The story of The Metamorphosis is easily told, however like almost all the other works of Kafka, The Metamorphosis also has to be read not as an instance of realistic writing but as an allegorical piece. The story has an immense interpretative possibilities.
The Metamorphosis embodies the Existentialist notion of Alienation. In this story Kafka speak about the near total alienation of the creature from other human beings, who once was a salesman by the name of Gregor Samsa and has now turned into a hideous and monstrous vermin. This alienation happens to Gregor Samsa in the form of physical change. Even after this change, he is ruled by the rational plan-making considerations related to his work. He wants to get up and carry on his business trip. This shows how this capitalist society have shaped us into a mere machine producing for a factory. Kafka makes his readers realize through his character, Gregor Samsa, that the modern man is alienated from his own true self. Man has become the slave of this society to such an extent that he does not know about his own self or his inner life any longer at all.
The self is what is absolutely alien, void and non-existent, not only in the world of business but also in the world of the family. Samsa’s mother and sister loved him dearly. In a touching manner they try at first to improve his condition, to surmount their feeling at the sight of this vermin, to take care of him, to protect him, to preserve what once for them was human and lovable. But the terrible truth of this short story is the realization that even the “most beautiful”, most tender relations among people are founded on illusion. No one knows or suspects what he himself “is” and what the other person “is”. Gregor Samsa’s parents for instance, never had any inkling of this conflict, of the ‘sacrifice’ that he was making for their sake. They had never dreamt that there was trouble brewing within Gregor, that something had been ‘out of order’ long before the eruption of this inner sickness in the form of metamorphosis. Now that the distortion assumes visible features, they are at a loss and feel their son to be a ‘foreign body.’
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Another important concept highlighted in this story is the existential guilt. We hold a responsibility to create a life, and to live this life to its fullest potential, thus creating a life of meaning, purpose, direction, growth and transformation, and becoming valued members of a culture and the world with meaning. Failing short of this responsibility leads to what existentialists describe as existential guilt, the notion that I could have done more and that I missed opportunities or failed in some ways. Gregor is guilty due to metamorphosis beyond his control. The metamorphosis forces Gregor to face the reality as a truth or as Kafka calls it another lie. Gregor begs the clerk, who visited his home on the day of his transformation, to stand up for him insisting that he is extremely dedicated and loyal and that he must provide for his family. Gregor’s plea is utterly sincere, expressing his guilt, his desire to rejoin the economic order as conformist.
However, Gregor always wanted to escape the job he was doing but due to the pressure of repaying his father’s debt, he had to do it. No one really truly loves anyone. Everyone loves conditionally. Most love is conditional, control-based and fear based. It’s all about the self. So, we live off prescriptive checklists and believe that if we don’t follow that checklist, then we are somehow lesser than. His metamorphosis gave him the ability to escape the reality. Finally he can leave his job and the social order he dislikes, he can lie around in his room without a concern for time and for debts. And yet he cannot accept his freedom because his guilt is stronger than the escape. This is the fundamental crisis that not only Gregor, but most of the human beings in the modern age face. This crisis is the conflict between freedom and one’s responsibility to oneself on the one hand, and guilt and demands posed by society and family on the other. One cannot be free without guilt, yet one cannot fulfill one’s obligation to others and stay true to oneself. If escape from this predicament is impossible, Kafka with his metamorphosis, provides an impossible escape. By becoming an insect, Gregor gains both his freedom and the right to avoid guilt.
In the Solomon Islands, when the people want to clear the forest for planting or development, they just gather around the big tree, stand around it holding hands and hurl abuses at the tree; curse the tree. Slowly and surely the tree begins to wither and it dies in its own. And that’s what the Gregor family did to him. They made him feel that his presence was a burden on them. At the end Gregor finally does nevertheless free himself from his enslavement to the empirical world. His death is not merely a meaningless annihilation, but a liberation or realization. Gregor says, ‘yes,’ to his own death. He dies reconciled with himself and with the world.
