Have you heard it’s been 100 years since Metamorphosis was published? No? Lucky you. I have heard it just everywhere. So you know if you can’t beat them…
As it happens I read this article yesterday:
It’s all about psychosomatic illnesses. That is illnesses whose cause it in the mind but in the unconscious mind. The patients aren’t faking they just aren’t physically damaged. It’s interesting stuff.
The people suffering from these kinds of illness are often suffering from some kind of pressure or conflict that their illness in some way resolves. One woman’s husband didn’t want her to work, tensions increased after an accident in which she got bleach in her eye and had to visit a hospital. The next morning she woke up unable to see.
The argument was moot, she could no longer work.
Another man was facing pressure at work, struggling to achieve the level of success he felt his brothers had achieved. He experienced debilitating symptoms that left him unable to work.
And it wasn’t his fault. He was ill.
I think this is relevant to Metamorphosis. Not because I don’t think Gregor was really transformed but because I think his transformation is in someways a reaction against his life. He is working himself to the bone to support his family. In particular his sister Greta whose dream of studying the violin he is trying to realise.
By his metamorphosis Gregor switches from provider to burden. He no longer has to be worried about being on time for work, or the poor performance which his clerk hints at. He no longer has to support his family because he is conveniently unable. Instead they must look after him, a task they quickly tire of.
Greta has to go out to work as a shop girl, his father comes out of retirement and they take in lodgers. His family now has to work. Greta also takes on responsibility for caring for Gregor but she becomes uncaring and unkind. Gregor is incredibly moved by Greta’s music and retains an affection for a picture in his apartment. He retains a sensitivity to art that is contrasted with the boorishness of the lodgers and goes unappreciated and unnoticed by his family.
It ends when Gregor crawls away and dies. Without his financial contribution he is worthless, without his limbs he is a brute.
1000 Little Pieces 