Хорижий филология №4, 2019 йил
TRAGEDY OF A LITTLE MAN BY KAFKA’S NOVEL METAMORPHOSIS
Oblokulov Dilshod,
PhD student, Shanghai University
Key words: Kafka, Metamorphosis, tragedy, unconscious, dramatization, little man
Introduction
The novel
Metamorphosis
was written
by Franz Kafka in 1912 and published in
1915. It tells the story of the tragedy of
Gregor Samsa, who turned into a gigantic
insect but still possessed a human mind. Here
is a typical “little man”. A complete person is
a harmonious combination of div and
spiritual factors. If it is corrupted, then arises
a question about reality and individual
personality. But, this kind of situation
permanently involves a tragedy with it: at first,
on a personal level which is not easy to give
explanation, then general psychology of the
humanity and last a social one. The people
want their family to love and support them
during times of need but if the unable to
develop this bond their family members, they
tend to feel alone and depressed. Kafka
describes the theme of alienation and its
negative effect on people and their
relationships with the people around them.
After Gregor’s metamorphosis, or
transformation, he turned from a human being
into a giant beetle which makes him more and
more distant from the people in his life.
I. Tragedy in Personal level
The word tragedy became a popular type
of drama in literature
dealing with
the problems of a central character, in some
tragedies end in death, some in destruction,
and some in chaos, but whatever the situation,
the protagonist almost always accepts
responsibility for his mistakes and fights for a
larger cause. A
t the individual level, the loss
of intergenerational communication and
continuity is a personal tragedy.
Usually, a
person of importance and outstanding
personal qualities, falls to disaster through the
combination of a personal failing and
circumstances with which he or she cannot
deal. In
Metamorphosis
Kafka created
different kinds of relations among the
members of the family which deals with the
protagonist’s tragedy in personal level.
The novel begins with the
description of how Gregor Samsa awoke in
his bed and discovered he had turned into
a monstrous insect or vermin
[
Lawson,
1960
].
The author emphasizes the most
horrible fact for Gregor is not becoming an
insect, but how he had missed the train and
being late for work “before it strikes a quarter
past seven, whatever happens, he must be
completely out of bed”.[Kafka, 1985: 9] The
author’s creative writing makes reader to
search for deeper meaning in text.
In the Metamorphosis Kafka does not
mention how and why does Gregor
transforms all of a sudden into a vermin. He
gets up from a troubled dream and he sees
himself transformed into a horrible vermin.
Let’s pay attention to one of the
commentators, Paul Landsberg’s observes
that when one fall asleep in an unfamiliar
environment, they often experience a moment
of confusion when one wake up, a feeling of
unreality, and such experience can happen to
the traveling salesman many times, given his
way of life, which destroys every feeling of
the continuity of being”[Barfi et al., 2013] (2,
p.337). Here, human impressions still
interfere with the new instinct of the insect.
His physical appearance makes him confused
but still, he thinks like a person. Gregor found
changes in his voice when his family
members called him. “Gregor was shocked
when he heard his own voice answering; he
hardly recognizes his voice that he had had
before” (Kafka, 2018). Even the family
20
Insect is symbol in English “insect” likewise lacks
the emotional impact disgusting unpleasantness of
Ungeziefer (in German), and the use of former imputes
to Kafka a symbolic poverty.
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Хорижий филология №4, 2019 йил
members recognize his voice like an animal
voice. A vivid example of misunderstanding,
there is no even a desire to try to understand
another person. Here, we also see a scheme of
relations, the slightest deviation from which
causes resentment and indignation.
Everything should be as planned: a five-hour
train, daily departures, business unrest and
uncomplaining fulfilment of their duties.
After Gregor’s appearance in a
doorway, in his new form, everyone
becomes shocked and father reacts in
arrogance, hereafter they decide to keep
him far away in a locked room. Gregor
settles under his own photo of the times of
military service, in which “a lieutenant is
shown who laid his hand on the hilt of the
sword and smiled carelessly, inspiring
respect with his bearing and his
uniform”.
[Kafka, 1985: 20]
This is a
contrast between the former appearance of
Gregor - man and Gregor - insect.
According to Sokel, the species of insect
that Gregor changes into literally means a
dirty bug, which, “[...] denotes a slovenly
and dirty individual.”
[Sokel,1956] We can
observe here the process of person’s
transformation into an insect, which leads the
protagonist to break with his family, to
become complete loneliness.
