Gregor Samsa awakes from a bad dream, into a mad nightmare, as he struggles, stuck in his own bed this weary, young traveling salesman, has overnight been miraculously transformed... incredibly Gregor is now a hideous bug, a dung beetle , or even a cockroach does it really matter what ? He has missed his train in more ways than one, but Samsa, is a real trooper, still thinks he can catch the locomotive and make that vile business trip, eventually getting off the bed with great difficulty, just a slight crash, in truth, opening the locked door somehow and moving around on the floor, in his many, new, ugly little legs the parents and sister are greatly shocked, at his new repulsive appearance. And when the office manager arrives to see what happened , big mistake, he spots Samsa and is out the door without a word spoken (twitching a little). Now the "Bug" becomes a burden to his lazy, ungrateful family after years of Gregor supporting them, all by himself (a job he hated, with a big passion), they much embarrassed , hide him in his modest quiet room, feeding the "monstrous vermin", leftover garbage from their table scraps, a menu the bug implausibly prefers...Months pass and it becomes obvious something has to give, the reader will decide is Samsa a real dung beetle, or is he mentally ill? But to some, the gist of the fable is, how much does your family love you? A brutal depiction of a family in tremendous turmoil...expediency triumphs.

When I was a child,I used to get myself hide for some time and animatedly hear what’s everyone saying about my disappearance……we all are walled up by insecurities, incarcerated by uncertainties, captivated by absurdities and haunted by fears of losing the people we love so helplessly …………
Kafka touches delicate strings of relations, with such audacity and ingenuousness that Metamorphosis becomes a voice on drum even after more than 100 years of its publication..
Kafka’s writings largely originated from the conflicted relationship he experienced with his family, especially his father, and the glimpse of that biographical connection is vividly portrayed in form of our main character Gregor Samsa,who to his utter misfortune gets up one morning just to witness a horrendous insect of himself transformed overnight….
So what do we expect him to do now?
Consider himself in mid of some nightmere and sleep again?
Shriek vehemently by first transformed-sight of himself?
Think of suicide maybe?
No,he doesn’t do such thing,and here we come to know typical kafka-hero,Gregor is little startled to see himself an enormous insect and littler worried to get back into human form.the first thought strikes his head is of being late today from job and catching train to reach office.and counting time as he keeps lying in bed for a good deal time.and this is the thinking that paves ground for Marxist approach of the novella.
Gregor is the representative of proletariat class trying so bad to catch up with bourgoais, considering job
“travelling day in and travelling day out..” and bosses “pain in ass”…..a little box is not enough to touch other approaches like symbolism, structuralism and a semblance of feminism in story.
The most horrific factor though is of alienation,Gregor in his own home is confined to hide and is treated strictly like the one he looks………an insect a bigger one!
Gregor becomes noticeably less human and more accepting of his transformative state. With each act, Gregor also becomes physically weaker. As his family abandons its denial of his insectlike appearance and their hope for his full recovery to a normal human condition, they gradually become indifferent to his fate and recognize their need to pursue their lives without him. His father returns to work, his mother learns to operate the house without the help of a maid, even adding the burden of taking in boarders, and his sister assumes the responsibilities of adulthood. Where once he was the center of their lives, he now becomes an unnecessary burden and an embarrassment.
And this is when he abandons hope……….
Gregor dies of disappointment!

No sé por qué, ni de dónde las saqué, pero tenía varias ideas preconcebidas del argumento de este libro que no tienen nada que ver con la realidad.

En primer lugar no imaginaba que era un relato tan oscuro y que al menos a mí me produciría tanta tristeza; siempre pensé que tendría un tono más bien irónico a fin de burlarse de algún problema social. Lo otro es que pensaba que la metamorfosis de Gregorio era exclusivamente física, sin embargo, los cambios se siguen acentuando a través de los días y provocan una deshumanización casi completa del personaje, al punto que le es imposible comunicarse con el resto de su familia, así como recordar claramente sus sentimientos hacia ella.

Otra idea preconcebida que tenía era que me iba a dar asco. En mi caso no fue así, para nada. No considero que las descripciones fueran grotescas, eran las necesarias para poder entender en qué se había convertido Gregorio. Lo que más me afectó eran sus reflexiones y la actitud de la familia, lo que te lleva a pensar si uno actuaría diferente.

