Kafka, Franz, Jason Baker, and Donna Freed. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2003. Print.
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is an absurdest fiction story written in third person POV. In the story we follow the life of a man, Gregor Samsa who has physically changed into a bug. Within the story it is revealed that Gregor was as a man, a slave to his job and provider to his family. He was living a passionless life, as a man, with his only source of enjoyment being crafting gilded frames. His need for passion is revealed when we see he had framed an image of a woman from a catalog. When Gregor was a bug he was a bug of a man.
|
In re-examining Robert McKee's method from the chapter "Structure and Meaning," I realized that I was reading the text all wrong. I was reading for the plight of Gregor. When in fact, the last act refers not to Gregor but his family. They found they were content with a life of their own meaning when it was no longer comfortable for them to be kept by Gregor.
|
Leaning back comfortably in their seats, they discussed their prospects for the future and concluded, on closer inspection, that these were not at all bad; for all three had jobs which, although they had never really questioned each other about this, were entirely satisfactory and seemed to be particularly promising. |
I realized that the controlling value of the book was more about the family than the bug. The controlling value was still within the ballpark of the topic I discussed in my blog on Metamorphosis. However, instead of it being Gregor who was trapped, it was also his family that had trapped themselves. The Controlling Idea is, If your life depends upon another, you will create in them a beast, you will be trapped by the beast that owns your free will. The beast will have no control over it's ownership of you, think it is being kind in fact, but trap you both by it's constant keep and over protection. The Counter Idea is, If you allow yourself to be taken care of, you will be protected from facing hardships. In realizing this, I have an ethical responsibility to re-examine the network of controlling ideas more thoroughly, See Below:
|
Since, I am now seeing the clearer controlling network, I am also able to see. how the characterization of Gregor was important, because it deflected from the missing characterization of the family. We received great description of the bug and his constant and persistent complaints. As for the family we knew them as mother, father, sister. It wasn't until the last acts climax that the family truly took on an identity of their own besides the title they fulfilled for Gregor. They had survived off of the income he provided and treated him like a burden. They had burdened him to provide for them the life that would keep them and in turn he had burdened them by his very existence. He refused to take sustenance and tried to avoid being a burden, but that he existed was a burden. His existence kept them from fulfilling their own needs, in keeping them from hardship, he kept them from growth.
|
In Jane Gallop's essay, "The Ethics of Reading, Close Encounters," she identifies the concept of projections we use to create meaning within a text. I bring sexuality to the table as something I read for. Of course, knowing this, it is not surprising that in my blog, I keep referring back to the instance where he traps the image of the woman from an advertisement in a frame. Additionally, at another part in the text, I projected that Gregor was looking to victimize his sister:
|
Gregor advanced a little, keeping his eyes low that they might possibly meet hers. Was he a beast if music could move him so? He felt as though the path to his unknown hungers was being cleared. He was grimly determined to reach his sister and tug on her skirt to suggest that she take her violin and come into his room, for no one here was as worthy of her playing as he would be. He would never let her leave his room, at least as long as he lived; for the first time, his horrifying appearance would work to his advantage: He would stand guard at all the doors simultaneously, hissing at the attackers; the sister, however, would not be forcibly detained but would stay with him of her own free will. |
I had to think outside my usual projection of "someone is trying to victimize a woman. What is Kafka telling us about how to read the story? What if Kafka IS Gregor? What would he be saying?
I developed the narrative the reader and Kafka might have. Pretend Kafka: I advanced a little, hoping to meet your mind, Reader Pretend Reader: What do you mean? How can you meet my mind, Kafka? PK: Don't you see, we connected in the shared experience of humanity that is musicality? PR: I mean, I liked that line. PK: No, you didn't really see that line, you saw that line and heard a feeling of a song, the kind of song that sings to your soul, makes you want to cry, dance and love Reader Regina: Ah you mean like "Whiter Shade of Pale" PK: Missing the violins, but yes. That is what you felt, never knowing that I was seducing you. Like that song seduces you. I was telling you I would reach you. PR: Was that music actually you tugging on my skirt PK: Yes it was me leading you to read the story as I intended, not mimetically, I wanted to keep you trapped up in my absurdist story so after completion only the most deserving of you would survive, those deserving would be the special few who sought not the bug but the humanity PR: And who then are the attackers? PK: They are those who would read this story completely for their own projections, the very kind of fool wants to imagine I wish to abuse my sister, instead I wanted you to come of your own free will and stay to search out the possibility of finding in the vague structure of my walls, great human truth. |
This idea of seduction reminds me of my Form And Genre blog, perhaps because the desires which are gratified in form. In "Lexicon Rhetoricae" from Kenneth Burke's book Counter Statement (1931), He discusses the different forms a writer uses to seduce a reader through hints that allow the reader to predict the satisfactory completion of the sequence.
|
|
Originally, I thought, the non-dramatization of Gregor waking up a bug, was syllogistic progressive form at play. I believed Kafka was hinting at the question, why doesn't this man react to the transformation?
However, after wrestling with the text and the form, I have come to conclusion that Kafka actually uses Gregor's inability to accept help to show the reveal that I followed through on the Controlling values. Here is the Call: |
|
Originally I thought that this was the overall feel of boredom, and lackluster that Gregor seems to feel.
However, now I see perhaps that first scene where the picture is revealed of the woman in the gilded frame, reveals such a loneliness in Gregor that the actual feeling is preparing us for the scene where he seeks his sister's music and ultimately feels so rejected that he will refuse to eat. |
|
I think my initial idea that the lack of communication within the family was the way in which Kafka used the Repetitive Form was right. The theme followed through the whole book and was a constant repetition
|
|
|
When I think of Conventional Form, I am drawn to the main message of The Metamorphosis. People are enslaved by their conventions, walking around without passion. A lack of passion makes you, a bug, a zombie. The recurrent situation is a life without substance, or meaning. The substance and stylistic features are the awkward struggles of Gregor to try to fulfill the obligations of his routine life. The principle is the human struggle within the animal to become truly alive. However, as a work I am convinced that absurdist fiction lacks conventional form. How can there be a convention to something that is purposefully off-putting to create a reality that can not fit anywhere? It is the very- unconventionality that creates a new convention, called Kafkaesque fiction.
|