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The Metamorphosis - Franz Kafka - Episode #2

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Hi, I\\u2019m Christy Shriver.

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I\\u2019m Garry Shriver and welcome to the How to Love Lit Podcast.\\xa0 This is our second episode in our series on Franz Kafka and his great work \\u201cMetamorphosis.\\u201d\\xa0 And before I forget, please let me remind you, if you enjoy our work,\\xa0 text an episode to a friend and/or give us a five star rating on your podcast app.\\xa0 It\\u2019s through sharing that we grow; we hope our work is resonating and is an educational resource worth sharing.\\xa0 So, last week, we talked about Kafka\\u2019s life in the beautiful city of Prague at the cusps of the turbulent times heading into the turn of the 20th century in Eastern Europe. We talked about his family, the important relationships that influenced his work, the title The Metamorphosis and the beginning of this peculiar kafka-esaue novella \\u2013 the term we still use today when referencing bizarre things in our world.\\xa0 We also mentioned the many different philosophical movements that were swirling around Europe at this time that had a tremendous influence on Kafka the man and his work.\\xa0 Christy, I know this is where you want to go start us today with this idea of worldview, so let\\u2019s get started.\\xa0 What is worldview and why does that matter in regard to literature in general and specifically Kafka?

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Yes- that\\u2019s exactly where I want to start.\\xa0 And yes- worldview does matter- actually infinitely so - not just when we talk about literature- but all of life.\\xa0 And it\\u2019s worth understanding properly-

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Dr. James Sire defined it like this- he said- Worldview \\u201cis a fundamental orientation from the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions which we hold (either consciously or unconsciously) about the basic \\xa0constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.\\u201d

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In other words, it\\u2019s HOW you see things when you look at the world.\\xa0 It\\u2019s broader than your morals, your religion, your family, your culture- but it includes all of those things.\\xa0 It\\u2019s a set of presuppositions- or rather, things you just feel are true for whatever reason and help you understand what you see when you construct your reality.\\xa0 Our worldview helps us orientate ourselves and helps us even build our identity- something we all need to feel safe and engage other people confidently.\\xa0

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The reason I even bring this up is because we see the world through lenses- perhaps like glasses, if you want to think of it that way- and these lenses are good things- they provide orientation for us- but there\\u2019s a problem- there isn\\u2019t just one of them- there are many ways to look at the world- but we generally don\\u2019t see it because we only have the one we have- and thus we have fundamental disagreement.

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Of course this is the kind of thing philosophers have always discussed and really made mathematical schemata\'s to explain.\\xa0 How do you ascertain what is true in this world?\\xa0 How do we agree on what is important? Of course there are a few things that we can all mostly agree are indisputable.\\xa0 Most of us, but not all of us would say this works great for teaching math- 2 plus 2 is always four- we can rely on that.\\xa0 It won\\u2019t change.\\xa0 Science is less certain but we\\u2019ve tried to find scientific certainties that are almost as true as the mathematical ones- for example, \\xa0I am told that matter can neither be created or destroyed- it\\u2019s a rule of the universe and as far as I know- has yet to be debunked.\\xa0 Disagreement and disputes often arise when we get into the soft sciences, the arts, interpersonal relationships or even what we term \\xa0\\u201creal world\\u201d-\\xa0 How is it that two people can look at the same thing and see different things.\\xa0 Hence- Worldviews collide!

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I know right!!\\xa0 If you go to our website you can see this very famous sketch \\xa0that first appeared as an optical illusion on a German postcard in 1888 and was later adapted by British cartoonist William Ely Hill, who published it in a humor magazine in 1915 with the title "My Wife and My Mother-in-Law."\\xa0 - ironically the same year as metamorphosis.\\xa0 It\\u2019s the picture that I show my kids in class- , anyway, depending on how your brain works, when you look at it some people see an old woman and some people see a beautiful girl.\\xa0 It\\u2019s so funny how people can argue after looking at this picture.\\xa0 I see this happen every year with my kids- and the truth of the matter is- it\\u2019s both.\\xa0

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And that occurs because of a phenomena called \\u201cperceptual bias\\u201d Your brain relentlessly tries to make sense of your environment and it uses shortcuts to so. And of course, history is the story of how people look at basically everything totally differently.\\xa0

So, what does this have to do with Kafka and his story about turning into a bug?\\xa0

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Well, for one thing there are so many ways to look at this book- and depending on the lense you put on- you will see different things.\\xa0 I want to talk about this book primarily through the lens of what we today call existentialism- although I know it\\u2019s controversial to do so..but for me it makes sense and helps me make this book practical for everyday life- and I really this book is extremely practical. Believe it or not?

