Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

In Franz Kafka’s novella, The Metamorphosis, the travelling salesman Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning, in his family’s home, to find “himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 3). While this immediate physical change, supported by ensuing physical imagery, suggests that the “metamorphosis” introduced in the title is purely physical, other interpretations are also possible. When the reader relies upon the extended and embedded metaphors present in this text, he or she may construe Gregor Samsa’s transformation as an emotional, mental, or internal change. It is a combination of both physical and nonphysical interpretations of Gregor Samsa’s metamorphosis, however, which produces a multifaceted, enriched perspective on Gregor Samsa as a character, both realistic and allegorical. When one accepts antithetical interpretations of the metamorphosis in this text, one not only gains a clearer perspective of both physical and nonphysical readings, one also becomes aware of the concept of metamorphosis on every level of this novella, from the stylistic to the thematic.

Through the use of intense, repetitive, detail-oriented, physical imagery, the narrator of this text situates the characters in a very realistic, physical realm. Such details as the “unpacked line of fabric samples,” the “pretty gilt frame” with the magazine picture, and the “raindrops hitting against the metal window ledge” immediately situate the changed Gregor in a world, not of ideals and lucid symbols, but of raw and imperfect physical facts (3). Thus, once informed of Gregor Samsa’s insect-like state, the reader finds it natural to contextualize this fantastic piece of information realistically. The straightforward, phy...

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..., a limited, omniscient narrator follows Gregor Samsa, and witnesses some of what he thinks and all of what he does. However, it is not simply this uninterrupted study of Gregor which makes the text so intriguing. It is the conflict between those literary elements which render Gregor Samsa’s transformation physical and those elements which render it nonphysical that makes it a transformation, not only in theme and plot, but in stylistic detail as well. In this way, The Metamorphosis contains enriched transformations on multiple textual levels. Gregor Samsa is trapped in a foreign body which inhabits both physical and nonphysical realms. He is trapped in a text, the contents of which exist in much the same way. The cosmic intersection between the two, occurring at and in an unfortunate travelling salesman, is perhaps the true metamorphosis at the heart of this text.