After speaking with a couple of my friends about Franz Kafka, I was very interested in reading Metamorphosis because Kafka is well known for his original ideas (to say the least). I definitely thought Metamorphosis was different, I enjoyed describing the short story to friends and family because people don't tend to imagine a person-turned-insect so calm about the fact that [he] is a bug and worried about his family...
The short was entertaining but also quite serious. Many people have written about the hierarchal conflicts involved in the story and how the familial hierarchy is put to right when Gregor becomes an insect and his father is forced to start working again and leave his practically comatose lifestyle, but I think it is also important to see that the story is very much about the decisions people make. People either accept their situation (as Gregor did) and are squished like a bug in the process OR they decide to act (as Gregor's father and the rest of the Samso family did) and realize that they can grasp at a better life and prosper.
I was honestly a bit upset when the family reacted as they did and began to completely ignore and shame a member of their family, but I suppose that reaction is important because we need to think about the people we may inadvertently treat like "vermin". Do we stand aside and watch those struggling through a sad and difficult time or do we help them dig themselves out of that hole?
Although I'm not altogether sure about how I can expand on some of these ideas, I'm looking forward to seeing how they will develop.
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I was also intrigued by Duras's frequent use of "unto death." For me this phrase points connects pleasure, love and death. "Unto death" are the words said at a marriage ceremony: "Until death do us part." In a marriage setting, one assumes that love, rather than passion, is at hand; therefore, love is related to death. In "The Lover," passion and not love is the main form of attraction. Referring to Helene Lagonelle, the main character describes her feelings as "a pleasure unto death." To use this phrase in relation to passion is interesting to me because it suggests that passion, like love, can also be immortal.
ReplyDeleteHere's where the analysis becomes contradictory: In my mind, passion represents something short term whereas love is long-lasting. To say that passion is also "unto death" means that the main character thinks it is equally as permanent. This is something I found very interesting.
The Metamorphosis is so interesting in its totally casual treatment of the subject matter, isn't it? That was the same thing that struck me first off. Probably because we can see right in the first few paragraphs that Gregor is just like, "Oh. I'm a cockroach. Well, I better get dressed." I love it. It makes the tone so detached, sort of, and matter-of-fact. It makes us look less at that situation and go to analyzing what the effects of it are.
ReplyDeleteI was also a little disturbed by the reactions of the family toward Gregor. Usually the reason for having a family is that they help you, even when times are rough. Obviously, the family totally relied on their son for their livlyhood, but were unwilling to support him back.
ReplyDeleteThis had got me thinking about why Gregor was turned into Vermin, and what would make the family shun him so. Was he up to something socially unacceptable? What is the meaning of the woman and the fur coat? I read that in Kafka's books, a fur is usually symbolic for the female genitals. Does that have something to do with him becoming a bug?