as Gregor samza awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect so begins kafka's metamorphosis it is the story of a man who by some unknown magical means has overnight been transformed into a monstrous insect the sight of which repulses everyone around him it follows how he copes with the change how his family treats him and ultimately shows some of the ugliest s of humanity I've ever read in a book through kafka's novel we will learn about the effects of fear on the human psyche how dehumanization can
break a mind and how all of us can be more cruel and destructive than we realize but first let's set the scene the novel follows four main characters there is Gregor the traveling salesman who unfortunately is now a dung beetle his sister Greta a fundamentally kind person whose personality is eventually warped into something much cruler and less caring Gregor's father who is deeply fearful of Gregor and wants to ensure that he remains shut away where the world cannot see him and Gregor's mother who wants to care for him but is so broken by the whole
ordeal that she's mainly found weeping in a corner a cheerful cast for a cheerful book so without further Ado let's get started one the danger of fear the Austrian founder of psychoanalysis Sigman Freud once theorized that if repressed or left unmanaged Fear Can quickly morph into anger and this is still held by therapists to this day think about it if you are fearful you're detecting a threat and you want to run away from it this is the flight part of the fal flight response if it is clear that you cannot run then the only option
left is to fight and the fear must transform into anger if it's to be any use to you and this is exactly how Kafka demonstrates the disastrous effects that fear can have on the Mind Gregor fondly remembers how his family behaved to him before his transformation he was the sole bread winner of the household and he says this granted him a place of respect in the family his father and mother were proud of him his sister admired him he was loved adored and respected but all of this changed with the simple application of fear at
first there is the simple fear from his family that he could no longer work he can no longer bring them income as a result they would each have to find their own employment which was a frightening Prospect for each of them and there is a far more profound fear lurking just below the surface they were scared of the sight of Gregor this was not just because of his repulsive appearance but more importantly what he represented he was the form of someone that they loved Twisted in such a way that he was totally unrecognizable perhaps it
was also the suddenness of his transformation that terrified them he was a reminder that life can fall apart at any moment with no warning and no way of going back to the way things were whatever the original C of the fear it quickly mors into a destructive Whirlwind of anger and hatred first they do not even do Gregor the Dignity of looking at him they isolate him in his room with only his sister occasionally cleaning it and bringing him some odd scrap of food that had been left out he is kept in his room by
means of violence if necessary with his father beating him back there with a stick if he dares try to escape in one pivotal scene Gregor G's father becomes so enraged at his presence that he throws an Apple at Gregor which lodges itself in his back this is the wound that will eventually become infected and kill Gregor so potent is the Father's fear and rage that he murders his own son and after Gregor is dead the family breathes a sigh of relief as the source of their fear has vanished after a brief morning period they Rejoice
that the beetle is gone from their lives and they Scurry off to another place moving on to greener pastures Kafka here does a wonderful job of showing us a truly ugly part of human nature often the things we fear and thus strike out against have not done anything wrong we generally fear things because they are unfamiliar to us and threaten Us in some way whether that is intentional or not Gregor's father fears Gregor because if anyone were to see the beetle they would think of the family as unclean but that's hardly Gregor's fault nonetheless the
fear did turn to anger and hate in the father's mind and the exact same thing can happen to us I don't think kfka is being so simplistic as to say that fear and anger are always bad after all if somebody is trying to attack you in the streets then fear and anger are perfectly appropriate responses but he does warn us that neither fear nor anger need be rational and we should be aware of the effects they can have both on those around us and on ourselves but what of Gregor's own feelings well that is what
we shall move on to next if you want more on philosophy and the art of learning subscribe to my email list the link is in the description two societal roles and pride I once knew someone who desperately wanted to become a dancer he worked in incredibly hard on it and there was no doubts that he was on his way to becoming a star but then one day in a freak car accident he broke both his legs while they would healed he would never have the same sort of Mobility that he used to and his budding
dance career was over robbed of this dream he fell into a deep depression that took him a very long time to get out of he only managed it when he found a new identity that was just as strong as his old one as a dancer he is now a physicist and he takes just as much joy in that as he ever did in the stage the point is that deprived of the thing that he hung his identity upon he became miserable and he found a way out of that with a brand new identity and I
