It’s not funny that a man awakes one day to discover that a he has transformed into “a monstrous vermin, (Some readers have declared that Sama changed into a giant insect or a cockroach.) but it could be … in the hands of more humorous writer. The plot could be less cerebral, more slapstick, and loaded with innuendo in other hands. The premise is just ripe for one-liners, hilarious getups, and situational comedy gold. In Franz Kafka’s hands, however, Metamorphosis is not only unfunny. It’s not even humorous. If the story didn’t have such a preposterous premise, we might even call it tragic. As David Foster Wallace, suggests, all of these ingredients are what make Metamorphosis hilarious in a weird way that never leaves us.
If the stubborn reader refuses to accept the idea that Kafka’s masterpiece Metamorphosis is hilarious, they would have to acknowledge that using a man changing into a bug as a vehicle to explain human psychology is one of the finest literary definitions of the word clever.
For young, aspiring writers, Metamorphosis may also be one of the finest examples of Chekov’s razor we have in the literary canon. For what modern writer would write a story of a man turning into a bug without some sort of explanation of that transformation? First-time readers might read Metamorphosis from the perspective that it’s a widely-regarded masterpiece, but we can guess that most young people won’t get it.
“I didn’t think it was so great. They skipped the best part!” The best part, of course, would be the transformation, and young people, spoiled on modern technology, want a detailed, computer-generated-imagery (CGI) style, scientific description of how a man could turn into vermin. They want a description so through, they feel the ooze dripping out of whatever orifice is necessary to complete the transformation, and they want the screams of pain, as this man’s bones and organs undergo extreme changes. The modern reader might not be able to pay attention to such a story without sufficient explanation. They might even call the omission distracting. A writer shouldn’t start a story after the transformation, modern audiences might complain. The transformation is the story, or at least the cool part of the story.
We can only guess that Kafka had some ideas for gestating transformations in early, rough drafts, and that he couldn’t come up with one he considered satisfactory. Those of us who know literary techniques could also guess that at some point in the creative process, Kafka learned of Chekov’s razor, and Kafka began to believe that the explanations were of no value to anyone but himself, thus leading him to place the metamorphosis on the editing room floor. The only explanation we get is, “Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams. He found himself in his bed into a monstrous vermin transformed.” Kafka might have deemed all preceding details irrelevant and best left to the imagination of the reader.
Gregor’s dreams weren’t even Horrific! Evil! or MADDENING! Kafka does not even lead the reader to believe the transformation was the result of the dreams. The dreams were just “uneasy”. Subtle, in other words, and inconsequential to the story.
Kafka’s apparent adherence to Chekov’s razor informs the reader that the transformation, or metamorphosis, is not the story. Kafka apparently deemed the transformation so low on the scale of importance, in the story, that when his publisher informed him that a bug would be on the cover of the story, Kafka replied, “Not that, please not that!” Kafka may have hoped to attract readers with the premise of the transformation, he did title the story Metamorphosis after all, but he hoped that readers would approach the story with more nuance. If Kafka were alive today, and awash in modern lexicon, he might say that readers should read Metamorphosis from an “It is what it is” perspective and nothing more.
Although, Kafka spends some time revealing how the other characters react to Gregor’s transformation by screaming, fainting, and falling, he does not portray these reactions in an over-the-top, slapstick manner that helps us define funny. The mother falls over a table, and Gregor’s employer runs from the apartment. A reader, reading from the “more is always more” perspective would not be pleased with Franz Kafka, and Kafka might even find himself the subject of notes from an editor for if he attempted to publish it today.
“You could do so much more with these scenes,” one imagines a group of beta readers informing Franz Kafka, in a modern day writing circle. “Why don’t you have the sister, this Grete, vomit? You could then describe the vomit in intricate detail.” “What about having the father soil himself in some way? Bodily functions are always funny,” and Kafka might eventually hear a culmination of the complaints, along the lines of, “You just left us hanging here, begging for more.”
In Kafka’s “it is what it is” hands, however, the family’s reactions are portrayed in a serious, if not sad vein, as the victim of the metamorphosis becomes more ostracized from his own family due to his affliction. The humor, if there is any in this scene, is for the reader to define.
