Siddhartha Blog Post #33

As a young boy living under his father in a Brahmin community, Siddhartha always felt that others expected too much out of him and he was always being too over-protected. He was loved and respected for being one of the more holy and honorable of the men there, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was missing. He was living with his father in the manner to achieve enlightenment, and so far it wasn't going that well. It was too slow for Siddhartha. He felt like he had already gotten as much as he could from meditating all the time, and that cleansing your soul could only be done personally. No one could tell you to achieve Nirvana, that is a lone path to take. Siddhartha is a symbol for hope in his community, but he is still unhappy. He needs something more in his life, but he doesn't know what. "Thus was Siddhartha beloved by all. He brought them all joy, filled them with delight. To himself though, Siddhartha brought no joy, gave no delight." (Hesse, 4) After meditating with his best friend Govinda for most of the day, Siddhartha makes the decision to leave his community and trace his own path to enlightenment. Govinda loves Siddhartha, but he tries to convince him to stay. Siddhartha ignores him, and goes home to tell his father -- who is not the least bit supportive to his new life choice. Siddhartha has made up his mind, and his father knows he can't change that now. Siddhartha stands outside for the entire night in preparation. In the morning, his father tells him to go into the forest to be a Samana. His loyal friend, Govinda joins him as Siddhartha takes the first step into his new life. When Siddhartha and Govinda arrive at the scene of the Samanas, they are welcomed. Before long, They have both adapted the lifestyle and are working on their own enlightenment. Siddhartha has adapted the idea that all material possessions are distractions from the real happiness in life, and that the path to true Nirvana is through elimination of all pleasures. Want is a fake emotion, and the only way to be purified is to disconnect from all of it. The Samanas only do enough to survive, and don't indulge in any lust. "-all of these things were unworthy of being looked upon by him; it was all a lie, it all stank, stank of lies, it all gave the allusion of meaning happiness and beauty, and all of it was just putrefaction that no one would admit to." (Hesse, 12-13) Soon, Siddhartha grows weary of his lessons with the Samanas. He has the same problem: he has not yet achieved enlightement. Rumors spread that the Buddha has found Nirvana and broken the circle of rebirth, and Siddhartha decides to seek him. Govinda again tries to convince Siddhartha to stay, telling him that they have learned so much with the Samanas and that they may really be on to something. But Siddhartha is past that. He is prepared to leave with or without Govinda, and eventually but reluctantly Govinda follows him. Siddhartha is slowly making his way to enlightenment, and he has surpassed the Samanas in their study because he wasn't afraid to. He is filling himself with his own happiness, and before long he won't need anymore. Soon Siddhartha and Govinda arrive at a small village where the Buddha Gautama is said to reside. The two rest for the night, and when they wake in the morning they see a bustling crowd of Monks begging for food. Among them is the Gautama, and Siddhartha recognizes him immediately. "Thus did Gautama stroll toward the town to collect alms, and the two Samanas recognized him solely by his perfect calm, the stillness of his figure, in which there was no searching, no desire, no imitation, no effort to be discerned, only light and peace." (Hesse, 25) Siddhartha and Govinda are amazed by this character that has achieved the only thing anyone has ever searched for in their life -- complete Nirvana. It stuns them at how his peace is his own, and he could go on living forever but still not be afraid to die. Siddhartha knows that he must listen to what this great being has to say. After hearing a sermon about Nirvana, Siddhartha begins to question the contradictions in the Buddha's logic. He wonders how one is supposed to be at peace with everything, but yet still not desire it. Siddhartha meets with Gautama in the garden unexpectedly, and he questions him. Even now Govinda has taken an oath under Gautama, but Siddhartha has the same problem he always did. He hasn't learned much from Gautama, and without Govinda, Siddhartha leaves to find a new pathway to enlightenment. He feels robbed by the Buddha for taking his friend, but also thankful for getting faith in himself. The problem and solution Siddhartha is wrestling with is that he is the only one that realizes happiness cannot be taught. To achieve enlightenment is a personally journey, and when one thinks they have found it they probably have a long way to go. Siddhartha is trying to excavate the deep emotions inside him, whether they be good or bad. He wants to connect with himself full circle. His real journey is not the physical one he has set out on, but rather the battle being settled in his heart. He needs to find a purpose, and if his entire legacy is in his own head, so be it. Siddhartha knows that the only way he can be happy is if he allows himself to be.