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I agree with you.\\xa0 When you think about this book as being about human agency, the importance of healthy relationships, the consequences of isolation- now it\\u2019s not just about a bug.\\xa0 It\\u2019s about all of us.\\xa0\\xa0

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Exactly, so Franz Kafka questioning life like so many, but at this time there were men (primarily men- no disrespect to women) writing about life in ways that hadn\\u2019t been done before-\\xa0 Some were very religious- \\xa0Christian or Jewish, but some were atheist- and depending on their lense or worldview, they were looking at the modern world of Europe and drawing very different conclusions about how people fit together in it- and Kafka was a part of this historical dialogue.\\xa0 They were going to kind of read each others works, write about each others works and this discussion developed into what today we call existentialism- although this actual word that really comes along after Kafka with a group of French intellectuals a few years later-

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But I want to talk about this one guy that kafka read a lot of his stuff- and even related to personally because they both had screwd up love lives, but his name is Soren Kierkegaard and he was a Danish theologian/ philosopher.\\xa0 So this guy Kierkegaard- opened up this can of worms about what constitutes existence.

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On the surface it\\u2019s a pretty basic question- either this apple exists or it doesn\\u2019t exist.\\xa0 But then you think about it for one minute more and it gets more weird- what about God- does he exist or does he not- what about people- do they exist or do they not?\\xa0 What makes you exist? - Hence the world- existentialism\\xa0 -when it comes to people are we like an apple? We have matter so we exist?\\xa0 Or are we like God-metaphysical with consciousness and such?\\xa0 We seem to consciousness AND a body- But then the second big question- and how does this make us have value?\\xa0 Apples don\\u2019t matter very much in the world.\\xa0 Are we only as significant as an apple because sometimes we don\\u2019t feel like we are?\\xa0 Do we exist because we take up space and breath air? \\xa0And is that enough to create value?

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\\xa0That\\u2019s deep stuff for the existentialist, and they get to thinking about this stuff- Kierkegaard is going to say and there is a whole movement that is going to really develop this idea even more \\u2013 but he\\u2019s going to say- you can exist- yes- but you really don\\u2019t have any essence until you exert some control over your life and YOU create some sort of purpose. He\\u2019s going to say, YOU must create meaning for yourself- and if you don\\u2019t YOU have no point of existing.\\xa0 \\xa0I know I\\u2019m oversimplifying a whole lot to get- and you may say well, that seems obvious, but this is where I want to get to?\\xa0 Kafka comments in this conversation.\\xa0 Because in Metamorphosis we have this guy Gregor who turns into a bug?\\xa0 So, does he exist or doesn\\u2019t he?\\xa0 He has a body?\\xa0 He has consciousness?\\xa0 Does he exist if he has a different body?\\xa0 Does that make him a totally different entity? And if he does exist what makes him Gregor?\\xa0 Can he create meaning with this new set of circumstances?\\xa0 Did his life even have meaning before?\\xa0 And if you look at this first chapter with these questions in mind- the book makes a lot more sense- at least to me. it makes sense that this dude- who\\u2019s just woken up to find out that he\\u2019s a bug- doesn\\u2019t freak out- he just seems to think back about his life and how much he hated it.\\xa0 He\\u2019s not asking the right questions of himself- but you, as the reader are asking these questions. You\\u2019re asking questions like, dude, why don\\u2019t you care that you just turned into a bug?\\xa0 Why are you focusing on your job at this moment?\\xa0 Why aren\\u2019t you trying to change yourself back into the person you used to be?

