The opening line of Franz Kafka's novel of this name begins: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect."
It is both a tragedy and utterly comedic as Kafka was a master of allegory and internal dialogue. His novels all involve existentential dilemma's and fantastical imaginings of everyday horrors of life in the early days of the industrial revolution.
The Morgan Library in NYC has an exhibition of his original manuscipts, photographs of him as a youth and even as scale model of the apartment in Prague where he lived with his family in which the poor Samsa was imagined to turn into a vile cockroach in his sleep.
Yet the poor innocence of the unwitting man/bug, his hands turned into multiple useless sticky brown appendages, recalls the poignancy of many of us at our most vulnerable, self-loathing, unloved, and helpless. Unable to even move the giant carapace off of the bed or to turn the key in the lock, Samsa yet somehow keeps the humorous sensibility of a son wondering at his parents' worries that he has ruined his career by not catching his usual 6 am train to his job.
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| A dancer's interpretation of Gregor Samsa's metamorphosi |
The metamorphosis or transformation of words into metaphors is at once moving and hilarious as the reader contemplates the poetic soul of the insect forced into to the soul crushing job of door to door salesman.
What I appreciate most is the allegory and ironic depiction of horrors we all struggle with: should I get out of bed? Am I lovable? Am I understood? If I become loathsome and less than human will I still be fed and cared for?
The Kafka exhibit is up until April 13th and well worth a visit at Madison Ave and 37th street.
What are you grateful for today?
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Please tell me what good thing you encountered today.