Another lesson Metamorphosis provides the aspiring writer seeking to learn a lesson in style, is in the power of subtlety. The outlandish storyteller, seeking to provide modern lessons in disturbing and evocative imagery, learns in one reading of this story that the “it is what it is” principle of storytelling should be employed to lay a foundation of pedantic reality from which the reader can leap.
“It’s not that students don’t “get” Kafka’s humor,” David Foster Wallace wrote, postulating on the frustration of teaching Franz Kafka, “but that we’ve taught them to see humor as something you get –the same way we’ve taught them that a self is something you just have. No wonder they cannot appreciate the really central Kafka joke– that the horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home. It’s hard to put into words up at the blackboard, believe me. You can tell them that maybe it’s good they don’t “get” Kafka. You can ask them to imagine his art as a kind of door. To envision us readers coming up and pounding on this door, pounding and pounding, not just wanting admission but needing it, we don’t know what it is but we can feel it, this total desperation to enter, pounding and pushing and kicking, etc. That, finally, the door opens … and it opens outward: we’ve been inside what we wanted all along. Das ist komisch (Translation: That’s really funny).”
Even those of us who appreciate subtlety, find it difficult to read this quintessential Kafka story, Metamorphosis, without feeling a little letdown by the anti-climactic ending. The monstrous vermin, that is Gregor Samsa, dies without ceremony. The advent of his death is subtle and inconsequential. By the time Gregor succumbs to death, his family is glad to be rid of him. To them, he has become a burden and an embarrassment. The reader infers that the Samsa family members are already at peace with the loss of Gregor, but there is little evidence of this fact in the passages that follow the transformation. The mother does state that she wants to visit her son, at one point, but the family easily dissuades her from doing so. Her plea, we can only guess, is nothing more than a mother attempting to display motherly concern, and the idea that the other two family members are able to easily dissuade her suggests that her concern is largely self-serving symbolism. After the transformed Gregor finally dies, the Samsa family calls upon the maid to dispose of the carcass, in the manner they might any other burdensome vermin.
Kafka scholars state that he agreed that Metamorphosis had an unsatisfactory ending stating: “Unreadable ending. Imperfect almost to its very marrow.” After the initial reading of the story, this reader found himself letdown too. I fell prey to imagining the possibilities. I thought of other avenues for the story, great one-liners, hilarious getups, and the manner in which the situation could be weaved to comedic gold for others “to get”. The more I thought about Metamorphosis’ ending, the more I thought the imperfect ending might have been the perfect one. For, if as David Foster Wallace suggested, “The horrific struggle to establish a human self results in a self whose humanity is inseparable from that horrific struggle. That our endless and impossible journey toward home is in fact our home.”
Kafka’s Metamorphosis is one of the few stories I’ve read more than once. I didn’t consider it a masterpiece when I was forced to read it in high school, and I subscribed to my teacher’s interpretation. When I read it later, I tried to approach it from a different angle, but as a member of the everything-is-funny generation, I thought it should’ve been funnier. Reading it recently, I now think, Metamorphosis requires a long form, subjective interpretation (if we can view the subject matter from the perspective of a senior citizen). If the reader is able to view this story from the perspective of one of the lucky few to live a long life, and that term is relative to all the players involved, as we continue to exist beyond our expiration date. If we are one of the lucky few to live a long life, we will eventually and progressively gain distance from what made us consequential throughout our life. Our need to establish, and re-establish ourselves will begin to wane, as will that constant struggle. At some point, we will note that we’re the same age as our grandparents were when we remember them best, and we will recall how soon thereafter, they began to metamorphose into senile, old people who were incapable of taking care of themselves. We remember how they became a burden to our parents, and our extended family, and we realize that if we are lucky enough to live as long as our grandfather did, we will become reduced to that perspective for our loved ones. If we are lucky enough to continue to exist beyond that point, we might eventually reach a point where they no longer cherish what we once were –when we took care of them and guided them through life– and as with our grandfather, it will eventually become a relief to them that we’re finally gone when we arrive at our own anti-climactic ending that requires them to find someone who will help them properly dispose of us.
Rilaly 