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Of course, the more you think about these things the more difficult these questions are to answer.\\xa0 Because what Kafka quickly illustrates through all of Gregor\\u2019s inner monologues- is something that is universal- in other words- we are all like this is some ways- there can be no doubt that life gives us circumstances we didn\\u2019t ask for.\\xa0 And Kierkagaard talked about this too. Every person to be born is born to a factual situation, not of his/her own making. It is, in a sense, a product of coincidence\\u2014we are born in a certain country, to certain parents, brought up in a certain culture, a religion we didn\\u2019t choose with friends, skill sets and obligations we didn\\u2019t invite.\\xa0

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And we get to see Gregor\\u2019s.\\xa0 He lives at home in an apartment that he shares with a father who is stern, a mother who cries a lot but does absolutely nothing, a sister who loves to play the violin but isn\\u2019t a very industrious person.\\xa0 The family used to be fairly well off, but the dad\\u2019s lost his business and now seems to just sit around all day.\\xa0 They are not a low class family; they have a maid.\\xa0 They have certain standards of living, but money is a huge problem.

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And we can see all this pretty quickly from Gregor\\u2019s perspective and that this has changed the family dynamic- Gregor has had to assume the role in his family as the provider because his father\\u2019s lost his business, apparently both of his parents have poor health. \\xa0But, Gregor gives all the money to his dad, so really Gregor isn\\u2019t really in charge.\\xa0 Gregor is a traveling salesman, but he hates what he does.\\xa0 He doesn\\u2019t like the lifestyle of the hotel life, but he makes good money so he stays and endures a lot of abuse apparently it seems from colleagues at work, and especially his boss who in the only little glimpse we see of him, sits at this big desk from above and glares down at everybody.\\xa0 There\\u2019s a quote where he describes his worklife.\\xa0 He says, \\u201cHe was a tool of the boss, without brains or backbone.\\u201d\\xa0 It\\u2019s also interesting to notice that he locks himself in his room at night every night- maybe trying to exert some control, create some identity- whatever the reason it\\u2019s a detail that is a demonstration to keep people away from his personal space.\\xa0

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Gregor goes to great links to say all throughout the first section, that he is committed to this lifestyle.\\xa0 He\\u2019s not going to shaft his family or shirk his job- even though we find out when the manager gets there that things aren\\u2019t exactly going as well at work as he has let his family think.\\xa0 Gregor, at least in his own mind, has told himself that he can\\u2019t get out of this.\\xa0 He says this at one point, \\u201cGregor was still here and hadn\\u2019t the slightest intention of letting the family down.\\u201d\\xa0 Which to me is a quote that stands out because as a reader, and Kafka is really skilled by putting this kind of irony in the text, because as a reader, I find myself questioning that thinking.\\xa0 I don\\u2019t see Kafka really doing anything about his situation.\\xa0 His thoughts to himself and his actions are strange and communicate a variety of different messages.\\xa0

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And hence another important idea from our man Kirkegaard.\\xa0 He\\u2019s going to say there\\u2019s another side to things.\\xa0 On the one hand you have a set of circumstances in your life that you didn\\u2019t create- in Gregor\\u2019s case, his family, his job, their finances- but \\xa0He\\u2019s going to say, and he\\u2019s a theist, so this is a Christian perspective, but he believes this essence is given by God, although Sartre is going to arrive at this same idea as an atheist later.\\xa0 Kirkegaard is going to say, as a human, no matter your circumstances- crappy or not, every individual is absolutely FREE to choose- that\\u2019s our fundamental essence as expressed all the way back in the creation narrative, that is, we have the potential to place ourselves in relation to our accidental situation.\\xa0 We CAN choose to \\u201cown\\u201d our situation instead of just being unwillingly determined by it. We can choose from new possibilities that we make up- if the obvious ones are crappy- and we all have, some more than others, but by being human we ALL have the personal power to reshape our situation.\\xa0 Let me put it this way we can become more than what was determined for us by whatever is acting upon us- be it people in our lives, circumstances, whatever. We can transcend our given set of circumstances. This is\\xa0 \\u201cbecoming a self\\u201d: as a human being we have to take up our individual limitations and possibilities.\\xa0 Now- that brings us back to Gregor- he clearly has crappy circumstances- and I\\u2019m not talking about being a bug- that\\u2019s a different issue.\\xa0 I mean even before the bug.\\xa0 This guy doesn\\u2019t like his life, but he clearly thinks he can\\u2019t get out of it.\\xa0 He\\u2019s told himself that his family depends on him.\\xa0 He can\\u2019t quit his job.\\xa0 He has to just stay on this path.\\xa0 And to me- that\\u2019s why he doesn\\u2019t freak out when he turns into a bug like we would have.\\xa0 And this is where I\\u2019m going to speculate for must a minute- because why does Kafka start the story with him just being a bug- no explanation whatsoever.\\xa0 In my mind, it can only mean a couple of things- option 1- maybe Gregor did it to himself? 2- maybe he didn\\u2019t, but he doesn\\u2019t mind that he\\u2019s a bug.\\xa0 3- maybe it simply doesn\\u2019t even matter one way or the other- his life has been crappy- so how does being a bug make it different.\\xa0 That seems to be how he looks at ti because the questions he asks aren\\u2019t how do I get my body back- but how do I get to work in my bug like shape.\\xa0 He doesn\\u2019t seem interested or even consider that he might have the power to change back.