La metamorfosis es un clásico que casi no requiere presentación y, estoy segura, que se han hecho de él innumerables estudios metafóricos y simbólicos. No me siento calificada para realizar esos análisis, pero sí puedo decir que me gustó muchísimo, está maravillosamente escrito y me conmovió enormemente.

n  Reto #46 PopSugar 2018: Una alegorían

First work of Kafka that I encountered...what struck me was how easy it was to get sucked into his logic and reasoning. We have all felt like Gregor Samsa at some point, as if we no longer belong to the human race. But Kafka reveals the even more horrific concept of NEVER having belonged to the family we were born into...after that rejection what is left?

القراءة المتأنية الأولي لكافكا بعد قرائتي لخواطره وعباراته البسيطة وبعض قليل من يوماياته
و ...
من قال إن كافكا رائد الرواية الكابوسية ؟
إنه - عن جدارة - رائد الفلسفة الكابوسية ..
ففي رأيي أن هذه الرواية تعدت حدود الأدب ، وغاصت إلي أبعد حد في أعماق الفلسفة ..
يا عزيزي .. تخيل أنك تقرأ رواية عن إنسان يستيقظ ويجد نفسه صرصاراً عملاقاً .. !!

مهلاً .. لا تشمئز من الوصف .. ولا تتأفف من التشبيه ..
فالأمر ينطوي علي ماهو أكبر من التشبيه ..
فلماذا حدث التحول ؟
ولماذا إلي هذه الحشرة بالتحديد ؟

إذا أردت أن تدخل إلي الجو النفسي للرواية لابد أن تسبقها بكتابين آخرين يتحدثان عن الفكرة نفسها
أولا كتاب ديستويفيسكي الإنسان الصرصار ( أو بعنوان أخر رسائل من أعماق الأرض )
وكتاب كولن ولسون اللامنتمي

في هذين الكتابين ومعهما كتاب كافكا
تتعرف علي طبيعة الشخصية التي يتحول إليها الإنسان المقهور في هذا العصر
الإنسان الذي ضاعت شخصيته وأصبح غير مرئي حتي لنفسه ..
فقط ترس في آله يحركها المجتمع
فلا رغبات ولا شعور ولا صحة ولا فكر ولا مستقبل
إنسان أصبح مثل الصرصار ..

ولماذا الصرصار بالتحديد ؟
فكر قليلاً ...



إن الصرصار أولا كائن غير منتج .. ليس مثل النمل مثلاً .. تأخذ منه عبرة وعظة وذُكر حتي في القرآن
وليس مثل النحل .. ينتج العسل ..
وليس مثل دود الأرض الذي له فائدة رغم كل شئ ..
الصرصار لا فائدة له .. وحتي ضرره قليل ..فقط يثير الاشمئزاز ..
فهو ليس سام .. وطريقته في الدفاع عن نفسه بسيطة ..
وهارب دائماً ..
دائماً يشعر بالغربة ، وليس له مكان محدد ، ودائماً ضئيل مهما كبر حجمه، ودائماً خائف ، ولا ينتمي لمكان أو لإسرة أو لفكرة ..!
فهو يتنفس فقط .. وهارب دائماً
ويكون مصيره الموت في النهاية !

تخيل معي إنساناً يشعر بكل هذه المشاعر والاضطرابات لتعرف شخصية الإنسان الصرصار .. !

كل من ديستويفيسكي وكافكا عبرا عنها في صورة أكثر من رائعة

و ...
الرواية لن تثير اشمئزازك بقدر ماسوف تثير تفكيرك



-------------
تم التحديث بوضع الصور

One morning a young man woke up and decided he didn't want to leave his room. He felt at odds with the world and wished he could opt out of his busy life.

He knew he was unlikely to get away with skipping school, so he thought about how to find a perfect excuse. His eyes fell upon the half-read copy of Kafka's Metamorphosis he had left beside his bed, and was pleased. When his stressed mum banged on the bedroom door and yelled that it was time for breakfast, shower and school, he answered:

"I can't!"