think we can all relate to this sort of experience we all have certain pillars upon which we build our sense of self we might take great pride in how loving or caring we are or the depths of our empathy Mike Tyson said he used to take great pride in the fact that he could beat almost anyone in a fight the point is that when these things are taken away from us it is no wonder that this causes us great psychological harm and no one illustrates this point better than Kafka after his transformation Gregor's mind is
filled with with anxiety about his identity he is no longer able to provide for his family he cannot work he doesn't even appear human anymore what was once his favorite food is now repulsive to him while rotten vegetables somehow taste delicious it is no wonder that he feels so miserable when everything he defined himself by has been taken away and I want to focus on this role he has in providing for his family because I think it helps demonstrate the double-edged sword of the roles we think we should play on the one hand the social
role has worked very well for him so far when he was able to provide he felt immense joy and fulfillment and since his role was also supported by his family he had immense respect from them but now he can no longer provide no longer fulfill the role he and others think he should have he falls into a profound type of Despair schopenhauer says that since humans have the ability to think and reflect they have the ability to multiply their Joys and their losses by assigning themselves things that they must achieve when they achieve their goal
they feel an immediate sense of Joy which then quickly Fades as another goal takes its place but when we do not live up to our expected accomplishments this can plunge us into a deep despair shophow uses this to take a somewhat pessimistic view on The Human Condition but I am a little bit more optimistic than that people find it very difficult to live without having something to strive towards this is partly what kamu meant when he wanted us to imagine sisifus happy we naturally take meaning from the process of overcoming obstacles conquering challenges and achieving
a goal no matter how big or small that goal is fully recognizing that this challenge will soon be replaced by another one but what happens when we have goals that are just out of our reach reach or we have goals assigned to us by others that we simply have no interest in or there are roles we have which are difficult to get out of if our circumstances change and others will judge us if we even try to I don't pretend to have the answers here but existential philosophy offers us many Avenues of thought that we
could pursue we could be like satra and argue that an authentic life or we refuse to play any role that does not suit us is the best route to fulfillment we could be like n and try to forge new values for ourselves standing apart from the rest of humanity and strengthening our Will To Power we could be like Camu and think we must move past the question of meaning altogether personally I largely think the path is individual I don't think that existential philosophy should be a command given by a general but rather a gentle suggestion
from a kindly old friend but no one quite brings these existential questions of meaning and rooll to life quite like Kafka and that's probably why his books still echo in our ears today but the delicate way Kafka charts the progression of Gregor's misery is its own work of genius and that is what I want to move on to next three Gregor's despair we have all known despair in our lives that creeping feeling that our existences have become unpleasant and malformed that we no longer have access to the hope that sustains our joy that we have
been abandoned and rejected by those around us with no hope of being loved or cherished again and the character of Gregor himself is a wonderful case study into such a terrible mental state as I mentioned in the previous section his initial reaction to his transformation is that of mourning his old life he Longs for the days where he was a human being who could sustain himself provide for his family and interact with other people as his peers but it is interesting to see just how his despair changes throughout the book at first while he is
miserable and anxious he still shows a profound care for his family notably his sister when he realizes she finds him disgusting to look at and is scared in his presence he hides under the sofa while she is around despite it all he still has a love in his heart for his family and his fellow man but as he sinks deeper and deeper into Despair and as his family's attitude towards him does not shift his Outlook changes whereas before he had fored himself into thinking that his loved ones were just getting over the shock of his
transformation and he would soon be welcomed back into the fold with open arms now he is disabused of any such notion and he reacts with understandable spitefulness instead of hiding himself away he becomes rebellious he climbs up onto the wall to frighten his sister or mother because he wants to reassert himself into their world he wants to say I am here acknowledge me he wants what we all want from our loved ones which is for the them to notice us and respect us as equals this reaches a climax when he escapes the room that he's
