Kafka’s Metamorphosis reminds me a lot of The Nose by Gogol. Both of these stories are set in mundane settings and feature absurd events. Metamorphosis tells of a man who transforms into a giant insect one morning and The Nose features a high-ranking official who suddenly loses his nose and searches the city to find it. As absurd as both of them are, they are also each using their stories as a metaphor to comment on the absurdness, randomness, and uncertainty of the social capitalist world.
There are many things in Metamorphosis that suggest that Kafka’s novella is a metaphor for contemporary society. The first and most suggestive is the fact that the protagonist i
s transformed into a large insect and is viewed by everyone around him as vermin. This can translate to how the middle or lower working classes are seen by the higher classes and those of high station in the government as “vermin” or dirty. Also, Kafka uses the unfamiliar within the mundane and inverts the typical system of justice and right and wrong in order to portray the reality of the social order in society—randomness and absurdness often overcome justice and order. Kafka targets capitalist society and its alienation of low to middle class workers and shows through Gregor’s metamorphosis into an insect, and his eventual death, that the good don’t die young. It is important to pick details out from the story—such as Gregor’s desire to make it to work even once he has found out he’s an insect or his family’s reaction to him once he transformed—so that you can understand that while it is merely a story, there is a lot of meaning behind the actions of the characters and the metaphors carefully placed throughout the story.
Gogol’s s
tory, The Nose has a lot conceptually in common with Metamorphosis. In Gogol’s story a very materialistic major loses his nose, which he later finds, reattaches, and continues on with his life as materialistic and womanizing as before. In Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Gregor, a slave to his social and economic class, is turned into a grotesque insect and later dies of the melancholy of alienation due to his appearance. Gogol’s story, much like Kafka’s, targets the Aristocratic class and the meddling government bureaucracy and conveys that randomness and absurdness will always have a place in the world, and that materialists stay materialists and justice is short lived and often non-existent. Both of these stories comment on the desensitization of those who are “formed” by contemporary society. This is seen through Gregor’s transformation into a vermin and Kovaliov’s embarrassment at the loss of his nose.
“...are there not absurd things everywhere?—and yet, when you think it over, there really is something in it. Despite what anyone may say, such things do happen—not often, but they do happen” (Gogol, The Nose).
There are many things in Metamorphosis that suggest that Kafka’s novella is a metaphor for contemporary society. The first and most suggestive is the fact that the protagonist i
s transformed into a large insect and is viewed by everyone around him as vermin. This can translate to how the middle or lower working classes are seen by the higher classes and those of high station in the government as “vermin” or dirty. Also, Kafka uses the unfamiliar within the mundane and inverts the typical system of justice and right and wrong in order to portray the reality of the social order in society—randomness and absurdness often overcome justice and order. Kafka targets capitalist society and its alienation of low to middle class workers and shows through Gregor’s metamorphosis into an insect, and his eventual death, that the good don’t die young. It is important to pick details out from the story—such as Gregor’s desire to make it to work even once he has found out he’s an insect or his family’s reaction to him once he transformed—so that you can understand that while it is merely a story, there is a lot of meaning behind the actions of the characters and the metaphors carefully placed throughout the story.Gogol’s s
tory, The Nose has a lot conceptually in common with Metamorphosis. In Gogol’s story a very materialistic major loses his nose, which he later finds, reattaches, and continues on with his life as materialistic and womanizing as before. In Kafka’s Metamorphosis, Gregor, a slave to his social and economic class, is turned into a grotesque insect and later dies of the melancholy of alienation due to his appearance. Gogol’s story, much like Kafka’s, targets the Aristocratic class and the meddling government bureaucracy and conveys that randomness and absurdness will always have a place in the world, and that materialists stay materialists and justice is short lived and often non-existent. Both of these stories comment on the desensitization of those who are “formed” by contemporary society. This is seen through Gregor’s transformation into a vermin and Kovaliov’s embarrassment at the loss of his nose.“...are there not absurd things everywhere?—and yet, when you think it over, there really is something in it. Despite what anyone may say, such things do happen—not often, but they do happen” (Gogol, The Nose).
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