"What kind of nonsense is that?" yelled his mum.

"I have been transformed into a giant insect and can't move my arms and legs! I mean my legs and legs!"

"Ooooohhh please, I don't have time for this stupid game, get out of your room now, and get ready!"

"You can leave, I'll stay here!"

But his mum knew her Kafka well, and was not ready to let go of her eldest son. Vermin or not, he would socialise and be part of the family. And he would go to school.

"Listen!" she yelled at him. "You live in the wrong place and the wrong time! We care about people here in Sweden, no matter what their personal condition is. If you have a minor insectification problem, so be it. I will write and explain to your teacher that you need certain special education tools, and we can find you a hobby that fits your ability as well."

"No! They will bully me."

"Oh no! There is a perfectly functional anti-bullying programme at your school, and you have been working on it yourself!"

"No! I feel weak!"

"Oh forget it! Fresh air is just the right environment for insects! What kind of bug are you anyway?"

"Mum!"

"Yes, I thought I could send an email to your grandparents, announcing the change!"

"Mum!"

"Your siblings have a right to know as well. Shall I go and get one of those nature books, so you can check for yourself?"

"Mum, you are not going to stay outside my room for the rest of the day, are you? Haven't you got a job to go to?"

"I'll call in sick to take care of my insect son!"

"Can't you just leave me alone?"

"Nope! I'll wait here with an action plan until you open your door and come out! I stick by my children, whatever mess they have gotten themselves into!"

"Okay, I give up! It is impossible to be an isolated, grumpy, neglected insect these days, with all those over-active parents and student care teams buzzing around like annoying flies!"

The young man opened the door, went through his morning rituals, left for school, and did his chores. In the evening, he finished reading Kafka.

"Maybe it's not so bad to live here and now after all", he said, smiling in a truly Kafkaesque way.

The story could be true.

“I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

Reality is messy, unpredictable, pointless – an uphill struggle against time, selfishness and soul draining work routines. We try to make some sense of it, to impose some sort of order on the chaos, through stories – translating dreams driven by the subconscious into literature. Kafka, a sensitive soul who felt more deeply than others the alienation that is the founding stone of our modern life, has managed to reveal the depth of his emotional struggle here with such clarity and with such powerful imagery that any commentary on the text feels superfluous. Yet here I am, trying to explain the obvious.

>>><<<>>><<<

Gregor Samsa is a travelling salesman, a small cog in a corporation that is pushing hard for profit and for discipline. As the sole provider for his family (father, mother, sister) Gregor is worried about his job performance, about money shortage, about his future, about letting down those that depend on him, about his physical attractiveness, and more.
One morning all these worries manifest themselves into a waking nightmare : he has transformed into a giant cockroach [or a slightly different insect, according to various translators.] The exact type of insect is irrelevant for me: the important thing is the complete separation between the mind and the world, the feeling of being trapped inside a symbolic box that you can look out from, but that you cannot speak or be heard from.
The loneliness, the isolation, that Gregor was probably just pushing deep into his unconscious mind has risen to the surface and taken control of his life. Misunderstood both at his job and at home by his family, Gregor cries for help but there is no one to come to the rescue: his boss sends somebody to threaten dire consequences if he doesn’t return promptly, his family feels repulsed by the change and try to hide him behind closed doors.

Was only Gregor Samsa condemned to work for a company where the smallest lapse was greeted with the gravest suspicion? Where all the employees without exception scoundrels, were there really no loyal and dependable individuals among them, who, if once a couple of morning hours were not exploited for work, were driven so demented by pangs of conscience that they were unable to get out of bed?

Anxiety is now compounded by guilt about how he is letting everybody down, a self-reinforcing loop that drives Gregor deeper and deeper into his repulsive box. This aspect of the story leads me to believe that the choice of the cockroach for the transformation is not an accident, but an illustration of how ‘normal’ people viewed mental illness at the time the story was written [ and are probably still viewing it today] . The first reaction is that the person is faking it, or trying to draw attention to himself and beg for sympathy. Most well balanced people also believe that you can snap out of it and can go back to normality by simple force of will, but I have met enough depressed people in real life to know that it’s never that simple.