Gregor is unable to restore his dual
self. He has nothing except to adapt, but even
in these conditions, someone constantly
rudely invades his world, which in this case
symbolizes the room. He adapts to bug life,
he eats garbage, learns how to crawl over
walls and even becomes fond of hanging on
his ceiling. But, at the same time, Kafka
notices that, despite his new horrible
appearance, he is still a human. He can
understand others, and spends plenty of time
standing near the door and listening to what
the members of his family are saying. He
feels they are disgusted by his appearance and
are afraid to come into his room, except
Greta.
Despite having transformed into an
insect, Gregor is so preoccupied by his work
as a traveling salesman and his parents’ debt
that he is unable to worry about his condition,
his only thoughts are how he will get to work
and get his family back on solid financial
footing. These thoughts continue throughout
Kafka’s novel, as Gregor thinks often about
his family’s debt and how they will live
without him. Gregor is selfless
[Minar and
Sutandio, 2017a: 126]. He feels himself his
absence only provider, rather than a brother,
friend or son. He is not able to assert his own
power in his life. He sacrificing for his
family, but to a point that is unhealthy for
himself - the extent of his sacrifice is
unhappy. He works hard at a job which he
doesn’t like, while none of the other family
members work. Evidently, if Gregor is not
selfish, he could leave a burdensome job.
But, Gregor could quit a job, only after
collecting enough money to pay back his
parents’ debt. When his metamorphosis
makes it impossible for him to perform his
job, his humanity, in the eyes of those closest
to him, is threatened as well.
Speaking broadly, we can observe that
nodiv was interested in meeting with Gregor
and the family members wanted to be away
from him. Her sister regretted her behavior
because she saw him as a stranger contrary we
notice that in the text he loved his sister. He
wanted her to perceive what she likes to do,
especially with music. But, later she feels that
Gregor is like a stranger and his appearance
was disgusting for her. Though Kafka’s
creative writing we can observe Gregor’s
alienation in different stages reflects in the
Metamorphosis. His physical change is the
first alienation. Gregor loses his own living
div features, voice and mobility and finally
his life. Kafka illustrates how alienation
comes from within an individual through
Gregor’s portrayal in the novel. The novel
shows how Gregor is being estranged from
the people around them because of the outer
part of the individual, which is his physical
appearance.
21
selfless-in Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary
,
“thinking more about the needs, happiness, etc. of other
people than about your own”
https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definiti
on/english/selfless?q=selfless
(accessed 20 August 2019).
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II. Psychological estrangement
A
literary theme Psychological
estrangement deals with depersonalization
and derealisation and estrangement [Abrams,
2005] [Davachi, 2009:11] means the loss of a
previously existed relationship between
family members, through physical or
emotional distancing. It may result either
from direct interactions between those effects
including violence, abuse, neglect, parental
misbehavior or major life events such as poor
communication. In
the Metamorphosis
after
the main character transforms into an insect
the perception of others about him makes him
so estranged from himself and others.
Perhaps
the greatest consequence of Gregor’s
metamorphosis is the psychological distance
it creates between Gregor and those people
around him.
This is the fact that he has kept a
human attitude to surrounding people to him.
There is a change in feeling instincts in
the
Metamorphosis
. We can see former love,
attentiveness, and tact in the hero. Kafka
describes that Gregor kindly attached to his
family and does not want to give them
unnecessary worries. But, if we look at the
behavior of the family members, then,
probably, we will have doubts about family
members’ feelings as a son and brother.
Gregor’s sister cleaned his room, at
the beginning it seems, it is not just a courtesy
and even showed concern in a primitive level
“to know Gregor’s test”, she finds out what he
can eat and spread them in the newspaper.
And mother cried: “Let me go to Gregor. He
is my unfortunate boy! Don’t you understand
that I have to go to him?”(Kafka, 1985: 30)
but contrary to fact, it seems that beyond
outer manifestation, there is no genuine
feeling. This is evidenced not by word or
short term of gesture, but regular behavior,
which becomes the norm and the attitude that
in due course develop: the father pushes him
into the room with a stick and throws apples
into son, his sister threatens with his fist, the
mother falls into a faint - everything is built
on some kind of hilarious breakdown, an
artificial game.
