Reading Kafka: My Take on The Metamorphosis

I read Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis a couple of months ago. It is, frankly, a very weird book. 🐛

To give you some context on my perspective, I have never considered myself a deep person. I have been pretty stoic since childhood, rarely feeling the need to over-analyze life or search for some hidden, grand meaning behind everything. I have had a clear idea of how I wanted to live my life since I was young, and I have never really questioned that path. Because of this, my take on this book is likely plain and non-philosophical, but I wanted to share it anyway.

For those who don’t know, the story follows a man who wakes up one day to find he has transformed into a bug. His first thought is not “why am I  a bug” but the anxiety about how he is going to get to work and pay the bills for his family. He lives with his parents and sister, and he carries the entire financial burden because his father’s business failed years ago. When his family finally discovers his condition, they are naturally terrified. As time passes, only his sister continues to feed him. His mother is paralyzed by fear, and his father eventually returns to the workforce to support them. In the end, the bug dies, and the family feels a strange sense of relief before moving on with their lives. 🏠

Kafka himself led a famously dark life. He was physically abused by his father, born with health issues, and suffered from deep-seated insecurities and a crippling lack of confidence. He never married, died young, and even left instructions for his work to be destroyed because he did not feel it was good enough. He once wrote a 40-page letter to his father detailing the suffering his upbringing caused him. He was a very dark person,I cannot relate to him at all. I do not see him as someone to look up to, nor do I find myself aligned with his ideas. ✍️

This is exactly why the book had almost no impact on me.

First, if I woke up tomorrow as a bug, the last thing I would do is stay in my room. I would be out trying to find other bugs or figuring out what kind of food I could actually eat.  This narrative of staying home, observing people, and playing the victim just isn’t something I can get behind. 🐜

Second, the financial aspect feels pretty normal; if your parents are older, it is simply normal to help them financially. Finally, if you suddenly turn into a giant insect, it makes total sense that people are going to be scared of you. That is just a rational reaction to an irrational situation. ⚖️

Ultimately, I think we all carry insecurities from our childhood, a comment a teacher made that stuck with you, a mistake a parent made, or a friend who hurt your feelings. But that is just human life. Your parents probably had it worse, their parents even worse, and so on. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone says things they should not or acts in ways they should not. What matters is the ability to acknowledge that, move on, and keep going.

I think a lot of people live in the present day shaped by their past, and carry all of these negative effects with them. If you live for the future with the hope that it is going to get better, it will eventually get better. I hear a lot today from young people: “What if I die tomorrow? Let’s live day by day, let’s enjoy life, don’t have these big hopes and dreams, and don’t work too much, because if I die tomorrow, nothing matters.” If you die tomorrow, you will be dead and nothing will matter anyway. Those memories you made probably won’t matter because you are dead and your brain is dead. You know what’s scary? If you don’t die tomorrow and live to 90 years old with insecurities and unrealized potential.