Comparison of Kafka's Metamorphosis and Dali's The Metamorphosis of Narcissus

Comparison of Kafka's Metamorphosis and Dali's The Metamorphosis of Narcissus

The painting that I chose to compare to the novel Metamorphosis, by

Franz Kafka, was painted in 1937 by Salvatore Dali. Dali is an established

Surrealist painter, who, like Kafka, explored his own psyche and dreams in

his work. Dali invented a process, called the "paranoiac critical method",

which is used in this painting, to assist his creative process. As Dali

described it, his aim in painting was "to materialize the images of

concrete irrationality with the most imperialistic fury of precision...in

order that the world of imagination and of concrete irrationality may be as

objectively evident...as that of the exterior world of phenomenal

reality."1

The rich landscape, seems to be limitless in detail. Dali rendered

every detail of this landscape with precise accuracy, striving to make his

paintings as realistic as possible.

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a beautiful young youth, who fell

in love with his own reflection, and then drowned while trying to embrace

himself. His body was never recovered, but a flower, which was named after

him was. The left side of this painting shows the kneeling Narcissus,

outlined by the craggy rocks of what could only be Cape Creus's. On the

right side of the painting, the scene has morphed into a more idyllic and

classical scene, in which the kneeling Narcissus has become the statue

of a hand, holding a cracked egg, from which emerges The Narcissus flower.

This painting reminded me of the first chapter of Metamorphosis,

where the main character, Gregor Samsa, first realizes that he is

confronted with a ludicrous fate in the form of a gigantic insect. In both

Kafka's and Dali's work, I noticed that they both implement a certain

"receding" technique. Dali tends to put an object (In this case,

Narcissus) In the foreground, and the background of the painting tends to

be very crisp and detailed, yet unimportant, compared to Narcissus. I feel

the same way about Gregor, I see Kafka writing this story with mainly

Gregor in mind, as the main character and narrator. Kafka puts this

puzzled victim in the story as a clerk, yet that element of the story tends

to receded in to the plot of the story.