The Metamorphosis

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I just finished it. I say, that story had one of the most wrenching endings I've ever read. Now, spoilers coming up, but in the end the main character dies from seemly loosing the will to live. Now, what makes this so incredibly gut wrenching is that this is portrayed as a "happy ending", everything becomes much better now that the poor guy is dead. I've only seen endings like this in trollfics. It's like a story were an eager to please, but ineffective child is slowly tortured to death by the people she admires, and then they throw a party once she dies, only here it's completely serious and despite the fact that it's about a man turning into a beetle it feels completely realistic. Now that's the axe through the heart. The way Kafka seems to express himself through George Samsa shows a degree of emotion, pure self loathing, and cynism that simply does not exist in English literature. I'm sure that as disabled people we can find ourselves identifying more with George Samsa than the average person. So, who here has read, and what are your thoughts on it?

Hello Ganondox,

I haven't read that particular story but I love Kafka - except that I can't read him anymore.
Too true and not that cynical at all (if only it could only be litterature and not inspired by the real life that people live).

Then someone shouted - "he's just a big cockroach!" The Far Side did the whole book in one panel, and was funny! Kafka is great, but bores me by using too many words to tell too little story.

I think "The Trial" is a much better AS book, because it deals with a character who does not understand society's unwritten rules.

If you really want to challenge yourself, read Albert Camus' "The Stranger" with the lead character having AS. It's uncanny. There is an unfinished version of this novel Camus abandoned called "A Happy Death" which doesn't have the AS stuff, and it was abandoned because it was pointless. For a long time, I wonder if Camus had an "aha!" moment when he encountered someone with AS-like symptoms and revisited his abandoned manuscript and added that, and created something unique. (If so, there is no evidence of this, but I'm not sure how much evidence there is of any influences during the novel's composition.)

I took it to be a metaphor for infirmity.

That if a family member, through no fault of their own, basically become non-productive, the family feels hostile toward them. It is really sick and disturbing.

Well.... it is a little more complicated then that. The family was taking advantage and using him as a meal ticket before. So the treatment he's repaid with is that much more outrageous.

I have read The Trial, The Metamorphosis, and many of Kafka's short stories in English. I don't know how much I lose out on by not being able to read the original German versions, I've been told that some things are lost when Kafka is translated into English, but I would still recommend him to other people. Even in English, the obscurity of The Metamorphosis is enchanting from the very first sentence. The story could be interpreted as a metaphor for a tonne of different things, and that's always pleasant, but interpretations are only personal things.

I think Kafka's stories are really an expression of gallows humor. His characters seem strangely resigned to the absurd injustice and horror they face. Rather than react in outrage they go on seeking to understand what is patently illogical and un-understandable, as if they're in some kind of hypnotic state. They seem to be inspired by anxiety dreams. The frightening part is there is some analogy to what the experience of life itself can be. Normally you're just kind of forced to trudge along and accept it, as in a trance, but if you try to hard to find an ultimate meaning it starts to look disjointed and wrong to the point where you wish you could wake up.