphasizes visionary experience
 Pierces the surface of things to reveal essences
 Explores how to transcend the material world
Replaces concrete particulars with allegorical forms

An artistic movement that focused on impossibilities and contradictions that suggested the subconscious reality of the dream world rather than the tangible reality of the physical world.

The most significant philosophical movement of the
20 th century, EXISTENTIALISM is the belief that reality, in any meaningful sense, must be created through individual actions and choices.
Existentialism is the opposite of “ESSENTIALISM,” or the belief that reality, meaning, and significance precede individual actions and choices .
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Essentialism: “To be is to do.”
Existentialism: “To do is to be.”

 For existentialists, failure to act in any meaningful way becomes a failure to exist.
 Failure to act for oneself becomes a failure to define oneself.
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“Selflessness,” usually seen as a virtue in essentialist thought, becomes literally the absence of a self.

Gregor Samsa represents a specific type of behavior—the fear of being alive with all of its risks/rewards, living a submissive vermin-like life— which, in the end, is transformed into the acceptance of life with all of its vicissitudes.
Kafka and Samsa share a lot in terms of personal struggle. Supporting an unappreciative, disconnected family, struggles with a difficult father, not living their own lives fully. The name Samsa is important in two ways: it is a cryptogram of Kafka…. And when broken apart, Samsa means “I am alone.”

 Takes place in distinct stages:
 larval stage
 then enter an inactive state called pupa or chrysalis
 finally emerge as adults
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Gregor’s transformation parallels this metamorphosis.
 Gregor learns about who he really is through an overwhelming psychological experience that turns him inward.
His first step in this journey is disobedience:
- Refuses to go to work
- Refuses to follow the rules of etiquette

- Gregor’s greater concern with missing work than over his transformation
- The picture of the woman and the handmade frame
- The disconnected terms used to describe his new form
- The firm and the manager
- The uselessness of the bug body until it walked on the floor as a bug should
- The father shooing and hissing at Gregor

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Gregor’s tastes have changed. “Kosher,” acceptable, foods no longer interest him.
 He heals far faster than he used to as a human.
 He now prefers tight spaces but also runs along the ceiling which energizes and amuses him.
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He is not only untouchable but also “invisible.”
He hides himself from his family under a sheet because he upsets them. No longer a useful member of the family, he is a burden. Gregor pities his family and their financial situation more than himself, and they also pity themselves more than him too.

 Grete is the only relative who tends to Gregor for over a month. But she still does not talk to him or treat him like her brother.
 Cleaning up
 Feeding him (garbage)
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His mother’s distress over his son shows a pent-up love that hasn’t been expressed in a long time. Gregor is surprised to hear his mother directly showing concern for him. Her maternal instinct, though, is more wrapped around hope that he’ll transform back, not for the current insect Gregor.
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Gregor’s father takes a forceful, dominant position above his son after he takes charge of the family again. He does not understand Gregor’s change and does not wish to sympathize. He is aggressive in dealing with Gregor; what sort of father pelts his son with fruit?
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Gregor’s father saving a nice chunk of the money that Gregor earned, forcing Gregor to work a year or two longer than he had to, is another symbol of his father’s lack of concern over his son

 Getting sicker and sicker because of his father’s actions. Family opens a door so he can hear them talk in the evenings, but no one removes the apple.
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“that old dung-beetle” (wingless grub to hardworking to vile to divine)
 The term insults Gregor, but this is the only person who accepts him in this form
 Appreciating music = heightened senses and/or dreamlike perspective with a very human spiritual awakening
 Death by self-imposed starvation, sacrifice

 The boarders definitely are comedic characters, but also have a horrifying
“one-ness” about them. They are much like the business world that Gregor has had to deal with as a salesman: demanding, work in packs with the same mentality, and with no concern over hurt feelings.
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Grete reaches her breaking point. There’s importance in what she says about
Gregor during her rant. She says he isn’t Gregor but just a “monster”, and yet, she thinks that he should have used human insight and sympathy to leave his family and never return.
 Father and Mother turn into Mr. and Mrs. Samsa. More estranged.
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Note, the trio were able to write excuses “lies” to get out of work when
Gregor died. Recall that Gregor was unable to do this as a salesman.
 The end appears happy and splendid, but look again. The mother and father are urging Grete into finding a husband. Her and her brother’s dream for her was for her to go to a Conservatory school.
Her parents may be starting to “dehumanize” her just like her brother.