KAFKA “The Metamorphosis” (Audio Book): Summary and Commentary
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The Metamorphosis is a long story by Franz Kafka (1883-1924), written in 1912 but published in 1915. It is one of the most well-known and famous texts by the Bohemian writer which describes the events of a man, Gregor Samsa, who one morning he wakes up and discovers that he has taken on the features of a cockroach. Generally, the metamorphosis is interpreted as an allegory of the alienation of modern man within the family and society, which translates into the isolation of the "different" and the lack of communication with one's peers. The story is also an excellent example of Kafka's poetics and worldview, in which the destiny of individual existence is in the hands of dark and unknowable forces, which operate in an absurd and inscrutable way on the lives of men (as can also be seen in the novel The Trial).
SUMMARY
The metamorphosis is divided into three parts and opens, in an unexpected and lightning-fast way, on the surprising mutation of the protagonist:
One morning, upon waking from troubled dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself transformed into an enormous insect.
Gregor Samsa is a simple traveling salesman, precise and methodical, who one morning, having woken up later than usual, realizes that he has taken on the appearance of a gigantic cockroach. Gregor's thoughts, however, are not initially focused on his monstrous appearance, but rather on the significant delay he is accumulating: his profession in fact forces him to strictly respect railway connections and, in the conditions in which he finds himself, Gregor will certainly lose his morning train. Gregor lives with his parents and a beloved sixteen-year-old sister, named Grete, who one after the other go knocking on his door, worried about his unusual lateness and therefore convinced that Gregor is ill. The protagonist, while laboriously trying to get out of bed (he in fact woke up lying on his back, which is now his curved armour), reassures them that everything is fine, although his voice is already modified by his new condition. . Gregor finally arrives at the door, just when the prosecutor, his employer, annoyed by the absence of his subordinate, enters the apartment to get news of him. The prosecutor, from behind the door, inundates him with the most varied accusations, including that of having worked badly for a long time and that of dismissal for his incomprehensible behavior. Gregor would like to reply, but once again he can only make indefinite noises. Finally, holding on to the handle with his jaw, the protagonist manages to open the door: the prosecutor, at the sight of the revolting insect, flees in panic, while Gregor tries to chase him to try to justify himself. Gregor's mother, shocked at the sight of her son, collapses while the father attacks the cockroach with a stick, slightly injuring Gregor and then locking the door to her son's room. Gregor falls asleep.
In the second part of the story, when we are now at the end of the day, Gregor wakes up and finds some bread and milk that Grete, in a move of compassion, has left there for him, feeling pity for Gregor and convinced that there is still a part human in him. Gregor, however, as a consequence of the metamorphosis, has also changed his food tastes and no longer has an appetite for human food. The sister, understanding his needs, the next day makes him find some leftovers from the garbage, which Gregor finally manages to eat. The habits of the Samsa family are thus revolutionized: Grete, every day, goes to Gregor's room to do the daily cleaning, while her cockroach brother, so as not to scare her, takes refuge under her on the sofa. In the long hours of solitude in his room, Gregor listens through the wall to what is happening in the house and discovers that, due to his condition which prevents him from working, his old and tired parents will have to start working again and Grete will have to abandon her violin lessons. Meanwhile, Gregor gains awareness of his new body, climbing the walls and ceiling. Grete, thoughtful, decides to remove the furniture from her room to give him more space, although these are one of the last tangible proofs of his previous condition as a human being. However, when the mother and sister are clearing out the protagonist's room, a serious accident occurs: Gregor, realizing that a painting that is very dear to him, depicting a woman, is about to be taken away, comes out of his hiding place, causing him to faint. horrifying the mother and making Grete explode in anger. Gregor, scared and confused, feels responsible for what happened and walks frantically around the house. When the father, just returned from his new job as a delivery boy, discovers what has happened, he attacks him by throwing apples at him. One of these sticks in his armour, seriously wounding him and preventing him, from then on, in all his movements.