The story of Gregor Samsa should help clear some of these misunderstandings. What these people need is understanding and a sincere effort to communicate, either from professional help or from family and friends. And the message that they need to hear is that they are not alone, not beyond help, not incommunicado.

‘If only he understood us,’ said the father, with rising intonation; the sister, still weeping, waved her hand violently to indicate that such a thing was out of the question.

>>><<<>>><<<

The easiest interpretation of the story is psychoanalysis, which has been curiously confirmed by one of very next books I picked up, where Dr. Yalom mentions that Kafka was one of the main impulses that focused his research on literature and philosophy in his psychiatric work. But there are other important aspects that should probably not be ignored, mainly the social criticism and the family relations.

After Gregor Samsa describes the pressure put on him by his superiors and his job insecurity, the theme returns when his family is forced to go back to work in order to balance the daily budget.

The thing the world requires of poor people, they performed to the utmost, his father running out to get breakfast for the little bank officials, his mother hurling herself at the personal linen of strangers, his sister trotting back and forth behind the desk, doing the bidding of the customers, but that was as far as the strength of the family reached.

Kafka’s criticism of economic abuses is as transparent as his emotional landscape and the love-hate relationship with his family : he cares for them, but they make little effort to understand him. Coming late in the economy of the novella, almost like an afterthought, like a beacon of light that remains out of grasp, is the possibility of salvation through art.

Could he be an animal, to be so moved by music? He felt as if the way to the unknown nourishment he longed for were coming to light.

Like the ancient legend of the Pandora Box, where one small, puny hope remains at the bottom of the box after all the ills of the world are released, I like to imagine that the artist was invoking here the power of music [or poetry, or painting] to make us understand the mysteries that haunt our dreams, to give voice to the wordless inner demons.

>>><<<>>><<<

I read ‘The Process’ and ‘The Castle’ in highschool, decades ago, and I remember liking them a lot and then going back to reading Raymond Chandler or Alistair MacLean thrillers. Most of the stuff I’m talking about here probably went over my head, obsessed with girls and football as I was at that age. Which would make it a good idea to revisit these novels with all the baggage of experience I now carry. My admiration for the way Kafka captured the existential despair of modern living in ‘Metamorphosis’ demands that I do not delay the visit too long.

The emotions hit me right.
The characters relatable.
Family issues well brought up.
Everyday family struggles with such a character to handle with everyday, the shift of responsibilities, the change in the nature of human beings well displayed.
The characters may be a bit detached or too overwhelming. The storyline a bit mundane and underwhelming.
The best part is the solid writing style.
For me, this did it. And made it an interesting read.
It was a good, classic one time read ✳️
It won't be a fav for everyone.

Looking forward to more of his work.

لنتحدث بصراحة، أنا وأنت متعلقان بخيط واهٍ في هذه الحياة. من المحتمل أن نفقد مكانتنا وقيمتنا وعلاقاتنا بكل بساطة. لا تعبس في وجهي، فأنت تعلم جيدًا أنني أقول الحقيقة، نحن فقط لا نجرؤ على التفكير بهذا الاحتمال. ولذا نحن بحاجة لشخص مثل كافكا ليواجهنا بأسوأ مخاوفنا دون أن يطرف له جفن.

يختلف الجميع على أسباب روعة (التحول)، فهي قابلة للتفسير على عدة أوجه، وقد تلامس وتراً مختلفاً في كل شخص. كما أنها عابرة للزمان والمكان، لن تحتاج إلى فهم ملابسات تاريخية أو ثقافية خاصة. سنتحدث كثيراً عن الأسلوب الإنساني البعيد عن الميلودراما، عن الأجواء المقبضة التي تكتنفك وأنت تنتقل من سطر لآخر. ستقول بأنك لا تصدق أنه بإمكان أديب أن يجمع كل هذه المعاني في هذا العدد البسيط من الصفحات وسأتفق معك. وستخبرني عن مهارة كافكا بمزج الفانتازيا مع الرمزية مع التراجيديا وربما شيء من الكوميديا السوداء، ولن أخالفك الرأي.