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Well, there is something negative in how Gregor has viewed his life up to this point. \\xa0He doesn\\u2019t seem to have said NO to much in his life- to the point that when he turns completely into a bug- he doesn\\u2019t say no to that either. He clearly has not confronted the world.\\xa0 He seems to just do what he is told.\\xa0 And here he finds himself as a bug and doesn\\u2019t even feel alarmed.\\xa0 There\\u2019s a lot to think about there.\\xa0 In a sense, when he woke up to be a bug- maybe it\\u2019s not even all bad.\\xa0 Like it or not, the people in his life are going to have to fend for themselves- his job, his family- he\\u2019s giving it all up- and he can claim it\\u2019s not his fault- he\\u2019s a bug- from one point of view- there\\u2019s a positive element to that if you are in a place in your life where you hate your life.\\xa0

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Well, there is- but if we get to what has given his life meaning up to this point, it\\u2019s seems to be that he\\u2019s a provider for his family.\\xa0 He DOES have a purpose, what happens if he give that up? \\xa0It is interesting that the whole way through the book, Gregor always thinks of himself as a person, but we\\u2019re going to watch him lose his personhood- or his essence. In fact, in each section of the book, Gregor loses something.\\xa0 The first thing that goes is his body obviously.\\xa0 But then it is his ability to communicate.\\xa0 It seems that at first he actually had something of a voice-they understood him a little bit, but then that goes pretty quickly.\\xa0 He also still seems to think of himself as the man of the house in part one; however, we\\u2019re going to see that in part two he pretty quickly loses his job and his standing in the family.\\xa0 \\xa0So then we see the next big existential question, If a person does not take himself responsibility for himself for those around him- what happens to him?\\xa0 Does he lose his purpose?\\xa0 Does he just become\\u2014\\u201ca thing among the things.\\u201d- like just an apple- If if that is the case- what becomes of you if you \\u201cexist\\u201d; but that\\u2019s it?

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Ugh- and I think that\\u2019s kind of where Kafka displays an special genius.\\xa0 what you described is really a weird thought, but when we turn it into a story about a bug it sort of makes sense.\\xa0 Gregor wakes up, finds out he\\u2019s a bug, thinks about his job and how much it stinks, doesn\\u2019t think about shafting anyone, in fact, throughout the entire first section, he\\u2019s committed to keeping it to the point that he is going to chase down the manager who comes to get him for the office, and in his mind it\\u2019s an attempt to keep his job.\\xa0 But yet, at one point when he\\u2019s trying to get out of bed, and that is. No small feat, but he says this, \\u201cIn spite of all his miseries, he couldn\\u2019t \\xa0repress a smile at this thought\\u201d- and what was the thought, it was the thought that he\\u2019d locked himself in his room and no one could come help him even if had asked them to.\\xa0 So, in a sense, there is an idea of liberating potential- but what\\u2019s the result of this long term?\\xa0

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When I read this chapter, I get more and more frustrated with Gregor in that room.\\xa0 Of course, Kafka\\u2019s style is so deadpan, there\\u2019s no emotion from Gregor- no panic, no desperation, but I find myself feeling anxious.\\xa0 Just open the door, Gregor- get help- but when he does open the door- the reaction is primarily horror and anger- which I guess is understandable.\\xa0 But, the word used to describe Gregor\\u2019s father is the word, \\u201chostile\\u201d- he\\u2019s hostile to him.\\xa0 And this brings me to the main idea existential idea that I see all over this book- this idea of isolation and alienation.\\xa0

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And people simply cannot tolerate isolation.\\xa0 We can\\u2019t live like this.\\xa0

