The Metamorphosis

Rating:
Summary: A look at Learned Helplessness 50 years prior to Dr Seligman
Review: A hopeful young shipping clerk is unable to escape his parent's hopeless middle-class attitudes after a bizarre transformation leaves him totally dependent upon them

Rating:
Summary: An Enigma
Review: The Metamorphosis is one of the strangest books I have ever read. In its own unique way, it is clever and thought provoking.

Much of Kafka's message seems to be open to debate. The story shows Gregor Samsa mysteroiusly realizing one morning that he has changed into an insect overnight. The remainder of the story has Gregor bearing the burden of self-imposed exile while being shunned by his family. The conflict ends with Gregor's death caused by his malnourishment and isolation.

In many ways the story is an illustration of the isolation caused by non-conformity in life. Certainly, the theme of a family bearing the burden of a son choosing an alternative lifestyle is a plausible prospect. But in reality, Gregor became an insignificant insect long before the day of his change. As a salesman, he was an unimportant slave to his company. He was as insignificant to the world as a common insect. Only the physical change made the reality more obvious.

I will say that the book is not for everybody. I have sympathy for those who read this book for coursework as the thoughts the book produces are not conducive to casual or passive readers. This book will make you think.

Rating:
Summary: You have to feel sorry for the author
Review: This story was great and it makes you stop and think. Kafka was an existentialist and this story reflects it. It is also an autobiography in a way. Once you realize that, you can see the Gregor Samsa is really Franz Kafka and Grete is actually Kafka's own sister who cared for him when no one else would. There are not many books that one can read and find out what the author's life was like and their ultimate purpose of writing the book. The story is kind of hard to understand when it begins with Gregor a cockroach but once you get into it, you can see he really isn't a cockroach. If you read how he feels about being a bug, you realize he just had a mental breakdown and is actually a human probably running around naked. That is why his parents were ashamed except for his father because he was physically and mentally abusive so I believe he was responsible for Gregor turning into a "bug".

Rating:
Summary: Literary Conundrum.
Review: This short novel is an enigma. Gregor Samsa awakens one morning as a man-sized cockroach. His family is appalled, and shaken out of their middle-class complacency. Even the maid resigns in disgust. Gregor's parents and sister are by turns worried and annoyed. Gregor was the primary financial support of the family. His job is now gone. What can they do with a relative who consumes garbage and leaves brown marks around? As for Gregor, he crawls under a sofa in his darkened room and tries to stay out of the way. Bohemian writer Kafka probably intended to convey Slavic mystic metaphor. Metaphor of what is elusive. Is it the narrow focus and trivial priorities of daily life? Is this an indictment of middle-class values? Or is it just mental illness? The casual reader may find the novel too eccentric. Don't despair. On the surface, it is entertaining, even comical in its premise. In any event, brevity is a virtue. Reading is recommended. ;-)


Rating:
Summary: Kafka's Metamorphosis
Review: I was immediately surprised at how short this book really is. It's not for someone who likes to "get into" a book. It goes straight into Gregor Samsa waking up as a giant roach. Although it takes a few pages to fully realize that the story has already begun without any introduction whatsoever, this was a great book to read. Kafka has wonderfully vivid details (even though most of them are a bit more than I would want to know about roaches) and he finds a way to make readers feel pity for a giant roach. Make sure to catch the way Kafka transitions the names of Samsa's family. They go from "Greta" (his sister) and "mother" and "father", to "his sister, mother and father", and finally "the sister", "the mother", "the father". Even though it somehow leaves you feeling guilty for being disgusted at the thought of a giant roach, Metamporhosis was a great story.

Rating:
Summary: Classic tale told in an innovative way!
Review: For sometime now I have been hearing about graphic novels but never read any of them. I often would see students in our high school reading Maus I and Maus II but for some reason I shied away from this type of literature. Then while at the school library I saw The Metamorphosis and since I never read the book by Franz Kafka, I though I might begin reading graphic novels with this title. While I'm not sure I like the concept of graphic novels which are basically black and white line drawings with words -- think sophisticated comic books, I am glad I read chose this title for my first graphic read.

