Blog Post #29

This past week, as we finished our essays on What Dreams May Come and wrapped up our Divine Comedy project, we began reading Franz Kofka's The Metamorphosis. Kofka is known as one of the most influential modernists in all of history, and The Metamorphosis is one of his best works. It opens up the human mind to the ideas of self-oppression, inner tunnel vision, and most of all, self-loathing. Kofka is a hard piece to read mostly for the extreme sadness expressed, and I haven't read too far in it yet. So far, I have only seen one layer of symbolism expressed: blindness. "The stresses of selling are much greater than the actual work going on at head office, and, in addition to that, I still have to cope with the problems of travelling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships, which never come from the heart." (Kafka, 2) The main character, not even having the slightest concern that he is now a vile bug of some sort, is repressing himself. The dark, twisted reality he has cornered himself into is just now catching up to him, and yet he still refuses to acknowledge it. "'What’s happened to me,' he thought. It was no dream. His room, a proper room for a human being, only somewhat too small, lay quietly between the four well-known walls." (Kafka, 1) The horrible soul-crushing world he lives in is almost too hard to bear, so his mind has created a new one for him.
My prediction for the plot of this depressing story is with a bleak outlook. I think it is only going to get harder to read. I have barely made it past the first few pages and I'm already feeling a little suicidal. There is hints that the main character will persevere and the plot will come to a happy ending, but by this point in the year I know better. I think that the story of this lonely bug will come to a devastating end.  "They would only have had to push their arms under his arched back to get him out of the bed, to bend down with their load, and then merely to exercise patience so that he could complete the flip onto the floor, where his diminutive legs would then, he hoped, acquire a purpose." (Kafka, 3) The reason I believe this story will end grimly is summed up in this phrase. As a normal person would react to this situation as a complete horror, Gregory is simply trying to carry out his day. He is blind to anything in the future except what he is told, and the end result is not always pretty for people of that nature. He is too caught up in the rat race, as some would say. "Things are not yet going as well as I thought. But things are all right with me. How suddenly this can overcome someone! Only yesterday evening everything was fine with me." (Kafka, 5) Gregory is a prisoner to himself, and to everyone trying to keep him free. Sometimes when you work so hard to become something, you get there only to find you have nothing to show for it. Life is complicated like that, and without stopping to smell the roses every once in a while, you could be doomed to live a very sad, dark life. You may not turn into a bug, but you will be no better than one.