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And we see a clear picture of isolation at the end of chapter one.\\xa0 Gregor is not the provider he once was.\\xa0 He isn\\u2019t the tool of the office.\\xa0 He isn\\u2019t the workhorse he\\u2019s been for this family anymore-so what do they do to him at the end of the chapter- the family hostilly pushes him back in his room- and notice that it physically hurts him.\\xa0 He\\u2019s driven back.\\xa0 At one point he cries, \\u2018mother, mother\\u2019- but she rejects him.\\xa0 He snaps his jaws, but she screams, flees and falls into the father\\u2019s arms.\\xa0 And I point this out because the way Kafka writes this passage could have made you feel sorry for Gregor- his mom just rejected him, but it\\u2019s not written like that.\\xa0 It\\u2019s way more matter of fact, almost like, well of course she rejected him- he\\u2019s a bug- what else would she do.\\xa0 It\\u2019s freakish and scary.\\xa0 By the time Gregor is back in the room, one of his flanks was scraped raw.\\xa0 There are ugly blotches marred against the white door, so I guess bug goo gets on the door.\\xa0 He has a leg dangling and trembling in the air, he\\u2019s bleeding profusing and because his dad pushes him in with a hard shove the text says he \\u201cflew far into his room. The door was slammed shut with the cane, then at last everything was quiet.\\u201d

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That last line to me is incredibly interesting- especially if you think this book is not just literal fantasy but perhaps a metaphor of how people actually feel.\\xa0 So, let\\u2019s say, you are that person who\\u2019s become a bug and you have dropped ALL the expectations of your family and your world.\\xa0 You make a decision either by your choice or maybe you get busted and it\\u2019s not your choice- but you are suddenly a different person than your family thought you were and you become disgusting to them- and you knew you would be if they knew you were a bug- and they behave exactly like you always knew they would- your work world runs away- your mother and father totally reject you- perhaps even violently- but then you are alone- and your first thought \\u2013 \\u2018at last everything was quiet.\\u201d\\xa0 There\\u2019s a stillness there- it\\u2019s out- now they know I\\u2019m a bug- and now I can have quiet.\\xa0 This negative independence for the short term can be a very positive and even a liberating experience.\\xa0 But carried over time..how does this play out.\\xa0 How long will you enjoy the quiet?

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Well, I will tell you what Kierkegaard says- he says this is good for the short term, but if it turns into a permanent attitude, it\\u2019s no good.\\xa0 He\\u2019s going to say, that negative independence (and that\\u2019s what he calls it)- is a short term necessity but not a long term solution. Lewis Hyde, the American thinker says that this \\xa0\\u201chas only emergency use. Carried over time, it is the voice of the trapped who have come to enjoy their cage.\\u201d\\xa0 Which I think is an interesting metaphor.\\xa0 No one will ever admit that they enjoy a cage, but in a sense if you stay in the cage, you\\u2019re never responsible for anything- a lazy man\\u2019s attitude toward life.\\xa0

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\\xa0True, if we want to go back to our discussion of Madison and the constitution- it\\u2019s the idea, that it\\u2019s easy to break something apart- criticize- complain- but how do you build something better.\\xa0 What do you do if you take the responsibility upon yourself to make something in your life?\\xa0 And how do you have meaning if you are not building?

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And that takes us to part 2 of Metamorphosis- because Gregor has come out of his room and presented himself as a bug.\\xa0 Now what?\\xa0 Well, we\\u2019re going to be introduced to several things right off the bat- First of all, he has fallen into a comalike sleep- which annoys me personally.\\xa0 It seems he\\u2019s just going to sleep this off- ignore the problem and see what happens.\\xa0 But that aside, there\\u2019s more going on here- secondly, we start to see that he\\u2019s actually getting comfortable with this new status quo.\\xa0 He\\u2019s not going to fight it at all.\\xa0 The text says that he\\u2019s beginning to appreciate his antennae.

