During discussions we also talked about the similarities this novel had with others we have read. In all the novels someone has died, and it's never from old age or a happy ending. In every novel the relationship of the character and their mother is estranged or strained, or the mother is deceased. My biggest question with this novel is still, is Gregor really a bug?! Was it actually a physical change or just physiological? Were people just disgusted by his appearance because he was no longer taking care of himself or did he actually have the body of a beetle or some other insect? The only part of the book that points to him having insect like ability is when he hugged the picture on the wall...which he could have just been pressing his body against it. Finally, the end of the novel was so sad to me. The charwoman finds him dead, the family sheds a few tears, the charwoman notifies them that she got ride of the “thing” and the family decides to take the day off and go for a walk! The last line almost seemed like a finally jab to Gregor to me “And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions that at their journey’s end their daughter jumped to her feet and stretched her young body” (page 52). Her young body?! What does that have to do with anything? Gregor’s body wasted away but hey, we’ve got this young one to focus on!
I agree with you about the ending of the story. It is like they already had cast off Gregor because they were happy they had a young normal looking daughter to take care of now. I did see Gregor as a giant beetle or cockroach type of bug. I do like the picture you included however because in the beginning I did think he was a human but he was hallucinating. I thought when he opened the door with his mouth he came out bleeding from the doorknow. Only after everyone freaked out I believed he was a bug. It is crazy how in this class death happens, bad mothers happen, and ambiguous beginnings happen.
ReplyDeleteI see that both of us have found the ties between Kafka and Gregory interesting and undeniably a large part of why the novel is written as it is. But, I find your second paragraph particularly interesting, as well as the picture lol. I personally felt that the transformation of Gregor was literal because if he were to be a man, why wouldn't Kafka have just given him some other deadly illness and showed him withering away that way. I think that Kafka wanted him to literally be transformed into a bug because he wanted to the reader to empathize with the harsh way that his family treated him throughout his own life. Kafka wanted empathy for Gregor, not sympathy for his family.
ReplyDeleteI really loved the picture and I didn't think Gregor was really a bug either. In my opinion he was just sick and isolated. He would listen to their conversations but then he would run away and hide under a sheet whenever anyone came in his room. The only part that was unexplainable by this metaphor was the way the family treated Gregor. If he was sick and human I would hope that his family would try to get him the help he needed and give him more food than measly table scraps.
ReplyDeleteI share your shock at the novel's end. The family's indifference, I think, is just part of the absurdity of the novel. The reference to Grete's "young body," I agree, is quite interesting. I think it serves as a stark contrast to Gregor's lifeless, dead corpse. With "youth," there is litheness, life, and energy--Grete has a tremendous future ahead of her as a talented violiness.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, I do think he's really supposed to be a bug. We can interpret this symbolically and non-literally, however. :)