Kafkalternate reality

Kafkalternate reality
The whole premise of the metamorphosis is strange a man turns into an insect, seemingly for no particular reason. Not only that but his family dynamic and job are extremely peculiar, he is a few minutes late and a representative from the company is already there to check on him. Also the parents seemingly rely on him to pay the debt but don’t seem to treat him very well. Throughout the entire story, I had this image that Gregor and his job and family were particularly peculiar, but I then I realized that maybe Kafka set this story in an alternate reality.
Not an alternate reality where people turn to bugs but an alternate reality were work for young men is very intense. The amount of concern Gregor has for missing one day of work is in our reality very strange and hints at what would be considered an abusive work environment. So maybe an explanation for why Gregor sees his family as eternally benevolent is that that's how he and many others were raised. He also was a soldier who was most likely taught respect without question. And, it is maybe expected that eventually, Gregor would take the place of the dad being able to lay back and have long breakfasts. Based on the fact that Gregor was in the war a few years ago and has been working for at least 5 years we can predict that he is around 30. Perhaps this insect-stage is representative of his evolution to the father’s status where he no longer has to work. Since he is a bug he can’t work. I am not sure how this would then relate to his death except that maybe since Gregor had no wife and kids to continue from him he died from lack of necessity. Since we rarely see aspects of how other people live and work it is hard to tell whether Gregor is an odd case of a common one. Presumably, he isn't the only one in the company that has that demanding job. Or another theory could be that the work was too much and being the breadwinner was to stressing so he “broke” and went into a cocoon like a state. All of these assumptions are hard to make because we don’t see examples of his life from before the transformation. Also for most of the story we are heavily influenced from Gregor’s point of view which is very optimistic and he always sees the best in his family even when they are seemingly very cruel to him.

Comments

  1. Smita NairOctober 12, 2018 at 6:41 PM

    I agree with this. I like the distinction about how what makes Kafka's reality so absurd is not that men seemingly turn into bugs overnight, but that their first priorities after such tragedies is to question how their monotonous work routines will be altered. Gregor realizes that the only thing keeping him alive is his ability to work and fit in to bureaucracy, and the second he stops fulfilling that duty he dies and is replaced with Grete.

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  2. AlexOctober 13, 2018 at 2:21 PM

    In some ways Gregor's transformation into an insect is the easiest to imagine aspect of the entire story. The world Kafka has created is so utterly bizarre that it is hard to picture it as anything like our own, but a person transforming into an insect is not so hard to imagine. We obviously don't think that it is possible, but it is easy to picture somebody disappearing and an insect appearing in their place.

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  3. MaddieOctober 14, 2018 at 5:59 AM

    I agree that this probably took place in an alternate reality. It just seems very off that only after missing a few minutes of work someone shows up to check on him. That makes me think that Gregor is either really important to the company or his work is just hard and stressful.

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