After leaving the Buddha, Siddhartha is changed. His perspective on the world is different somehow. He decides that he is done with teachers and teaching. The only way he will be able to find what is best for him is to not have it explained by someone else, but to rule it out for himself. "Walking slowly away, Siddhartha realized he was a youth no longer, he had become a man. (Hesse, 33) He is almost tempted to go back to his father, but he knows that that is now in the past. He has nothing to gain from where he has already been. Siddhartha accepts the fact that he is alone, and from now on he was only caged by himself. It was completely up to him to find Nirvana. Siddhartha wanders aimlessly for a while, enjoying nature and all the world has to offer around him as he does so. Eventually, he finds himself aboard a ferry going to a largely populated city. Siddhartha feels bad for not being able to pay the ferryman, but the kind stranger assures him that they will meet again and Siddhartha will bear a gift. Once he arrives at the city, Siddhartha is almost seduced by a mysterious woman. Deep down in his heart Siddhartha feels nothing, so he moves on. But he soon falls play to another woman named Kamala. Siddhartha feels like he has purpose when she smiles at him, and he knows that he must find a way to have her. "Now he was present, he belonged. Light and shade passed through his eyes, star and moon passed through his heart." (Hesse, 42)  After a bath and a shave, Siddhartha seeks Kamala to teach him in the way of love. Kamala explains that first Siddhartha must become a member of society, and Siddhartha obeys. Before long, Siddhartha is living a life with the others of Kamala's city. Siddhartha has learned that happiness can be impersonal, in the sense of being displayed through someone else that you were meant for. Before he met Kamala, Siddhartha felt like the world didn't move fast enough for him. Now that he knows how to pick the fruit bore in the present, he feels like he is running out of time. He has gone through the transformation of being of one to for one. Happiness is not concealed to one person, it has to be shared and cared for. The things people enjoy will soon pass, but when someone live for something or someone else, that is all that person will ever need. Love is a give/take equation. It takes a little to get started, but once sparked it can run on itself. Happiness is the same way. Everyone's happiness is different, and some people's Nirvana is to simply be with someone they care for. Siddhartha has found his one happy place. Soon, Siddhartha begins work in Kamaswami's store. His Samana ideals prove to be well rooted, as Siddhartha treats everything as a joke. He shrugs of his failures as easily as he does his success. Siddhartha is uninterested in the ways of wealth and honor, because he knows that those things can only provide limited happiness. Kamaswami eventually tempts Siddhartha by showing him that courting Kamala is better with money, and Siddhartha is beginning to feel wrapped up in the stresses of social restrictions again.  Still, Siddhartha has a noble reason for working as a businessman. Kamala is all that is important to him, and he relates with her on many different levels. "He-who in matters of love was still a boy and tended to hurl himself blindly and insatiably into pleasure as into an abyss- was now being instructed methodically in this doctrine." (Hesse, 57) Siddhartha knows that people like him and Kamala can never be in love. But for the time being, he is happy. His ego has been built up, and he knows that it will soon come crashing down on him. He is just trying to enjoy the time he has for the moment. His search for Nirvana is on hold. He has a temporary fix for his yearning, and he is feeling full from the false hope and trust he has placed in Kamala. Deep down he knows it will end, but the lesson he will learn will make all the hardship worth it. He is on a constant quest for knowledge, and soon he will have it -- one way or another.

Kafka/Modernism Reflection Essay

As a study of Modernism, there is no better to paint a vivid image of this dark take on reality than Franz Kafka. Modernism is a hard concept to define, but Kafka hits the nail right on the head. Some argue he could be the father of Modernism. Many people may simply shrug Kafka's aims at reality as just a depressed outlook, but there is a method to it that has helped many people and can be found as undeniably true. Modernism is commonly characterized as the explanation for why we work-and the answer is not because it makes people happy. People isolate themselves from what is really important in their lives when they get too caught up in the rat race of society, and one day they will look back at all that they have accomplished and wonder where their loved ones are to prove it to. Franz Kafka's most well-known piece of literature, The Metamorphosis, is the best example of Modernism the world has ever known and still is today. There is a lesson to be found on every page. Using the allegorical character known as Gregor for his expression of the Modernist interpretation of life, Kafka is truly the directing forerunner of Modernism.