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Which is a point I wanted to make.\\xa0 It\\u2019s interesting to me that you can never get a firm picture in your mind of what Gregor actually looks like.\\xa0 At the beginning it seems he is a bug that is just as big as a human.\\xa0 Here is seems quite a bit smaller.\\xa0 But we see he has antennae and lots of little legs.\\xa0

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That\\u2019s a great point to make, if you feel yourself confused by that it\\u2019s not because you\\u2019re a bad reader (which is what I thought when I read this the first time).\\xa0 When Kafka\\u2019s book was first published in 1915, Kafka was very emphatic about the cover.\\xa0 He says this, \\u201c\\u201cthe insect is not to be drawn. It is not even to be seen from a distance.\\u201d Instead he gives recommendations about illustrating the family or something else.\\xa0 In the end, The slim book\\u2019s original cover, features a perfectly normal-looking man dressed in kind of a house coat looking distraught as though he might be imagining a terrible transformation, but not actually physically experiencing one. \\xa0I don\\u2019t like it really very much- you can google it and we can put it on the web- but honestly- I guess Kafka did.\\xa0 But back to chapter 2- Gregor has antanee, little legs and finally is we\\u2019re going to see that his taste buds have changed.\\xa0 What used to be his favorite food- milk is now so apparently repulsive to him that he can\\u2019t even bring himself to drink it even though he\\u2019s starving.\\xa0

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There are a couple of different dynamics that I want to bring up with this first little scene in chapter 2.\\xa0 First of all, we see the sister, Grete, reaching out to Gregor.\\xa0 It\\u2019s clear that she loves him.\\xa0 Grete is taking initiative in this relationship- not Gregor, Grete.\\xa0 Gregor does nothing.\\xa0 He complains about the food.\\xa0 He says he now has time to consider how best to rearrange his life, but it is Grete who takes the initiative.\\xa0

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I do want to point out something else.\\xa0 The family has taken this intiative as well- they have gotten in that room, I guess while he\\u2019s asleep and they are not, taken the key from the inside and put it back in on the other side.\\xa0 The text even points out that at the beginning everyone was clamming to get into the room but that has changed.\\xa0 The power dynamic has changed.\\xa0 They control the key- not him.\\xa0 He gave that up.

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Exactly- and here\\u2019s the second point about Grete- Grete is showing compassion here.\\xa0 She is bringing in food- it seems to terrify her, but she gets her courage and goes in.\\xa0 She tiptoes in while Gregor watches her from behind the couch.\\xa0 He\\u2019s behind the couch- this seems to represent some sort of shame or maybe guilt, but at minimum shame.\\xa0 He won\\u2019t come out- he won\\u2019t even connect- what he does is hope that she notices that he doesn\\u2019t like the milk she left him and brings him something else to eat.\\xa0

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And this somewhast annoys me.\\xa0 He doesn\\u2019t want to take any intiative in getting his own food.\\xa0 He\\u2019s just going to see if she brings him something he likes better.\\xa0\\xa0\\xa0 But she does- And this brings up another thing to notice which I think is important, when she picks up the bowl that has the milk in it she won\\u2019t touch it- she has a rag on her hands to protect herself from Gregor germs, I guess.

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True- she\\u2019s repulsed.\\xa0 But in a sense, this is a first in their relationship.\\xa0 She\\u2019s doing for him- up to this point, it seems that he\\u2019s been doing for the family.\\xa0 And there\\u2019s a powershift there.\\xa0

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And we\\u2019re also going to see a pattern somewhat emerge between these two.\\xa0 Grete brings out an array of things to find out what he likes and dislikes.\\xa0 And then she leaves- Gregor won\\u2019t come out until she leaves and in his mind he says it\\u2019s, as he says, \\u201cout of a sense of delicacy\\u201d towards her- so she won\\u2019t have to look at him.\\xa0 But I, as a reader, find this suspicious- it seems he doesn\\u2019t want her to see him or him to see her see him- so they never interact directly really- and that is going to be how they interact from here on out.\\xa0 Another point to be made, and maybe this is just because he\\u2019s an actual bug, but he only likes spoiled things.\\xa0 He never likes fresh things.\\xa0

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Well, first of all, we see that he is being stripped away of everything that had made him him- his tastes, his preferences.\\xa0 These make us unique as a person- and those are not gone.\\xa0 He is eating spoiled things- other things- we are seeing him being cut off from everything- and of course, this is just another form of isolation.\\xa0

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AND Grete cleans up after him.\\xa0 She sweeps and makes the space tidy.

