We've been reading The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka in the last few weeks, and every time I open the book or discuss it, I can't help but wonder how different the story would be if Kafka had chosen some other animal for Gregor to transform into.While never explicitly stating what kind of insect Gregor is, Kafka implies that he is some sort of cockroach or beetle. Gregor's tendency to eat spoiled food though, makes me think that he is a cockroach. Nevertheless, Kafka intends for Gregor to be some sort of verminous insect, the lowest of the low.
I believe he purposely chose an insect whose thoughts/actions/abilities we never consider, in order to create drama in the story. Only we, the readers, know Gregor's thoughts and last bits of humanity. The rest of his family sees him as a disgusting creature, and I'm sure we would think so also if we saw such an insect in real life. It seems like a creature from a bad science fiction movie, a giant hissing cockroach that chases people around.
Now imagine if Gregor was, say, a more palatable kind of vermin like a mouse. While a mouse in the house is still somewhat appalling, it is much cuter than an encroaching roach. It's still alarming, yes, to find one of your family members an insect or animal, but a mouse is much higher up on our hierarchy of vermin than a cockroach is, and I'm sure his family would have a different reaction. For instance, we could look at the scene where Gregor is pleading for his manager to let him go on working, but all the manager hears is a sub-human hissing. Let's replace in this instance, the cockroach with a mouse. The soft squeaking of a mouse is much less threatening than the hissing of a cockroach, and it's appearance is less foreboding. While probably still being very alarmed, the manager and Gregor's family would not be as terrified, so much as bewildered.
So, in choosing for Gregor to transform into a cockroach instead of any other animal, I believe that Kafka used the disgust Gregor received from his surroundings to create more sympathy in the reader. Gregor's family has a logical reaction to an enormous cockroach replacing their son, and I don't believe that we would have had the same level of disgust and drama to drive the plot if Gregor had been another animal.
I definitely agree with you that Kafka's choice of a verminous bug for Gregor's new form was intentional. Perhaps a reptile or some other creepy and gross organism would have served the same purpose, but the novel totally relies on the terror and disgust that others feel when faced with a giant cockroach. Similarly, a key aspect of Gregor's isolation from the world is not only his inability to talk but also the way the humans perceive his feelings-- nobody ever thinks about how a cockroach "feels," they are just a gross bug (in fact, I recently learned in Bug Bio that insects are actually incapable of feeling pain.) On the other hand, humans feel a much closer connection to most mammals, especially common house pets like cats and dogs, so if Kafka had chosen to make Gregor turn into one of those the novel would have a very different plot.
ReplyDeleteNice title by the way. But yeah I totally agree that Kafka specifically made him a "cockroach" to help us sympathize with him. Sam I disagree that a reptile would have served the same purpose. No one keeps cockroaches as pets, but lizards and snakes are common pets. I think Kafka made him the lowest form possible on purpose. So that we feel sorry for Gregor.
ReplyDeleteI agree. There's something much more threatening about Gregor-as-cockroach than your example of Gregor-as-mouse, both to the Samsa family and Gregor's own humanity. I also feel like reading about Gregor becoming more and more insect-like is a bit more disturbing to us as readers than it would have been were he transforming into a mouse, you know? And that could be a way to generate more sympathy for us. The idea of turning into an insect is about as alien as it gets without leaving the planet altogether.
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