As an example of just how judicious Kafka is with his Modernist ideals and knowledge, a college professor by the name of David Foster Wallace has admitted to almost giving up on teaching Kafka to his young students. In his speech, Laughing with Kafka, Foster argues that Kafka cannot be understood by the contemporary generation, simply because kids don't see the humor in his shrewd. "What Kafka seems able to do better than just about anyone else is to orchestrate the pressure's increase in such a way that it becomes intolerable at the precise instant it is released." (Wallace, 1) Like a joke, Kafka forces people to look at the dark underbelly of society when they least want to, but lets them go just in time for them to think about what they have done to create it. He pushes people to the point of breaking, but pacifies them just before the end as to give them time to take it all in. What most scholars don't get is that Kafka doesn't want to depress and upset his readers, he wants to change them for the better. He wants to shed light on what is not known to society and scare away our darkest fears-but only the people themselves can do that. Kafka is simply giving them the weapon of awareness. "The claim is that Kafka's funniness depends on some kind of radical literalization of truths we tend to treat as metaphorical." (Wallace, 2) People can't take all of Kafka's statements verbatim. What is sometimes hard to understand really isn't that difficult at all. People are just trying to avoid the answer that is right in front of their face. Kafka is opening society's eyes to its real life, the life it was created to live in. "Kafka's evocations are, rather, unconscious and almost sub-archtypal, the primordial little-kid stuff from which myths derive; this is why we tend to call even his weirdest stories nightmarish rather than surreal. "(Wallace, 2) People don't understand Kafka because they tend to look too far into it. It's hard to explain the joke after it has already been said, because then the joke isn’t funny anymore. It’s lost all its humor. To understand Kafka is on a personal level, it differs from each individual. That's the unseen virtuosity to Kafka's Modernist wisdom.

Another illustration of Kafka's brilliance is characterized through the similarities of a fellow modern revisionist of contemporary time, a Mr. Thomas C. Foster. Thomas Foster is a literature major and has been teaching on a professional level for over twenty-one years at the University of Michigan-Flint. His most famous piece of writing is an evaluation of Sigmund Freud. Foster's idea of communion and Vampirism is expressed in both his pieces Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion, and Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires. Through the somewhat bias positions Freud had on neurology, Foster tries to interpret Freud's famous quote, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." (Freud, 1) Foster is trying to shed light on the idea of eating with others, or in a somber case, eating someone. The idea of communion is simple: people eat food with others that they care for as to prove something to themselves, to remind each other of something. In a religious sense, taking communion is supposed to symbolize the blood and body of Christ, and by taking communion in church people are reminding themselves that Jesus died for them on the cross. "Here's the thing to remember about communions of all kinds: in the real world, breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace, since if you're breaking bread you're not breaking heads." (Foster, 2) People tend to eat with others they care about, and others are not invited into their home without consent of food. Eating is sacred for all people. At the end of the day, families come together at the table to be with one another and enjoy a meal. Sharing food with loved one is always a time to respect, and always necessary. On the other hand, through a Modernist perspective, the symbolism of a Vampire eating is much different. When a Vampire sucks the blood out of its victim, it is literally and metaphorically sucking the life out of them. A Vampire feeds off others' souls, and takes what people have in the most selfish way possible. Like Gregor's father, Vampires get fat and lazy off other's toil. "Denying someone else's right to live in the face of our overwhelming demands." (Foster, 21) Vampires are perverse creatures. They take what they want without any regard or even a second thought to how it may affect their victim or others around them. They feed on others as to make themselves full of life, but not their own. Vampires take other's fortunes and exploit their victims’ values for their own benefit. They prey on others less than them, and draw from their hard work and self worth. Gregor's father could have been working the entire time Gregor was a human, but he only got a job once Gregor was no longer able to support his family. Sharing and taking are two major ideas tossed around by Kafka, and both are symbolized in The Metamorphosis. Communion is a thing to be celebrated, it represents sharing and love for one another. Vampirism is the opposite. Even though Communion is a good thing, it only causes Gregor more pain and makes the Vampirism of his father more unbearable. That is the depressing enlightenment of Kafka's allegories. 

