Metaphorical Metamorphosis: Kafka and Arendt - Part II

 

The following is a continuation to the first part that summarizes Arendt's main message in The Human Condition and sets the stage for Kafka. Read that here! In this article, we will take a closer look at Metamorphosis, Kafka's most well-known short story, and how it weaves into a grander social philosophy.

1. Metamorphosis:

Metamorphosis is one of Kafka’s most celebrated works, perfectly capturing the thematic sphere that most of his stories are set in. Gregor Samsa, the main protagonist, is Kafka’s ultimate anti-hero: a life of tireless work grounded in utter mediocrity, simply accompanying the reader with proceeding events rather than controlling them. The seemingly unreal turn of events set in a much too real world reflect Arendt’s critiques of labor with surprising depth, despite their absurdist nature.

Gregor Samsa, a young clerk living with his parents and sister, wakes up one morning as a large, monstrous insect. Realizing that his transformation is not merely a nightmare, he tries to keep himself unseen by anyone in his family. However, he is compelled to open his door due to an urgent work visit from the chief clerk, leaving his family astonished and himself unemployed. Soon, he gets accustomed to his new body, crawling around in his room and developing a taste for expired food. Helplessly, he grows increasingly distant from his family, with his father banishing him away and his sister eventually shunning him, just like the vermin that he has now become. With no source of income and the guilt of his family undergoing financial strain and potential social ostracism, he grows rapidly ill, finally dying in the same room he found his new existence. His family, in a twisted and macabre realization, breathes in a deep sigh of relief.

The ironic dark humor of the story immediately shines through – post-metamorphosis, Gregor’s main worry is not the personal changes to his life, but that he would be late to work. He has no choice but to immediately accept the wretchedness of his grotesque reality because there is no time or value in self-reflection – it simply does not generate income.   A Marxian psyche is too practical to not have, but Kafka highlights the dehumanization that is inherent in it.

Throughout the story, we experience Metamorphosis from Gregor’s perspective – one that cares much more about societal and materialist effects than the personal acknowledgment of this change. As a result, we observe his family gradually perceive him more by his abominable exterior than the human he used to be. Even his sister, who used to caringly provide him food and cleaned his room, rejects the idea of a Gregor existing within his insect body and that leads to his death.  

In some sense, this narrative develops to support Marx’s idea of labor. As previously mentioned, Marx saw an intrinsic power in labor, capable of expressing human capacity and, consequently, embodying the human condition. Gregor held this view throughout his life as a young clerk; he defined his self-worth on the money he earned. Not only that, but we see this so-called “labor” (or the lack of it) change the way his family and society interacted with him. I would even say that his inability to earn money, and not the new insect body, is what primarily led to Gregor’s dehumanizing treatment. In this way, we can see that labor does carry significant tangible utilitarian meaning, contrary to Arendt.

However, it was also this Marxian-leaning mentality that led to Gregor’s ultimate demise. It not only encouraged his family to dehumanize Gregor, but also Gregor to dehumanize himself. The fact that Gregor’s guilty conscience arose from labor’s glorification (and led to his death) is Kafka’s agreement with Arendt’s concerns. Placing labor at the epitome of human value creates a very unstable mindset, and consequently, a very fragile society that is unable to withstand the adversities of its own financial creations. Perhaps automation was just one of the examples Arendt gave to illustrate the inevitable downfall of such a society; Kafka provides an alternate cause to the same outcome – man’s enslavement to materialism.