There is another incident, through by
taking his furniture out of his room her sister
gets rid of his last connection to reality and
the outside world. Both women gather their
courage and go inside. Gregor hides under the
bed, watching his belongings being carried
out. But, it hurts him to see how he is being
deprived of a normal living place, and finally,
it damages him so much that he comes out of
his refuge to defend the last object a portrait
of a woman, which is hanging on the wall.
His sister wipe-outs his memories through the
removal of his furniture and no longer views
him as her brother, but as a disgusting insect
with no human quality.
The family member’s concern is to
keep him away from them and others, by
locking him in the room. The member of the
family are not able to understand Gregor’s
needs and his feelings. They become hopeless
in considering him as earlier Gregor. In one
scene, when the chief clerk had visited to find
out reasons for Gregor’s absence for work, he
meets Gregor as transformed into an insect.
While the chief clerk was running away
Gregor tries to stop him. He realized that it
was out of the question to let the chief clerk
go away in such a mood if his position in the
company was not to be put into excessive
danger. We can observe that was something
his parents did not understand very well. His
parents thought Gregor was trying to harm the
chief clerk. There is one another incident
where Gregor comes to appreciate her sister
playing violin when the guest had visited to
their house but everydiv misunderstand
Gregor’s intention of coming out of his room.
So, we find a wider gap between Gregor and
the rest of his world in terms of understanding
the needs of Gregor.
Thus, after Gregor’s transformation
into an insect, “people did not understand his
words any more, although they seemed clear
enough to him, clearer than previously,
perhaps because his ears had gotten used to
them.”[Kafka, 1985: 17] However, Gregor
disappointed and depressed in his deep mind
because he wanted to feel the people
understand and to listen to him. But, nodiv
understands him. Only he needed to be
understood and be cared by his family. It is
the fact he stays almost exclusively in the
room with his door closed and has no contact
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with other people. Gregor’s metamorphosis
separates him from the human race as it
makes him no longer human. Essentially, he
has become totally isolated from everyone
around him, including those people he cares
for like his sister Grete and his mother.
III. Social rejection
However, social rejection can occur
when an individual is deliberately excluded
from a
. Although
individuals are social beings, some level of
rejection is an inevitable part of life.
[London
et al., 2007]
It includes such as interpersonal
rejection and also, familial estrangement.
A person can be rejected by individuals
or an entire group of people. Kafka’s
novel
Metamorphosis
is based on the subtlest image
of the change of feelings within the family.
As the mother and sister lose hope of the
reverse transformation of Gregor, his father’s
hatred for him grows. Gregor kept his
personal feeling and thinking. Realizing that
nodiv is interested in his state mind and
nodiv wanted to know – whether he
understand others? He has no social life and
little happiness. But, what is proven through
his transformation is that the rest of the family
is perfectly capable of work. As a matter of
fact, they thrive despite Gregor’s infirmity.
Gregor’s transformation into an insect is a
sign of isolation, alienation, conflict with
family and society.
In the Kafka’s novel the
metamorphosis occurs both in the first
sentence of the text “As Gregor awoke one
morning and found himself transformed in his
bed into a gigantic insect” and in the last
scene of the story, which describes Grete’s
transformation into a woman blooming and
stretching toward the family’s “new
dreams”[Kafka,1985, 77] once Gregor has
been transformed into garbage. The image of
the gender neutrality emerges when Gregor is
referred to as a “thing” an “it.”
At beginning
scene of the novel Gregor
falls off the bed
with a knock, the manager behind the closed
door of the next room says: “Something has
fallen there”. (9) At the end scene “It’s dead,”
the charwoman announces. “It’s lying here
dead and done for!”.[Straus, 1989: 660] Here,
“something” - so the people do not say about
animate creature, hence, Gregor’s human
existence from the point of view of the
external, business world is completed. Gregor
sacrifices for all the family and home world is
also rejects him [Nuopponen, n.d.]
Gregor understand that he is not need
to anydiv any more. More he felt his
uselessness in his parents’ house and he
became weaker. It’s very hard to feel that you
are not like everyone else, and therefore even
your relatives turn away from you. It is
painful to realize that you complicate and
make the unbearable life of your loved ones.
But, it’s even more painful to think that they
hate you, not even wanting to see an ugly
creature. Greta’s words are finished him that
he whom loved so much: “We must try to get
rid of him [...] If it were Gregor, he would
have realized long ago that it’s impossible for
human being to live with such a creature, and
he would have gone away of his free will”.