In the third section of the Metamorphosis, Gregor is now confined to a closet and is essentially ignored by the family: the apartment has been sublet to three tenants and the family has hired a maid, who, far from being afraid of the monster, openly mocks him . One evening, while Grete plays in the living room for her parents and new guests, Gregor leaves the room and reaches the threshold of the room, fascinated by his sister's musical ability. The sight of the insect, however, startles the three tenants who immediately leave the apartment. The family's economic situation then takes a new turn and Grete decides to work as a shop assistant. Her sister, therefore, also stops taking care of her brother, increasingly convinced by recent events that there is no longer any trace of her beloved brother in that beast, which she reproaches for not having left home for a long time. Before. The father openly claims that the time has come to get rid of Gregor.
The latter, humiliated and abandoned by everyone, after listening to these speeches, allows himself to die of starvation. Gregor's end is actually the beginning of a new chapter for the family, who, taking a day off, take a trip to the countryside. Here the Samsa family, who enjoy a certain economic independence thanks to their work, decides to move to a smaller house better suited to their needs. Grete, despite the period of suffering that has passed, has become a beautiful girl of marriageable age.
COMMENT
The pages of Kafka's Metamorphosis present themselves as a long, articulated metaphor that develops in two different but closely related directions. On the one hand, the story is a denunciation of the oppression of social rules on the individual, who is crushed and depersonalized by external impositions. On the other hand, The Metamorphosis is an apologue on the impossibility of communication between human beings, especially in family environments, symbolized by the closed and asphyxiated places in which the whole story takes place.
Gregor Samsa, in whom we can see a "double" of his author, is crushed by the rules of bourgeois life. His job as a traveling salesman, repetitive and tiring, is however the source of sustenance for the entire family, a circumstance that forces him to scrupulously respect obligations, timetables and office duties. It is no coincidence that when he wakes up and realizes that he has turned into a disgusting cockroach, Gregor's first thought is of the delay he had already accumulated in the early morning; when the prosecutor orders him to open the door of the room, threatening him with dismissal, Samsa doesn't pay attention to the reaction that his new bestial appearance might provoke, but tries in every way to justify his actions and behavior. In short, the metamorphosis into an insect is the concrete form of Gregor's alienation, stuck in mechanisms that deprive him of his identity.
At the same time, the family context of the Samsas is also the basis of the allegory constructed by Kafka: Gregor is the pillar on which their well-being is based, exemplified by Grete's lessons at the Conservatory. The relationships of affection and love are soon overturned when Gregor can no longer ensure any form of support due to his mutation; in a short time, he becomes an unbearable burden and, after a series of accidents unwanted by Gregor, even his beloved sister sees him as a nuisance to be got rid of. In this situation all the latent tensions easily emerge, such as the difficult relationship between the son and the father, up to the episode of Gregor's wounding with an apple, or the circumstance, which preludes the death of the protagonist, in which the young man listens the family members' talks about all the problems he has caused the family.
All this - which also has precise biographical confirmations in the existence of Kafka, son of a family of merchants but led to a literary career - can make us interpret The Metamorphosis as the allegory of the impossible conciliation between individual aspirations and the constraints of bourgeois life . Gregor's "diversity" is thus loaded with meanings and readings which, in part, remain deliberately ambiguous and enigmatic, as is typical of Kafkaesque narrative. The causes of the metamorphosis are neither explained nor investigated and it is accepted by Gregor as a fact; the other members of the family, who instead represent the high "normal" of life and society, are disgusted by it, but not even they question the causes of the mutation. The resulting effect of estrangement surrounds the whole story with an aura of "magical realism": in an apparently real and everyday context (the existence of a normal bourgeois family at the beginning of the century) a magical or supernatural element is introduced ( the “metamorphosis”), without giving rational explanations. Metamorphosis thus becomes for Kafka the key to understanding the evils of contemporary man.
