Franz Kafka: A Study in Performative Intellectualism
by Sophia Zhang
Literature Editor
As a German speaker in a predominantly Czech-speaking city, born to a Jewish family in Prague, a predominantly Christian town, Franz Kafka was no stranger to feelings of alienation, the central theme he chose to explore in The Metamorphosis. While it was published in 1915, the story was written in 1912 as an anti-war piece, as tensions were escalating in Europe leading up to World War I. Kafka tells the story of Gregor Samsa, who finds himself transformed into a giant bug upon waking one day. There are many ways to read this piece: as a tragic story of the rejection of a man transformed in a bug, as a critique of the glorification of war, as a mythological retelling of the myth of Echo and Narcissus, or as the comedic story of a lazy man pretending to be a bug to avoid responsibility.
While the most common interpretation of the story is as a tragedy, I want to explore the reading of this story as a comedy. Kafka was an absurdist writer who wrote many of his stories to share with a small group of his friends to make them laugh. The Metamorphosis, while not necessarily written for that sole purpose, was informed by the contexts in which he had previously written. Moreover, he left the details of the transformation just vague enough to allow for multiple interpretations of the text. As such, while it may be easy to take the text itself at face value and imagine that Gregor is being abused by a family who only appreciated him when he was the breadwinner of the family, it is possible that Gregor might have just been pretending to have been transformed into a bug because he could not tolerate his monotonous life anymore.
This reading sounds nonsensical at first, but there is textual evidence to support this claim. Reframing the beginning of the novella with this interpretation in mind, the disgust his family felt upon seeing his new form after this “transformation” turns into a mix of confusion and fright caused by having your son or your brother hissing at you and acting like a bug. One of the most interesting passages is the small interaction Gregor has with the charwoman. One morning, as Gregor has perfected pretending to be a bug, both in mannerism and thought, the cleaning lady enters his room and greets him cheerfully, almost teasingly. This rapport differs from all the interactions he has had with his family, who are growing increasingly repulsed by the sight of him, barely tolerating even laying eyes on him. Thus, this charwoman is either a character in an absurdist piece of fiction, possessing some kind of self-awareness about the story she is figuring in, or she is unfrightened because Gregor is not actually an insect. She is playing along with his irresponsible delusions about having been transformed into a bug.
Ultimately, Kafka crafts an awe-inspiring, multi-faceted story that explores themes of alienation, isolation, and rejection with anti-war messages and biblical and mythological references. However, all this depth is lost when Book Tok interprets this story. The niche side of TikTok features an even smaller subsect of people who read purely literary fiction and classics. The problem with these readers is that they are more interested in seeming intellectually informed and not actually understanding the complexities of these literary works. The awe-inspiring, multi-faceted story that Kafka crafts Is rendered devoid of depth when Book Tok interprets this story. This niche side of TikTok features an even smaller subsect of people who read purely literary fiction and classics. The Metamorphosis is fairly popular, and the platform seems to have reached a consensus on the novella: it is a tragic story of abuse, and Kafka is a depressing, existentialist storyteller in the likes of Dostoevsky and Camus. While not completely wrong, it reduces a complex person and a complex story to an aesthetic. The discussions surrounding these books are so shallow that they feel disingenuous and almost more like an obsessive need to showcase their intellectual superiority. Reading can and should be fun, but (this side of) Book Tok seems to be promoting the idea that reading is only valid when it is these dense literary works, all while not actually appreciating these texts for all they have to offer, as they are more interested in flaunting their status as intellectuals.