The Metamorphosis was adapted by Peter Kuper in a series of wonderful line drawings and with clever dialogue as an adaptation of the classic book by Franz Kafka. The graphics and dialogue tell the tale of a man living with his family who wakes one morning and finds that he's a bug. The reactions of his family are a superb look at the themes of alienation, family loyalty and conformity and I finished this graphic book feeling quite sad about the fate of this young man. it also left me in awe of how well Mr. Kuper was able to adapt this classic novel to this fairly new genre of books. Now I am also left yearning to read the original book by Franz Kafka and other graphic novels as well.


Rating:
Summary: Essay, Individuality
Review: Core Essay, U of C
Grade received: B

Individuality

In the second half of Part Two of Die Verwandlung, a conflict over the removal of furniture unfolded between Gregor and his sister and mother. In this conflict, Gregor, despite his bug body, showed a great sense of individuality, which was an essential part of humanity. When she tried to remove Gregor's furniture, Gregor' mother shook Gregor to a realization that his bug body had been taking away his humanness. Gregor was scared and shamed by this loss. In turn, he tried to preserve the social norm of humanity, and protect his furniture. In doing so, Gregor gained a selfishness that he had long lost because of his total absorption with serving the family. Although Gregor ended up having more individuality, he was further estranged from the society because of the conflict.

While moving Gregor's furniture in order to give him more room to crawl in, Gregor mother realized the importance of furniture as a part of Gregor's humanity. She thought that the removal would leave her son sad. The following text showed this:

"The sight of the naked walls made her own heart heavy, and why shouldn't Gregor have the same feeling, considering that he had been used to his furniture for so long and might feel forlorn without it. `And doesn't it look' she concluded in a low voice...... `doesn't it look as if we were showing him, by taking away his furniture, that we have given up hope of his ever getting better and are just leaving him coldly to himself?'"(102)

These words shook Gregor. He suddenly realized that he had forgotten parts of his humanity without himself knowing it. Normal people were supposed to feel "forlorn without" furniture that they loved. Yet, instead of feeling this, Gregor has "earnestly looked forward to having his room emptied of furnishing" (102). Gregor was not thinking like a person, but in like a bug. As the narrator said, "he had indeed been so near the brink of forgetfulness that only the voice of his mother, which he had not heard for so long, had drawn him back from it" (103).

In fact, Gregor's bug-like thinking could be traced to him physically becoming accustomed to and happy with the bug way of life and. The narrator described,

"...so that for mere recreation he had formed the habit of crawling crisscross over the walls and ceiling. He especially enjoyed hanging suspended from the ceiling; it was much better than lying on the floor; on could breathe more freely; one's body swung and rocked lightly; and in the almost blissful absorption induced by this supension it could happen to his own surprise that he let go and fell plump on the floor. Yet he now had his body much better under control than formerly, and even such a big fall did him no harm." (100)

Hanging from the wall should not cause "blissful absorption" for humans. These were the results not of his body becoming much better controlled by Gregor, but instead of Gregor succumbing to the control of his body. Despite the new found individuality apparent in this, the social norm was for Gregor to feel ashamed about himself for acting like a bug, and he had to stop it.

His mother's words were therefore a turning point that awoke inside Gregor the shame for losing his humanity. Driven by this shame Gregor suddenly needed to conform to social norm, and he did it by holding onto his furnitures, something that his mother said were containers of memories.

Gregor felt shame before also, for example, he "felt so hot with shame and grief" (97) listening to his family talking about money issues. However, that was a different shame, which was more like guilt. Previously, "Gregor's sole desire was to do his utmost to help the family to forget as soon as possible the catastrophe which had overwhelmed the business and thrown them all in to a state of complete despair." (95) Gregor's change into a bug prevented him from serving the family, and he felt guilty because in his place, his asthma-prone mother, old father and young sister had to work for themselves.