(49) Gregor realized needless to anyone in the
whole world. Lying in darkness, he
“remembered with love” about his family. He
was now even more than a sister, convinced
that he should disappear. So, he lay until the
bells on the tower struck the third hour of the
morning and his thoughts were pure and meek
(51).
Kafka described in great detail the
bullying of his father over the poor creature
that his son turned into. And it seems to me
that in describing the physical pain of his
unhappy hero, the writer tried to show his
moral catastrophe. I think that these “ugly
spots” were not formed on the door and
incurable wounds opened up in Gregor’s
clean soul. And not the div of the hero was
bleeding but the soul that felt at the same time
refused to understand the behaviour of the
father, sister, and mother.
Perhaps, each of us has such moments,
when you feel yourself no needs to anydiv.
Many of the psychologists call this tragedy of
a little man in the modern world [...] I
probably agree with this statement. After all,
it’s so hard to find real, live people, with
whom you can share your thoughts, listen to
other people’s problems and not to feel alone.
It seems that the main character of this novel
had both parents and a sister, whom he helped
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financially. But, why in such a difficult time
he was left alone? This question is easy to
answer: it is important not material assistance,
but the ability to give good advice in a
difficult hour for a person, to support morally.
This is what he needed after the
transformation into a vermin. Gregor, having
lost his human form, preserved a living
human soul under a hideous shell. Gregor,
from the first minute of his transformation up
to the end, even inside himself, does not rise
up, and not demand his rights. On the
contrary, he feels guilty, tries not to come
near his family, not to frighten them, not to
shock them and secretly hopes that someday
he will regain his former appearance and
become useful to the family.
Conclusion
Kafka’s
The Metamorphosis
shows how
the protagonist is being estranged from the
people around them because of the outer part
of the individual, which is his physical
appearance. Generally, Gregor is a “little
man”. He readily agrees that it is to blame, it
is unclear how, but it is to blame for the fact
that he lost his human form. How humbly did
he accept his fate as a little imperceptible
human, just so humbly took Gregor and
loneliness, pain and death. Almost the
protocol accuracy with which Kafka describes
the scene of death is more shocking than the
volumes of high and lofty words. Suddenly,
on the morning of the usual day, he realized
that he, Gregor, was no more existed. And
everything disappeared: a loving family
disappears, work, the goal of life - everything
for which he lived for and fought. He became
helpless. Now he cannot earn money, he
cannot talk, he feels disgusting. But this is not
his tragedy. He was left alone, alone in the
whole world - this is the tragedy of the hero.
Each of us has people we love, there are
people who love us, and there are people who
we need. Gregor Samsa, also had such people,
but with him a misfortune happened and all
turned away from him.
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Obloqulov D. F.Kafkaning “Aylanish” romanida kichik odamning fojiasi. Ushbu ishning
maqsadi Kafkaning "Evrilish” asarida Gregorning fojiasini ko'rib chiqishdir. Asar - bu kichik
insonning dramatizatsiyasi, Gregorning ichki dunyosi, Kafka tomonidan tasvirlangan dunyo ongsiz
dunyosi. Biz bu erda bizning ezilgan irodamiz, hissiyot va mojarolarning ongsiz dunyosini
aniqlashimiz mumkin. Nega u yolg'iz va tushkunlikka tushishga moyil? Gregor bahaybat
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Хорижий филология №4, 2019 йил
hasharotga aylandi. Uning yaqin atrofidagi insonlar bilan munosabati va odamlarning salbiy
ta'sirining sababi nimada? Nega u oiladagi moliyaviy muammolar uchun o'zini aybdor his qiladi?
Ushbu maqola shu kabi savollarga javob berishga qaratilgan.
Облокулов Д. Трагедия маленького человека в романе Ф.Кафки "Превращение".
Целью данной работы является рассмотрение трагедии Грегора по роману Кафки
«Метаморфоза». Роман - инсценировка маленького человека, внутренний мир Грегора, мир,
который изображен Кафкой, - это мир бессознательного. Здесь мы можем определить
бессознательный мир наших подавленных желаний, чувств и конфликтов. Почему он
склонен чувствовать себя одиноким и подавленным? Грегор превратился в гигантское
насекомое, в чем причина негативного влияния людей и их отношений с окружающими его
людьми? Почему он чувствует себя ответственным за финансовые проблемы семьи? Цель
этой работы - ответить на эти вопросы.
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