As all of these ideas play into the story line of The Metamorphosis, the reader begins to see the irony, the humor, and the sadness expressed by Kafka intentionally targeting society. Kafka wants to teach everyone something, not only about themselves, but the world they live in too. The idea is a difficult one to dissect, but once people discover it for themselves it becomes eye-opening to say the least. Gregor is a young boy living and supporting his family in a small, drab apartment that he has trapped himself into. He never goes out, he never spends time in nature, and he has no friends at all. He is completely consumed by his work. Being a traveling salesman is all that he ever thinks about, all he is good for. With no real life, no benefit to society or any other characteristics distinguished from a mindless robot, Gregor is not alive. He will leave no real impact on anyone once he dies, and when he does-no one cares anymore. He is thrown out with the rest of the garbage. With nothing more to prove to the world than that of a vermin, Gregor literally becomes one. He is transformed into his true figure: an unclean animal not suited for sacrifice. "No request of Gregor's was of any use; no request would ever be understood." (Kafka, 8) Gregor is a bug, his human form is no longer a mask for what he is deep down. His true ethics and standards have revealed themselves, he can no longer hide himself. What little human values he has are still appreciable, but fading. "For, in fact, from day to day he perceived things with less and less clarity, even those only a short distance away." (Kafka, 13) Gregor has no one to blame but himself. He still cares for his family, and even in his hideous condition he still wants to help them. The only incentive for him to get better is to send his sister to the Conservative. Gregor is a truly selfless figure, but in a Modernist world that cannot be. He simply becomes easy prey for the Vampires. Even when Gregor is covered in garbage, injured by his own Father with an apple and ironically starving, he still tries his best to help and secure his sister. "She frightened Gregor twice every day. The entire time he trembled under the couch, and yet he knew very well that she would certainly have spared him gladly if it had only been possible to remain with the window closed in a room where Gregor lived." (Kafka, 13) Gregor has shut himself in. He wants to help his sister, but he is so focused on doing good for others that he forgot about himself. In the end, with no one to care for him, Gregor dies from starvation. He was no more than the tiny, broken shell of a bug that remains of him, and his memory will only be portrayed as the scrawny little burden to the family with no friends, no life, and no evidence of his own existence. In a Modernist way, Gregor did the best he could with what he had. But he was focused on all the wrong things. All he wanted to do was help his family, but that turned out to be all he did. He was lost in himself. He had nowhere to go besides work, and that is a sad fact to admit. Gregor was living, but not alive. The Modernist world killed him, but it was ultimately his own stubbornness that ended his faulty existence. 

Throughout all of Kafka’s writing, there is a parable to be found. Kafka means to help people, but in the end those who are willing to listen can only help themselves. Kafka can only give you a push towards freedom. Happiness is not money, a high paying job, or even family. Happiness is simply doing what is enjoyed because life will be over soon. People live, try their hardest to leave a positive mark on this earth to remember them by, and then they die. It’s as simple as that. Kafka shares only one message throughout all of his writing: life is meant to be lived. With the short time all people are given on this earth they shouldn’t spend it worrying about money or cornering merits. Enjoy each minute, because the best parts don’t last long enough to go back and appreciate them. Life isn’t protracted enough for that. Life is a complicated ride, and it’s impossible to determine where it will go next. Don’t become a Vampire, and don’t become a mindless bug. Own all of what is good, and expel the bad habits formed in time. Experience life, because when it comes down to it, not a lot matters after it passes by. 

  

Blog Post #33

After reading both evaluations of Sigmund Freud's Acts of Communion and Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires, it has become evident that in both Freud is trying to stress the significance of eating (with) others. Eating (with) people has always been sacred, not only on a biblical level but on all levels. Having dinner at the end of the day with your family is always a time to reflect, and a time to enjoy. When you are meeting your girlfriend's parents for the first time, you always have dinner with them. Not just because its the formal thing to do, but it signifies that they are welcoming you into their home to share with them. In Freud's Acts of Communion, the point of sacristy and sharing is pushed through as a religious session. "Here's the thing to remember about communions of all kinds: in the real world, breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace, since if you're breaking bread you're not breaking heads." (Freud, 8) Eating with others is a time for peace, and one not to be interrupted. It brings people together on common ground and you really get to know a person by what (or who) they eat. People will always be willing to share their food with you if they truly think you're worth it. "We may not, for instance, accept a dinner invitation from someone we don't care for." (Freud, 8) Eating, taking communion, sharing and socializing with people over food or drink has always been part of our culture. It's just a nice thing to do, and eating with people you enjoy being with will always be more and more fun. If you dislike that person, you will know as soon as you attempt to make conversation. It's hard to be friends with people you don't care for, but sometimes you have to just put up with them. You'll know where you stand soon enough.

