The Metamorphosis is quite the read that will leave you feeling one word: unsettled. Reading Gregors journey feels like a silent horror movie where you rely on sound to depict the suspense. Kafka’s piece isn’t exactly “scary”, but it left me feeling thrilled and uncomfortable, where I constantly heard the silent movie music get escalated to higher and higher notes. Because I’ve read The Metamorphosis previously, I started this response by first reading Freud’s work. Being a big fan of Freud, I instantly became enwrapped in his words and began to see many connections to Kafka as an author and to Gregors character.

First, I wanted to react to the use of imagery Kafka uses. Oh the chills and thoughts you’ll have as you imagine this lonely, sad man wake up as this slimy creature. He lives his life in a robotic manner: wake up, eat, work, and sleep. However, you sympathize with him. You feel sorry for him because he lives so selflessly. After he undergoes his transformation, Gregor struggles to live. This theme of Gregor struggling and trying to continue his stressful job presents a MUCH bigger idea that we can analyze (which I’ll elaborate on later).

The sympathy I felt for Gregor reminded me of Freud’s explanation on one aspect of how authors write creative stories. Freud said that  “each of [the characters] is the center of interest, for whom the writer tries to win our sympathy by every possible means and whom he seems to place under the protection of a special Providence.” In The Metamorphosis, Kafka wins our sympathy for Gregor through means of family abandonment, the three boarders, and his sisters turn of compassion.

Freud also writes about how creative writers normally like to connect their stories to their own life. He says “a strong experience in the present awakens in the creative writer a memory of an earlier experience (usually belonging to his childhood) from which there now proceeds with which finds its fulfillment in the creative work.” I’ve read a lot about Kafka himself and learned that he suffered a great deal in his life with on and off depression. His two younger brothers died during infancy. Kafka did not have a great relationship with his parents. Overall, the home was constantly filled with sadness. Freud would look at Kafkas life of tragedy as a personal connection to Gregor. Another very sad, but in my opinion, outstanding, connection between Kafka and Gregor is the transformation. Gregor becomes a cockroach who is essentially a dying man in a slimy shell. Kafka was diagnosed with tuberculosis and was hindered from doing many things, like serving in the military, due to his condition. Kafka too was just a dying man in a shell.

On another note, I found the entire chapter “Creative Writers and Daydreaming” very relevant. In addition to the methods authors use to write creative stories that I mentioned above, Freud also wrote an analogy linking children at play to the imaginative process of writers. Freud explains that children are most creative when they are at play, just like writers are when they are fantasizing their new story lines. This was fascinating to me because I instantly thought of myself as a child.  I remember being with my friends at the park pretending that the rubber matting was lava and the concrete sidewalks were the “safe” zones. I remember countless memories of hide and seek, looking for new innovative spots to hide. Now, a decade or so later, I think back to this time of creativity at play and realize that that same mentality of thinking of new games or looking for a new, secret place to hide is exactly the kind of mentality that creates great works of fiction and fantasy. Even though Kafka lived in sadness, I’m sure he had to  use some elements of creativity to create this dark, gloomy work.

Although I believe Freud makes a valid point, I did not see the element of kinship in The Metamorphosis. Freud says that “typical features of these egocentric stories point to…all women in the novel invariably fall[ing] in love with the hero…” The only women in the story are the mother, the sister, and the maid, (who, if I may add, is a freak), who are all only terrified and disgusted by Gregor’s new image. Grete was the only one who showed some compassion initially but still ended up turning her back on him by letting him die.

The second chapter of the Freud reading spoke more about dreams. When reading The Metamorphosis, I felt like it was a dream. There was no background to it. Gregor just wakes up to be this gross bug. I was waiting for him to say “and then I woke up from this awful nightmare.” The abrupt transition makes it feel very trance and dream-like. Freud would use this as an opportunity to implement a philosophical idea that dreams are wish fulfillments. In a way, we can say that Gregor wanted his misery of a continuous working life to end and becoming a cockroach was his wish fulfillment.

Lastly, this comment may be irrelevant but I would feel like this response is incomplete if I don’t mention how I felt about this story overall. I’ve touched upon it briefly, but I was really saddened by the end of the novel. Gregor lives monotonously- he must provide for his family by working a job he hates with people who don’t care for him. There is nothing to his life. And then one day, he wakes up and hes a cockroach. But this transformation demonstrates a very big theme and an even bigger explanation to life. This story is obviously wildly absurd, but it suggests that we as humans often operate in a routine lifestyle that we cannot break. Time passes by us blindly and we cannot stop it. Then one day, you wake up and you’re a cockroach (metaphorically speaking, of course). Kafka is trying to tell us to slow down and enjoy life because one day you’ll wake up too old to do anything. Your family who you once provided for will be young and will not want to take care of your old self. You won’t necessarily deserve it, but Kafka is trying to say we can all become a cockroach some point in our lives- insignificant and useless.

The Metamorphosis is strange and hard to grasp, but I believe we can classify this as a great work as it shows relevance to life and leaves me captivated with many emotions.