been locked in and scuttles around the kitchen this is the point where his father finds him and throws the Apple that will eventually kill him from Gregor's perspective he has gone from being ignored and abandoned to being outright hated and this is what prompts the final stage of his despair eventually Gregor just gives up his Spirit has been broken and he sinks fully into the depths of his mind this is where he loses the will to live entirely he stops eating he stops moving almost all together and he seems to just be waiting to die
he aches all over from his father's abuse and he Longs for the day when the pain will go away when he will be allowed to slip peacefully from this world into the arms of Oblivion and there is a huge amount of wisdom to be gleaned from Gregor's Journey here it is a fantastic analysis of how the process of social abandonment and hostility can cause people both to rebel and eventually to despair we see this all the time in the actual world how many people do you know who are filled with Spite and hatred because of
how they perceive that others have treated them kard talks of a kind of person who is so completely consumed by their own Despair and misery that they lash out at the world itself and hate everything in it for how filled with suffering their life has become this is the second stage of Gregor's pain his Fury and his indignation and when the fury has all been expelled when someone has tried everything to get others to notice and acknowledge them and none of it has worked that is when they cannot do anything but sink deeper and deeper
into their sadness so perhaps we should be very conscious of just how painful abandonment can be and we should ensure we are very careful about abandoning people in our own lives but there is one pervading force that colors the entire book and I simply cannot let it go unexamined four shame think back to a time where you did something really embarrassing when your cheeks flushed red and you felt the eyes of the world upon you I remember once a few years ago I was in a social situation and I made a rather juvenile Your mom
joke at an acquaintance I had completely forgotten that their mother had actually passed away earlier that year as it happens he was not in the least offended or upset but I distinctly remember the shame I felt at having been so thoughtless it is still one of those moments that my brain sadistically coners up in my mind's eye as I'm trying to get to sleep and the memory of the shame I felt is burnt into my psyche I'm sure there are many times in your life where you felt similarly it is almost a universal experience of
being human and no one brings this out quite like Kafka the whole of metamorphosis is dominated by The Shame of the characters there is Gregor's shame at not being able to provide at his disgusting appearance and how he makes his family feel there is the Father's shame at having to take up a servant position in a bank and how this makes him all the more willing to use Force to control his cursed son there is the mother's shame and not being able to look upon her darling boy anymore at being terrified of the sight of
her own offspring there is the shame of the family as a whole that deprived of Gregor's income they've had to take three Lodgers into their home who talk down to them in their own living room the entire cast of the novel feels a deep shame at almost every aspect of their existence and in highlighting this Kafka makes a devastating critique of how the individual rubs up against society and the dark side of this interaction the philosopher Thomas Hobbs wrote in his Landmark text Leviathan that he thought human beings surrendered their freedom and agreed to take
up certain roles in order to reap all the benefits of living in a peaceful Society so you give up the ability to do whatever you want you agree to pay taxes and so on and in return Society promises the order will be maintained and no one will break into your house and kill you or at the very least it promises to do its very best best to stop this from happening but many thinkers have criticized this picture after all we often did not explicitly agree to our societal obligations and sometimes they appear more imposed from
the outside than achieved by Mutual consent ner famously argued that social obligations kept exceptional or unusual people from achieving great things and Kafka brings out one method that Society uses to enforce its values upon us the application of Shame Shame is almost like the internalized gaze of the values of whatever culture you happen to live in so if you lived in a theocracy you would feel shame over any religious doubts you have and if you lived in a culture that really valued long hair then you'd feel a deep shame at going Bal but kafka's novel
brings out just how destructive all of this shaming can be the source of the family's shame is Gregor's transformation and it is this shame coupled with the fear that I mentioned earlier that causes them to ignore ostracize and abuse Gregor and eventually means that they celebrate his death kfka through his writings here and his other works like the trial explores how shame is neither an inherently moral nor immoral force it is a completely amoral tool that can be used for extreme good or extreme evil depending on the society and who is wielding the force of
Shame so characteristically of Kafka he gives us a stark warning be wary of Shame be wary of feeling ashamed and most of all be wary of how you shame others you never know how this shame will impact them or what horrible Deeds they will do to be free of it and if you want more on Kafka check out this video where I talk about the trial and stick around for more on thinking to improve your life