As for Freud's take on vampires in Nice to Eat You: Acts of Vampires, Freud stresses the symbolic meaning behind vampires. A vampire is a creature of the night that sucks your blood, everyone knows that. But Freud argues for much more. He claims that a vampire is an allegory for the selfish, like Gregor's father in The Metamorphosis. "Denying someone else's right to live in the face of our overwhelming demands." (Foster, 21) Vampires take others' fortunes and exploit their victim's values for their own benefit. They prey on others less than them, and draw from their hard work and self worth. Vampires are the worst thieves of all. Fraud argues from the modernist idea that we are all vampires. "Placing our desires, particularity our uglier ones, above the needs of another." (Foster, 21) We are always thinking about ourselves. We are the all singing, all dancing crap of the earth. (Fight Club) We demonstrate what we were taught a good life looks like on the outside, but only from building ourselves up on others' failure. All of these ideas play into Franz Kafka's ideas of modernism, and all are pretty depressing to admit. Either way, eating others or just eating with them has always been and always will be sacred.

Blog Post #32

For this week's blog post, we were asked to foster the idea of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. That is no simple task. The idea and the representation made of the young selfless man named Gregor into a hideous bug is hard to dissect. On one level you could look at it through a Modernist lens. Gregor is a young, selfless man of a hard life. He is too good for his own body. Even when he is about to die, about to lose his own sad example of a life, all Gregor can do is try and help his family. He is a bug, but a caring one. He is doing the best he can in his awful state. He is giving up on himself, and his family is too selfish to even notice. They only care who will put food on the table. Gregor's outlook becomes bleaker and bleaker. "For, in fact, from day to day he perceived things with less and less clarity,even those only a short distance away." (Kafka, 13) Gregor is on his last limb. His bug form has given up on him. Even with a broken leg, an apple flung from his father's hand lodged in his back, and waste all over his cramped confinement of a room, Gregor wishes he could return to his human form and send his sister to The Conservatory, to show his love somehow. "she frightened Gregor twice every day. The entire time he trembled under the couch, and yet he knew very well that she would certainly have spared him gladly if it had only been possible to remain with the window closed in a room where Gregor lived." (Kafka, 13) Every time his sister came into his room to feed him or clean up a little, he hid to honor her being there. He wishes he could show his appreciation somehow. Gregor has practically single-highhandedly preserved his family's state of well being, and he is still trying to do more. Gregor is the representation of a perfect soul. He is completely selfless, something that is not allowed to exist in a Modernist world.  
Another way to look at the representation of Gregor's Metamorphosis is through a &&& standpoint. 

Blog Post #31

As we continue to discuss Franz Kafka and the Modernist idea, we were asked to evaluate and study the ideas of morality, existentialism, and empathy. All of these terms are hard to define, and the exact clarified meaning is debatable. In my own opinion, all three of these mean something that cannot be completely explained. To me, morality is like pity. To have morality is to have values, and values make you human. I feel that to have morality is to be a good person at heart. It is hard to have morality, and very few people are truly moral. To become a man is to define your own values, and to set your morals in stone. Your values cannot be changed once you state them as your own. Existentialism is a little different. I see Existentialism as being an active member of society. You have to do more than just exist. It is sometimes hard to get motivated for something like school or a long work day, but for the benefit of those you love and not only yourself is to be an Existential person. Empathy is one of the hardest things for a person to be. To be empathetic is almost impossible. Doing the right thing even when no one is looking is sometimes hard, but empathy can help you do it. Not a lot of people are empathetic these days, but I am trying to get there. If I could be moral, existential, and empathetic all at the same time all the time, I would be a perfect person. Obviously that's not true, but I will try my hardest. I hope to improve myself through these rights.

The more specific definition for morality is a little more powerful. Morality is the idea that everyone you know and have ever felt for has taken you into their heart and you have taken a little bit of them into you. Humans sympathize on a primitive level, and when it comes down to it we are all brothers and sisters... kind of. Existentialism is a little more debatable too. Existentialism is a way of describing people who are truly kind. To be selfless is to be Existential. There has been few people throughout history that could be defined under Existentialism, but even fewer are truly kind. The definition is skewed, and to be completely selfless is merely undefined also. Empathy is also hard to confine into a specific rule. Empathy is feeling emotion, any emotion for someone. When you see someone that is sad, unconsciously, you also feel sad. You have a connection with this person and it is human nature to want to help. You sympathize people, even if they are a complete stranger. All of these ideas are lined up in one direction: why do we feel? We have these funny things called emotions and for some reason we listen to them. It's all debatable, but in the end we have to obey what we know is always right. I bet that if you raised a child from birth in a complete isolation, he would still feel all the emotions and connections any other child would to his/her parents. You just know. It's not debatable that we have family, and it's also no surprise we relate to the people we love. Emotion is always differing, but we all feel. It is human nature to love, and you have to trick yourself into hate.

