The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis is an existentialist short story written by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915 and arguably the most famous of his works along with The Trial. It deals with an absurd concept of a travelling salesman, Gregor Samsa, being transformed into a giant insect (supposedly).Warning: Plot details follow.
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2 Lost in Translation 3 External links |
The story is sometimes comic – for example, near the start, Gregor's main concern is that, despite what has happened, he must nevertheless get to work on time. Curiously, his condition does not arouse a sense of surprise or incredulity in the eyes of his family, who merely despise it as an indication of impending burden. However, most of the story revolves around his interactions with his family, with whom he lives, and their shock, denial, and repulsion at his condition. Gregor is unable to speak in his insect form, and never communicates with his family at all. However, he seems to retain his thinking faculties, which fact is unknown to his family. Horrified by his appearance, they take to shutting Gregor into his room, but do try to care for him by providing him food and water. Nevertheless, they seem to want as little to do with him as possible, and Gregor's father nearly kills him when he emerges from his room one day.
Confined to his room, Gregor's only activities are looking out of his window, and crawling up the walls and over the ceiling. Devoid of human contact, one day Gregor emerges again, hoping to get his much-loved sister to join him in his room and play her violin for him, but her rejection of him is total, when she says to the family:
The Metamorphosis is open to a wide range of interpretations; in fact, Stanley Corngold's book, The Commentator's Despair, lists over 130 interpretations. Most obvious are themes relating to society's treatment of those who are different. Other themes include the loneliness of being cut off and the desperate and unrealistic hopes that such isolation brings.
Humorously, generations of English translators have gotten more and more carried away with this literal (and incorrect) version of Gregor's transformation, and have actually rendered Ungeziefer as "cockroach", "dung beetle", "beetle", and other highly specific terms, the only term in the book is "dung beetle", used by the cleaning lady near the end of the story, but it is not used in the narration. This has become such a common misconception, that English speakers will often summarize Metamorphosis as "...a story about a guy who turns into a cockroach". Despite all this, no such beast appears in the original text.
The storyline
Gregor returns to his room, lies down, and dies. Upon discovery of his corpse, the family feel an enormous burden has been lifted from them, and start planning for the future again. Fantastically, the family suddenly discovers that it is not doing bad at all, both socially and financially, and the brief process of forgetting Gregor and shutting him from their lives is quickly accomplished.Lost in Translation
The opening line of the book is famous in English:
However, this English translation of the opening line is spurious. The actual German line runs like this:
English translators have often sought to render the word Ungeziefer as "insect", but this is not accurate, and is based on a misguided attempt to clarify what Kafka intended (according to his journals and letters to the publisher of the text) to be an ambiguous term. In German, Ungeziefer literally means "vermin" and is sometimes used to mean "bug" – a very general term, totally unlike the scientific sounding "insect". Kafka had no intention of labelling Gregor as this or that specific thing, but merely wanted to convey the disgustingness of his transformation. Literally, the end of the line should be translated as ...transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin, although the feeling of the word in German is more colloquial sounding.External links