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Yes- we really see a sense of repulsion- she\\u2019s repulsed and he\\u2019s ashamed.\\xa0 I also think it\\u2019s important to note that Gregor, for the whole book, but it\\u2019s brought up here- he understands everything they say about him all the time- but they don\\u2019t know this.\\xa0 He listens to them talk about him.\\xa0\\xa0 He runs to the door and listens if they\\u2019re talking about him in the other room.\\xa0 And they don\\u2019t ever know this is the case.\\xa0

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True- and what he finds out- or at least one of the things he finds out is that the maid has quit because of him.\\xa0 She wants away from him and so as a result- the mother and the sister are having to do work they didn\\u2019t used to have to do.\\xa0 They are cooking and cleaning.\\xa0 This is work they didn\\u2019t have to do when Gregor was providing for them, now he\\u2019s watching then live without him and make adjustments.\\xa0 The other thing, we find out, and this is about halfway thorugh the book, although not halfway through this chapter- is that the finances were not all that Gregor thought they were.\\xa0 There had been a deception.\\xa0 Let\\u2019s read this

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Read pages pages 25- 26.\\xa0

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Garry what are we do make of this.

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Well, for most people, this would have been a betrayal that would have created outrage.\\xa0 Gregor has been working all this time, basically for the family and it wasn\\u2019t necessary.\\xa0 It left unsaid, but in some sense, his father was letting him believe a lie and work harder to support the family.\\xa0 But Gregor says to himself at first that he is \\u201cdelighted\\u2019.

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Yes- he doesn\\u2019t seem resentful at all which wouldn\\u2019t be my attitude.\\xa0 If we read onward, he actually goes the other direction.

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Read page 27.

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\\xa0But the he feels what he calls shame and guilt.\\xa0 He feels guilty that his dad is going to have to work, that his mom is going to have to work, that his sister is going to have to work.\\xa0 The circumstances of Gregor\\u2019s demise is going to force them into action that they had been using him for up to this point.

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Exactly- and for me, this is the one point in the book that I actually feel a huge amount of empathy for Gregor.\\xa0 I get mad for him- even though he won\\u2019t get mad for himself.\\xa0 How could they have let him go thorugh that and not help?\\xa0 It\\u2019s outrageous- except he doesn\\u2019t express outrage- just shame and guilt that they have to go to work- and that makes me mad to.\\xa0 And for a second, I think- well Gregor what are you going to do now that you have this information- and then I read what he does- he lays there NOT sleeping this time- and he takes a tiny bit of initiative to move- he pushes an armchair up to the window and looks outside.\\xa0 And this is the last part of the book I want to read today he says this,\\u201dhe would crawl up to the window sill and, propped up in the chair, lean against the window, evidently in some sort of remembrance of the feeling of freedom he used to have from looking out the window.\\xa0 For in fact, from day to day he saw things even a short distance away less and less distinctly.\\u201d\\xa0 He seems to be losing his vision.\\xa0

Which brings us back to existentialism- for existentialists what gives life meaning- well choice does.\\xa0 Choice is always an action where we connect to reality, to the world. Choice always means taking responsibility for a certain commitment to the world. And it is through that choice, through that connection to reality, that we find our personal power, if you want to use that expression- our value, our meaning. \\xa0And what we see happening here, it seems is the opposite of that. Choice also means paying attention; it means attending to something in the world. \\xa0And it seems that Gregor is not paying attention and he\\u2019s losing his sense to even see the world.\\xa0 He\\u2019s losing his sense of freedom.

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\\xa0To go back to that expression- he seems to be starting to enjoy his cage, maybe.\\xa0 And Kierkiegaard would say that\\u2019s not that great.\\xa0 Although he doesn\\u2019t seem to be suffering too much- his needs are all being provided for.\\xa0

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Well, we\\u2019ve introduced a lot of heavy terms here- we\\u2019ve talked about what it means to have existence, the idea of isolation, shame, deception-

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\\xa0Kafka has covered a lot of ground in just 25 pages of a relatively plot free bug story. \\xa0

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And there is a lot more to say, so we hope you\\u2019ll come back next week to finish out with us this interesting take on some of the darker places in being a human.\\xa0 Don\\u2019t\\u2019 forget, if you\\u2019ve enjoyed this episode, please share it with someone you know who might like it.\\xa0 Also, give us a five star rating on your app. Be our friend on Instagram and facebook or visit our website.

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Peace out!!!

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