Kafka Essays - Absurdist Fiction, Modernist Literature, Novellas

Kafka And Reality Of Change The Reality of Change What is reality? Every person has his or her own"reality" or truth of their existence. For some it may be a dead-end job due to their lack of education while to others it may be the carefree life of a successful person. The true reality of any situation is that whatever direction is chosen in life a person brings the same inner self, motivational levels and attitudes. Unless they are willing to change the way they perceive and react to a situation they are forever trading one set of problems for another. As readers of literature we too seek to escape our "reality" and experience life through an author's imagination while gaining valuable knowledge about ourselves. In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, the nature of Gregor Samsa's reality changes insignificantly in spite of his drastic physical changes. Gregor's life before the metamorphosis was limited to working and caring for his family. As a travelling salesman, Gregor worked long, hard hours that left little time to experience "life." He reflects on his so-called life acknowledging the "plague of traveling: the anxieties of changing trains, the irregular, inferior meals, the ever changing faces, never to be seen again, people with whom one has no chance to be friendly" (Kafka 13). Gregor, working to pay off his family's debt, has resigned himself to a life full of no pleasures only work. Kafka himself paralleled this sentiment in a quote taken from his diaries noting that no matter how hard you work "that work still doesn't entitle you to loving concern for people. Instead, you're alone, a total stranger, a mere object of curiosity" (Pawel 167). Gregor submerges himself in work and becomes a stranger to himself and to life. Any type of social contact beyond porters, waitresses or bartenders was non-existent. He had once met a "cashier in a hat shop, whom he had pursued earnestly but too slowly" (Kafka 76). There was no room in Gregor's life for people other that his family and as a result was condemned to a life without love or caring not to mention basic companionship. He worked diligently to provide for his family and that remained his only goal in life. Gregor's family relied on him to be the"breadwinner" of the family, but gave him nothing in return. The life that he had led until now was one fully of obligations and loneliness; he came home to empty hotel rooms or his apathetic family. His parents and "their dominance thus extends to the system which deprives him of creative life and married love" (Eggenschwiler 54). So concerned with ensuring his parents and sister were taken care of, he forgot his own needs. It was apparent to everyone that he was no longer thought of as a son or an extension of the family, but merely as a"support system." The tragic fact is that "everyone had grown accustomed to it, his family as much as himself; they took the money gratefully, he gave it willingly but the act was accompanied by no remarkable effusiveness" (Kafka 48). It appears that in the course of his hectic work schedule, he overlooks that in return for dedication to his family, he remains unloved and unappreciated. Yet Gregor still "believed he had to provide his family with a pleasant, contented, secure life" (Emrich 149), regardless of how they treated him. Gregor's existence before the metamorphosis was much like after it; limited to work and family, he went unnoticed by both. After changing into a cockroach one night, Gregor is forced to live a life of isolation with a family who is appalled by him. He is placed in a "dark bedroom, in the jumble of discarded furniture and filth" a " monstrous vermin, a grotesque, hidden part of the family" (Eggenschwiler 211). Shock and terror, resulting in Gregor being locked away, marked his family's reaction to his metamorphosis. His sister is the only one that, while frightened, would tend to Gregor's room and meals. She even took the responsibility so far as to get angry with anyone who wanted to help. Gregor was not allowed any contact or association with the family and "no one attempted to understand him, no one, not even his sister, imagined that he could understand them" (Kafka 45). So Gregor was left to occupy his time, alone, and contemplate the situation he had been thrust into. He was coming to realize that through his metamorphosis he had not lost anything. He had simply moved from one