In the space of three weeks from mid November to early December 1912, a 29 year old unknown Czech author wrote the story of a travelling salesman who wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a repulsive and helpless insect. The narrative then traces the reaction of his family and the way they neglect and isolate him. They are filled with fear, revulsion, resentment and final rejoicing at his death.
Metamorphosis was finally published in 1915. When Kafka died eight years later from tuberculosis just short of his 41st birthday, he was still scarcely known in Prague and totally unheard of outside it. In his dying days he had requested his closest friend and fellow author, Max Brod, to destroy everything he had written. Mercifully not only did Brod defy Kafka’s wishes but set about editing and publishing his works. By the 1930’s, Kafka’s reputation had begun to grow, then after the Second World War it exploded around the globe, starting in Britain and France, then the USA and from there all over the world. What started out as the intensely personal expression of self-doubt, self-disgust, despair, desperation and isolation touched a universal chord. Kafka seemed to confirm the feelings of the generations caught in the shadows of the two Great Wars. His private themes were seen as symbolising the far wider political and social struggles of minority religions, cultures and movements. The Freudians, Expressionists, Absurdists, Avant-Gardists, Existentialists, Marxists, Zionists and any number of other groups claimed him as their representative and spokesman.
Today Kafka is the most acclaimed writer of the Twentieth Century, recognised as the father of modern literature, yet his superb story, Metamorphosis, has never been made into a feature film, so this is the first attempt ever in world cinema to bring the most famous short story in literature to the big screen.
Synopsis:
METAMORPHOSIS is the story of GREGOR SAMSA, a travelling salesman in fabrics, Nike Tn Pas Cher who wakes up one morning after disturbing dreams to find himself transformed in his bed into a giant and verminouos insect-like creature.
The narrative then traces the interaction of GREGOR and his family as he slowly starves to death for want of the right kind of sustenance. His death brings relief and rejoicing for his family, and releases them to a new, fresher, more positive and independent life without him.
Before his transformation, GREGOR had assumed the dutiful responsibility of providing for his parents and his sister when his father’s business had collapsed five years earlier. To keep things together, he had pushed himself into a job he detested and got up at four each morning, rain or shine, to travel the country pedalling his cloth samples when his real desire was for artistic expression, successful human relationships and emotional fulfilment.
GREGOR’S transformation into a hideous and awkward parasitic creature is a cry for help, but his craving for understanding and fulfilment is not met.
Imprisoned in his room, his protective shell penetrated by his father’s attack, he wastes away and finally dies from the great Nike Tn Pas Cher wound in his back. The brutish charlady sweeps up his emaciated carcass and throws it out with the rubbish. His family can live again and, for the first time in months, they leave their shadowy apartment together as a family and venture into the sunny world outside to celebrate their freedom from a dreadful burden.
Insect:
KAFKA’S creature, with its hard outer shell and ineffectual jaws, is Twentieth Century literature’s most poignant and vivid symbol of self-willed schizophrenia. METAMORPHOSIS is about a person who puts forward flimsy little legs and a useless mouth as the signs of a total incapacity to Air Max bear the burden placed upon him. He literally puts up a protective shell around himself as an expression of his refusal to take responsibility any more. In this state he finds some sort of hope for peace. After a tormented night of anguished dreams he wakes to find security in the haven of another self, one which will intentionally test his family’s feelings for him. Kafka writes of Gregor’s desire to open the door and show himself:
“If they were terrified, then Gregor would be absolved of all responsibility and could cease worrying. But if they accepted everything calmly, then he would have no reason to fret and could, if he hurried, actually be at the station by eight o’clock.”
Prose:
KAFKA’S prose is vividly visualistic in its attention to striking detail and cartoon-like grotesqueness. It presents a surreal world within a naturalistic framework, a wholly credible externalisation of inner doubt, guilt, despair, self-disgust, self-pity and the laming fear of inadequacy and failure.
Yet it should not be overlooked how intentionally funny METAMORPHOSIS is, and with what laughter it was received when Kafka read it aloud to his friends.
Literary Standing:
METAMORPHOSIS is engaging, fascinating, perplexing, richly comic and ultimately tragic. It has justifiably come to be regarded as one of the great works of Twentieth Century literature.
“Seen from the point of view of literature, my
fate is very simple. The desire to portray my
dream-like inner life has made everything else
unimportant ...” Franz Kafka
“A book must be the axe for the frozen sea
within us.” Franz Kafka
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