After reading Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” for a class senior year, I took it upon my own liberties to buy a book of his complete works. I was so impressed by The Metamorphosis, and knowing he passed away too soon, I knew I had to purchase a book with his work. I’m about 183 pages into a 500 page book, but I’ve selected my two favorite pieces by him to do a quick analysis. I am a writer, after all.
So without further wait, here is my “quick” analysis of The Metamorphosis, as well as In The Penal Colony. Keep in mind, I’m no expert in Kafka, just an enjoyer. Anything I say about Kafka can probably be analyzed differently, which is what makes reading him so awesome.
The Metamorphosis
I could say so much about this story. We took a whole week analyzing this in our class, and I even wrote a 3 page analysis paper on it. The story itself covers Gregor’s adjustment from a traveling businessman to a “vermin” (the word doesn’t have a proper English translation, so vermin will be our placeholder). His family struggles to adjust to having this vermin in the house, except his sister tries to take care of him, sacrificing her own sanity and self to him.
Over time, his sister grows more and more tired of taking care of him and eventually snaps, leading Gregor to let himself die in his sleep. He dies with the sentiment that no one wants him anymore.
Divided into three parts, The Metamorphosis has three distinct sections (outside of the physical separations). The first section is the physical change, where Gregor still is more man than vermin. The second is the mental change, where Gregor’s actions show him to be more vermin than man. Finally, Gregor’s third act is the merging of mental and physical vermin to completely erase whatever once was a human.
This ties to another class I took at the same time, the study of the mind. In that class, we learned about the different philosophical ideas separating the mental and physical, or rather, the brain and the body. In these terms, the first section would relate to a dualist mindset, the second, a behaviorist mindset, and the third would relate to a social-constructionist way of thinking. To explain the third, once Gregor no longer has relationships with his mother, father, or most importantly, his sister, he has no reason to live.
In The Penal Colony
Just reading In The Penal Colony a day ago, it shot up the list to my second favorite Kafka story. It’s incredible the message he can send through a fairly straight-forward story. A foreign traveler goes to a small penal colony to examine an execution with a very medieval execution machine.
The captain running the execution is one of the last supporters of the machine, but talking to the traveler about the machine and its functions, he lets the criminal free and kills himself by the machine.
It’s quite a violent story, but with little gore. In general, the story’s main plot is that times are changing and the old should be abandoned for the new. While the captain is stuck in the past, the Commandant and the traveler are from a new age where the contraption is rustic. Kafka even describes the machine as falling apart, showing the old crumbling away. It’s really not subtle at all.
The captain’s death towards the end captures that sacrifice must be made to move to a new age. Although the death wasn’t necessary, he felt it to be.
Overall Feelings: Good
Today’s picture is from a middle school dance from 2016. It’s a real throwback, this one.