Now, Gregor's shame has turned into a selfish shame. He was ashamed for losing his humanity and turning into a bug, because this shame was a social norm that man were suppose to have. Taken over by this urgent human desire to be human, Gregor forgot completely his duty to his family, and was ready to do anything to hold back those furnitures, which suddenly became the most important things to him. Here, Gregor's self interest turned against the family interest, and through this, he found his individuality which never really had when he served his family.

An example concerned Gregor's desk. Gregor wanted to keep it because he used the desk "when he was at the commercial academy, at the grammar school before that, yes even at the primary school" (104). This again showed that Gregor was ashamed and scared of losing his own memories, not memories with his family. Since his sister and mother were dissembling this "memory" desk which "had almost sunk into the floor" (104), Gregor's self-interest termed him against them.

Gregor's selfish attempt to hold back to his humanity reached a climax when "rushed out" (105) to protect his furniture against his sister and mother and made her mother faint. Without his previous decency to cover himself up under a blanket for the benefit of his family, Gregor clung in his giant naked bug form to a picture in his room to protect it from his mother and sister who were coming in to the room. Although Grete signaled him to move before their mother would notice him, Gregor "clung to his picture and would not give it up. He would rather fly in Grete's face." (105) When his mother saw him, she fainted. Gregor's willingness to hurt his mother in order to hold on to his humanity represented a giant departure from his previous way of life.

Despite the apparent inhumanness in hurting one's mother, and despite his horrible bug appearance, Gregor displayed individuality here that had been previous suppressed by his family and his job. Before, "the boy thinks about nothing but his work" (75), yet Gregor did not like the work and felt "condemned to work". He only did it to feed his family. But although "the money was gratefully accepted and gladly given, but there was no special uprush and warm feeling."

All these suppressed Gregor before, and took away his individuality, but his physical change into a bug loosened the impacts of these restraints on him. For example, Gregor's free roaming on the walls of his room, mentioned earlier, although inhuman, was the first sign of his freedom as an individual.

Having gained this individuality, Gregor wanted to obtain humanity also after he heard the warning from his mother. In another word, Gregor was human before and not an individual, when he became a bug, he slowly became an individual and was turning away from human. But now he wanted both. Sadly, he could not get both, because to be a human, he had to serve the family, not himself.

When Gregor realized what his selfishness had done, he returned to the old shame based on "consideration for his family", and was crashed by the conflict between his newly found individuality and his old subservience to the family. After her mother fainted, "Gregor wanted to helped too-there was still time to rescue the picture" (106). He was concerned for two things at once. Unable to do much, and unable to bear the familial-shame, Gregor "fell down on to the middle of the big table" (106) and collapsed until his father arrival.

The damage was already done, and as a result of his selfish-shame's adherence to the social norm of furniture, Gregor was at by the end of Part Two estranged from his family more than ever. Gregor's sister "banged the door shut with her foot" (106) from Gregor, his Mom "was perhaps nearly dying" (106), and his father attacked him with apples that left "incredible pain" (110) in his back, almost trying to kill him.

Shame drove Gregor to hold back to his own humanness and not let himself be a bug. He did this through holding onto his furnitures. In this process, Gregor showed an individuality that he sacrificed before for the well-being of his family before. At the end, Gregor was crushed and further estranged from this family, because he could not find a way to reconcile his individuality with a world that expected him to be subservient.

Rating:
Summary: Some Things Must Die For Some Things To Live
Review: I recently re-read "The Metamorphosis" by Frank Kafka. I remember reading it in middle school and having to do a book report on it. My take on it today is decidedly different than my understanding of it as a grade-school kid. One thing I was keenly aware of early in the first chapter: it should be on the required reading list of today's working-class adults.

Kafka's writing of Metamorphosis reflects his personal constraints, his feelings of helplessness in the face of necessities and the desire to be free of familial, political and economical ropes. The story centers around the Samsa family: the father a formerly successful, now-economically-ruined businessman; a sickly, frail stay-at-home mother; Greta, the gifted, pampered teenage sister; and, Gregor, faithful breadwinning son. It takes place almost exclusively within the confines of the family's expansive flat, during a time of historical oppressiveness and unrest. Narrated in the first person, from Gregor Samsa's point of view, we can hear the author lamenting his personal life and deferred dreams while applauding his own heroic efforts to carry out his responsibilities.

