Harmony Gibson
This week, I knew I wanted to analyze Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. I’ve long adored the surrealism and social commentary the story evokes, but it was difficult to choose which lens to analyze the text with. There are plenty of Psychoanalytic undertones to the story, and a lot of the text itself is an introspective glance at the working man’s inner dialogue. Yes, a psychoanalytic criticism definitely would have fit, especially with the crazy, dreamlike theme and plot of the actual text itself. One could argue for a poststructuralist analysis as well. But that would characterize the story as having a lack of structure, and I don’t see that to be the case, however bizarre it may be. However, with Marxist criticism having more to do with political and socioeconomic views, I felt more inclined to look at it through that lens.
Marxism revolves around the idea that the capitalist society that we live in allows the privileged to profit off the labor of those less fortunate. It observes the notion that this upper class does everything in their power to exploit the working class, including using subliminal messaging in entertainment and consumerism. Another theme of Marxism is that the exploited don’t realize that they’re being exploited. Marxist Theory allows us to explore those themes within a text.
I think that Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is a metaphorical story about just that. The “metamorphosis” of the main character, Gregor, represents the sudden realization of his life withering away in service to this capitalist agenda. He’s a travelling salesman who is abused by his boss and living in miserable conditions on the road, neglecting his own wellbeing and still being ridiculed if he’s even an hour late for the first time in his entire work history. When he’s realized his bizarre predicament, he spirals, and reveals this all to the reader. It's even stated, “He was the boss’s creature, stupid and spineless.”
This helps us realize how small and belittled Gregor feels in his daily life, and his being turned into the exact helpless, disgusting creature he feels he is, reflects how he feels on the inside, and I think it encompasses the main moral of the story.
In another instance,
“It occurred to him how simple it would all be if someone came to help him.”
This line reflects how he has no way out of the systematic ‘cog-in-the-machine’ world that he lives in and is isolated from any way out. He even reflects that if he were to call in sick, the boss would find it suspicious, and not even the insurance doctor (“.. For whom, of course, there was only one kind of human being: healthy, but work-shy.”) would be on his side.
The Marxist ideas are further shown when Gregor finally reveals his form to the worker who’s come to check on him, and we see that,
“Directly opposite [him], a photograph of Gregor from his time in the reserve hung on the wall, showing him as a lieutenant, with his hand on his sword, smiling light- heartedly, demanding respect for his stance and uniform.”
The parallel of his stance in the photograph, where he felt proud and fulfilled in his purpose as a soldier, versus his stance in the doorway, as this giant bug, “…the Boss’s creature,” once again reflects the man he’s become and how he’s viewed even by his coworkers and his family as he still yet begs for his job and an ounce of understanding. As the plot progresses, we realize that despite Gregor’s transformation, he is still forced to live a lifestyle only for his family’s accommodation, until his unfortunate demise. His family even becomes defamiliarized with him by the end, and don’t refer to him as their son and brother, but as an ‘It’.
The story itself has deep rooted themes in Marxist ideas, uncovering the hidden nature of society, and how one is considered to have no worth unless we’re working or living for others. I think that’s why Marxist Theory applies so well towards the story and makes the ending all the more heartbreaking.
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