The Literature Book

210

GREGOR SAMSA FOUND

HIMSELF IN HIS BED,

TRANSFORMED INTO A

MONSTROUS VERMIN

METAMORPHOSIS (1915), FRANZ KAFKA

T

he main proposition

of existentialism is

that anxiety forms the

foundation of human feeling and

thinking; this condition is triggered

when we recognize the absurdity

and meaninglessness of our

existence. Existentialism has

roots in 19th-century northern

European philosophy—with key

terms such as “angst,” or anxiety,

coined by Søren Kierkegaard,

a Danish thinker whose works

influenced Franz Kafka.

Confusion and anxiety are

represented by an extreme

metaphor in Kafka’s disturbing

story Metamorphosis, and staged

in front of a cast of unsympathetic

characters. While there are clearly

literal discomforts associated with

Gregor Samsa’s waking form as

a verminous, beetling insect, at

the core of Kafka’s tragic novella

is the response of his family and

acquaintances to his absurd

predicament, as opposed to the

impositions of changed physicality.

Hell is other people

Gregor is rendered utterly

dysfunctional and can no longer

work as a salesman or support

his vulnerable family. Rather

than offer compassion, his family

appear hugely inconvenienced and

disgusted. So Gregor as a beetle

is treated as abject and alien, and

Kafka deftly exposes the barbaric

and inhumane response of the

so-called civilized, rational world

that they represent. In the words

of the existentialist philosopher

and writer Jean-Paul Sartre, “Hell is

other people.” His phrase perfectly

describes Kafka’s absurd depiction

of a family in crisis.

Gregor is reduced to scuttling

over the walls and ceiling of his

room in the family apartment—or

retreating under the sofa—to pass

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Existentialism

BEFORE

1864 Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s

Notes from the Underground is

published; it is later celebrated

as early existentialist writing.

1880 Dostoyevsky’s The

Brothers Karamazov focuses

on the father–son relationship.

1883–85 Contempt for human

pity and compassion, a typical

existentialist theme, is a major

focus in Friedrich Nietzsche’s

Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

AFTER

1938 Jean-Paul Sartre

publishes Nausea, considered

a great existentialist novel.

1942 The Outsider by Albert

Camus explores people’s futile

search for meaning in life’s

disordered events.

1953 Waiting for Godot by

Samuel Beckett depicts the

absurd lives of two tramps.

For the first few days

especially, there was no

conversation that was not

about him in one way or

another, if only in private.

Metamorphosis

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