In The Metamorphosis, a number of things die, some more harshly than others. And, true to the word, some interesting things either come to life or are resurrected.

Whereas at the onset of the decline of their comfortable life, the family appeared to have no hope, after Gregor's final transformation from life to death, "they talked to each other about future prospects, and they discovered that on closer observation these were not at all bad, for the three of them had employment . . . which was extremely favourable and with especially promising prospects."

Surely there is "life after death"!

I thoroughly enjoyed reading The Metamorphosis again. I would recommend it, especially for anyone dreading the prospect of drastic change in his own life.

Rating:
Summary: Innovative retelling of the Kafka classic
Review: Cartoonist Peter Kuper sees Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as a story that superimposes the surreal upon reality. He also sees a similarity between this story and the comic strip "Dream of the Rarebit Fiend" by cartoonist Winsor McCay, in which someone is caught up in a series of bizarre nightmares brought on by overindulgence in his favorite food before bedtime. Unlike the rarebit fiend, however, Gregor is trapped in a nightmare from which he cannot awaken.

This graphic version of the novel faithfully retells the story of Gregor Samsa and his metamorphosis into a giant insect. But without Kuper's creative scratchboard art, it would merely be a Classics Illustrated version of the original. What adds value to this retelling is its eerie drawings, which effectively reflect the darkly humorous and absurd elements of the story and enhance the reading experience. The drawings use innovative techniques to convey Gregor's insect-like behavior and his suffering through the cruelty of family and acquaintances. As Gregor weakens, his form becomes fuzzy and indistinct. His family members become demonized and exaggerated caricatures as they come to despise the insect that was once their loved one. The drawings have unsettlingly angular and electric lines, and they set the perfect mood for a bizarre and macabre story. I recommend this book to adults for its interesting and unique perspective on a well-known classic.

Eileen Rieback

Rating:
Summary: Praise for originality, brickbats for unapproachability..
Review: Backdrop -
This was my first Kafka story. I only picked it up because (a) There's a lot of mystique surrounding the very sound "Kafka" (b) He's one of the few whose name has been immortalised as a word in the english lexicon ...i.e., "Kafkaesque". I read this story , and others, while on my daily commute to Manhattan.
Thoughts -
I am usually leery of the quality of translated works, and being teutonically disadvantaged, cannot compare it to the Deutsch original.
A very original creation, this. However, requires complete suspension of analysis and critical thinking. Requires the reader to possess blind faith in Kafka's ultimate purpose.

Kafka, the master of "non-disclosure, non-closure", starts the story on an outlandish note .. that of Gregor Samsa, the protagonist, waking up one day, having metamorphed into a LARGE insect of sketchy description.

This discovery is met with different degrees of revulsion from his family, whilst he continues to have kind thoughts of them. He is kept sequestered and fed leftovers and rotting remains (something Gregor the Human would have abhorred, but Gregor the Insect loves).

Gregor's life is one steep descent from here on, and it proceeds within the laws of some unstated logic. This story could be a parable - that Gregor has done something so heinous that he's now an "insect" in the eyes of the world. But that is just my desperate attempt at justifying this work - nothing in the story suggests anything but factual narrative.

Conclusion -
No reasons or explanations are offered, no attempt at placating the readers' curiosity about this unusual occurrence.
"Incompletion is a quality of his work, a facet of his nobility" said John Updike of Kafka. In Updike's words, Kafka "abjures aesthetic finish and takes asceticism to the next level, where he is kept company by Pound and Salinger".
There's no relief whatsoever in the story - intellectual, moral or emotional. The story rushes headlong to its conclusion. At the end there is an obliquely optimistic note, in the way the female character (Gregor's sister) seemingly shrugs off this incident and braces for the future.

For readers like myself, brought up on more "user-friendly" writing, his style is quite hard to get down. But, it is useful in an archeo-literary kind of way - that is, if you want to study the literary layer called avant-gardism.