The change in Gregor's voice probably could not be noticed outside through the wooden door, as his mother was satisfied with this explanation and shuffled away. But this short conversation made the other members of the family aware that Gregor, against their expectations was still at home, and soon his father came knocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist. "Gregor, Gregor", he called, "what's wrong?" And after a short while he called again with a warning deepness in his voice: "Gregor! Gregor!" At the other side door his sister came plaintively: "Gregor? Aren't you well? Do you need anything?" Gregor answered to both sides... [he] congratulated himself for his cautious habit, acquired from his travelling, of locking all doors at night even when he was at home. The first thing he wanted to do was to get up in peace without being disturbed, to get dressed, and most of all to have his breakfast.
Everything about this situations is absurd. Gregor has just transformed into a huge bug, and yet he is mostly concerned with mundane things. His family is inordinantly worried about him because he isn't up by quarter to seven, and they're all questioning him at once through the doors of his room, of which there are apparently several. Oddly his boss arrives soon after to check on him because he failed to catch the five o' clock train that morning. No one is acting normally, and this is before they even know that Gregor has changed! This sort of bizarre behavior is reminescent of dreams, where the strangest situations seem perfectly reasonable.
As the narrative continues, this 'dream' becomes more and more of a nightmare. Gregor is left alone in his room and treated increasingly badly while he loses his ability to see the outside world and communicate. Eventually, he loses his furniture and his mobility as well. However, I believe that the crux of this blooming nightmare is how his family reacts to his change. They are repulsed by his visage and treat him like garbage. He has spent years as the only working member of the family, struggling to pay off their old debts, and yet they have no trouble finding work the instant he is incapacitated. Worse yet, the family is actually far better off without Gregor's aid. They are more successful and more healthy once they have to do things for themselves. In the end, his sister Grete says that the best thing Gregor can do is go die so they don't have to put up with him any more. To me, this is one of the scariest things imaginable: discovering that despite doing absolutely everything in your power to help others, they would do better if you had never existed. The inclusion of this fear solidifies my belief that this book tells of a nightmare, a dark dream in the recesses of our minds rather than a simple, fictional 'reality'.
But if the really is all a dream, then what is the point of it? We wake up from dreams and then promptly forget about them. I think that although there are many "dream-like" qualities to the story, especially the nightmarish aspects you talked about, I think Kafka is going for more than just a dream. If he wanted it to be a dream then why did Gregor not wake up? What is fascinating to think about is how maybe this could be thought of as not just a story of Gregor dreaming, but of a more general nightmare for all of humanity.
ReplyDeleteI also thought a similar thing Andrew. I entertained this possibility but I came to the conclusion similar to James'. The reason I felt like it could be a nightmare is the ending of the book. It was just too happy for being such a dark ending. The part that tipped me off however was the family still talked to one another even after Gregor's death. Normally in a dream you wake up when you die. Still it's an interesting idea.
ReplyDeleteIt takes a certain skill to craft a concept buried in the human mind this well. Kafka shaves so close to serious waking nightmares with this stuff; I was constantly reminded of some of my worst dreams while reading it. Isolation from your family and activity all while being aware of it has to be one of the greatest fears of a human. Because if all you try to communicate is the opposite of what others interpret, you lose your ability to be a member of society at all.
ReplyDeleteIt's dream-*like*, but it's not a dream, and that's key to Kafka's aesthetic: it's as if dream-logic has infiltrated waking life. There's the cliche about a "nightmare from which you can't wake up," but that very much becomes the nightmare here, when the strange and disorienting dream-logic of the early morning scene becomes a long, drawn-out day-to-day reality, where Gregor slowly wastes away in this alien body, unable to eat or, significantly, to sleep. He's forced to stay awake, listening to life go on around him. This is still a kind of nightmarish dream logic, but unlike dreams, the sense of time is so palpable. Gregor spends hours and hours, days and weeks, alone in his room with no human contact. (There's a reason the term "Kafkaesque" is applied to prison practices, especially solitary confinement. There are nonliterary cases where dream logic does infiltrate waking life.)
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