ولكن برأيي أن العظمة فعلاً تكمن بأن كافكا حقق كل ماسبق دون تكلف أو تحذلق، وإنما أهدى إلينا نصاً متدفقاً تلقائياً يقرأه المبتدئ والخبير. ليست هناك إنفعالية ولا إحالات فلسفية معقدة ولا رمزية تحتاج إلى مراجع لفك رموزها. ربما أبالغ إذا قلت أن كافكا لم يقصد أن يستخدم هذه الفنيات أو أن يثير في القارئ كل تلك العواطف، كل مافعله هو ترجمة أصداء التعاسة التي تتردد في داخله، ونقل العتمة الرابضة في روحه إلى الورق. سينجح في النهاية أن يجعلك تفكر فيما حاولت تجاهله مسبقاً، وستسأل نفسك: ماذا لو...؟

who knew that waking up as a beetle could be one of the most depressing stories ever written

this book has altered my brain chemistry

"Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt." - "As Gregor Samsa was waking up one morning from restless dreams, he discovered in his bed that he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug." (my own translation)

This novella starts with a shock, but ignores the "why" and "how" (I don't think anyone in the book ever asked either of those questions) in favor of exploring Gregor's and his family's reactions to the change and how it affects their relationships and their lives. Franz Kafka had a fraught relationship with his father, a butcher and a loud, overbearing, self-satisfied man who was critical of Franz. I can see Kafka's internal feeling of insufficiency giving root to this story where it is externalized into the physical appearance of a loathsome bug, alienated from all around him.

Interestingly, the number three plays a repeated role: three parts to the story, three family members, three servants, three bearded lodgers... It's debatable what this means, but I tend to think Kafka was referencing the number three's popularity in folk and fairy tales (three wishes, three brothers, three billy goats Gruff, etc.) to give his story additional heft and a more timeless feel, rather than, say, it being used here a religious symbol. But Kafka, who was Jewish, did use some religious and even Christian symbols. Note the symbolic apple and the crucifixion imagery here:

An apple thrown without much force glanced against Gregor's back and slid off without doing any harm. Another one however, immediately following it, hit squarely and lodged in his back; Gregor wanted to drag himself away, as if he could remove the surprising, the incredible pain by changing his position; but he felt as if nailed to the spot and spread himself out, all his senses in confusion.

My main thought after finishing this is that the family relationships being dissected here are incredibly sad, and disturbing. In an essay on The Metamorphosis, Vladimir Nabokov stated that "Gregor is a human being in an insect's disguise; his family are insects disguised as people." I've gone back and forth on whether I agree with this, but it certainly has given me a lot of food for thought: There's the originally loving sister who turns on him, the frail and helpless mother who lets him be mistreated, and the father who attacks him physically in the only two interactions they have. They betray him repeatedly, and Gregor always accepts it meekly and even makes excuses to himself for their mistreatment of him. His father stashing away Gregor's wages while Gregor was working at a horrific job to pay off the father's bankruptcy, was awful to read about, and Gregor simply rationalizes it. It's particularly chilling how in the end they all brush off Gregor's death and cheerfully move on, even blossom hatch from their cocoons, after he's gone.

I ended up reading about 30% of this in German and the rest in English, going back and forth between two side-by-side versions. Some of the German dialogue and expressions don't translate well into English. For example, Gregor's boss is called "Herr Prokurist" -- literally, Mr. Manager (which was the name used for him in one translation I looked at), but it sounds very lame in English. So I appreciated the additional level of authenticity and even insight that reading parts of this in the original German gave to me.

The more I think about this and pick it apart, the more impressed I am with it. There are so many layers to this story. I started out with 3 stars based on my college memories of reading this, upped it to 4 stars when I finished it the other day, and, after spending more time analyzing it for this review, am finally winding up with 5.

Reread with the Non-Crunchy Cool Classic Pantaloonless Buddy Readers group.

I highly recommend taking a look at Vladimir Nabokov's lecture and notes on The Metamorphosis, here at the Kafka Project website.

Initial post:I didn't care for this when I studied it in college but I'm hoping it will grow on me this time. I've found a cool website with side-by-side English and German versions of the story: http://bilinguis.com/book/metamorphos...

So my intention is to try to work through this novella in German. Wish me luck! <---ETA: this was a semi-successful experiment. See above.