 

Blog Post #30: Kafka Reflection

Throughout all three parts of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, there is a lot of change and degeneration of the main character, Gregor. Gregor obviously goes through the physical transformation from a young door to door salesman to a dung beetle, but he goes through many different levels of mental and emotional change too. When Gregor was initially turned into a bug, he was still the same person on the inside. But as time dragged on and Gregor's condition worsened, his human traits began to disappear along with his state of emotional being. "He could eat only if his entire panting body worked in a coordinated way—but also because the milk, which otherwise was his favorite drink and which his sister had certainly placed there for that reason, did not appeal to him at all." (Kafka, 9) Even though he is still a conscious human being on the inside, his outer beetle appearance doesn't work with him. His emotional status is slowly being chipped away, and the things he loved in his human form now seem somewhat lesser. Even though being turned into a beetle could be the worse thing that could happen to a person, Gregor does get one advantage out of it. He begins to do what he never had time for in his human body-reflect. Now that all Gregor can do is sleep, think, and roll in his own filth, he finally found time to look back on his life. As he recalls, he also begins to realize just how little he lived for, and how plain his life was. "People don’t like travelling salesmen. I know that. People think they earn pots of money and thus lead a fine life. People don’t even have any special reason to think through this judgment more clearly." (Kafka, 7) As Gregor tries to remember the happy times of his life, he realizes that not enough of it was spent with the ones he loves. He was ripped from his real life and put into a fake one every day when he woke up to go to work. He was so caught up in keeping his family together and paying off his parents debt that he forgot all about his own personal happiness and the bond to his significant others. As Gregor begins to to lose moral, his physical condition worsens. He gets sicker and smaller. His body is giving up, and taking his emotional worth down with it. Gregor can barely move and has already given up eating. He is of no use to himself. "No request of Gregor's was of any use; no request would even be understood." (Kafka, 8) Finally, after dwindling in a half-alive state, Gregor dies to a demeaning burial. His family has accepted the fact that he is no longer the person he used to be, and that there is no trace of Gregor in this bug they no longer feel the need to take care of. Gregor died a long time ago, the bug he was condemned to has only just passed. No memory of Gregor is left except for the tiring burden he became to his family. The life of Gregor was interrupted abruptly, but not a lot was interfered with. He found that the only thing he could not do in his beetle form that he was doing in his past life was working, and knowing that is what ultimately made him give up. 

Another central theme in The Metamorphosis is the perception of Gregor's room, and what it represents in comparison to his life. When Gregor wakes up and before he knows he is truly been turned into a bug, his room is described as plain and tidy, ready for the work day. His walls are surrounding him like a coffin, and the door to his room is locking him in. The window is dull and grey, leaving no escape from his life he has cornered himself into. The picture of the elegant woman he has cut out and frame on his wall shows just how lonely and disconnected he is from himself. He unlocks himself from his room to go to his abusive job where he gets paid to work off his parents debt by getting doors slammed in his face. He has ended his life without even knowing it. "He was only just inside his room when the door was pushed shut very quickly, bolted fast, and barred." (Kafka, 24) His family has only had a part in trapping Gregor, he had himself demoralized long ago. His attitude, his lifestyle, and his actions have all but become automatic and sad. He no longer has any characteristics or even a personality. He has no preference, no disgust to himself, and most depressingly, no self respect. "Gregor squirmed his way through the accumulation of junk and moved it. At first he was forced to do this because otherwise there was no room for him to creep around, but later he did it with a

growing pleasure, although after such movements, tired to death and feeling wretched, he did not budge again for hours." (Kafka, 21) Gregor has given up on his life. He is still living, but his identity is missing. He does nothing more than a beetle, and that is why he has turned into one. Gregor knows that something is missing from his life, he just can't pinpoint what. He is too far lost in the sadness, and too far detached from the life he was meant to live. "For him it was as if the way to the unknown nourishment he craved was revealing itself." (Kafka, 22) Gregor knows that true happiness is always through the ones you love, but he is still lost in the way of expressing that. He wishes he could send his sister to the Conservatory, but he doesn't even remember why. His social appearance is torn to nothing, and his kind heart has been crushed by every agonizing day with no yielding or reward. The message so relentlessly driven in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis is simply this: life your life to the fullest, and the happy moments should never be traded for money. Don't let yourself become a bug, work not to see your family less, but to see them more. Happiness is not wealth.