3:10-4:50

I chose this video because it explains Franz Kafka’s upbringing which was the influence behind all of his works. Most other videos I found only focused on summarizing and/or interpreting the story itself but I think that for Kafka’s stories, his family life played a critical part in the creation of his works. According to the video, Franz Kafka had an extremely psychologically abusive father and a spineless mother who could not stand up for her own child. The actions of his father left a negative impact on his mental health. Kafka’s father was the super controlling type of parent which usually has two different outcomes depending on the personality of the child — either the child will act out and rebel against the parent or the child will take everything in and bring themselves down. Kafka was of the latter personality type; he had basically zero sense of self-worth and self-esteem because he could only take in what his father did to him and resort to writing as an outlet to relieve stress. At age 36, he finally wrote out his feelings towards his father in a 47-page letter which did not even reach his father because his mother was a coward. He was a grown adult and still could not even deliver his feelings to his father. In the letter he said, “I was a mere nothing for him.” Because his father never showed him any affection, he really believed that his father hated him and thought he was worthless — only an extra mouth to feed and nothing good coming from it.

Later on in the video, the narrator explains The Metamorphosis and how it’s a story of self-hate. Gregor woke up one day as a bug which was how he felt others viewed him — a disgusting, useless bug. His father is abusive, of course, beating Gregor whenever he sees him. His mother can’t do anything but faint when she sees him. His sister is his only savior, for a bit, bringing him food scraps to eat. As the story progresses though, she eventually wants to kick him out as well.

“‘Listen’, said the chief clerk in the next room, ‘he’s turning the key.’ Gregor was greatly encouraged by this; but they all should have been calling to him, his father and his mother too: ‘Well done, Gregor’, they should have cried, ‘keep at it, keep hold of the lock!’”

I think this quote is really important because it showcases how Gregor just needed some encouragement from his parents to know that they supported him, but instead they treated him with a cynical curiosity. When Gregor finally dies, his family becomes happy rather than sad. It seems like everything is going well after he is gone which is ironic because he was the only person who was suffering working a job before he became a bug. He was content with dying in the end because he felt he really didn’t have any worth as a bug and had no hope of turning back into a human.