Kafka\'s Short Story: Metamorphosis

¶ … Metamorphosis

Is Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis a comedy or a tragedy? That question is the salient issue in this paper. The alert reader digging into this extraordinary short story discovers that both elements, comedy and a tragedy, are present in this brilliant piece of narrative. So it should be considered a tragic-comedy, and a masterpiece from Kafka, considered one of the best writers of the 20th century.

Irony, Tragedy, and Humor

It is of course very tragic that Gregor has been transformed from a human to an insect. It is also tragic that before his socking transformation his family used him and didn't really care about him. His parents are ungrateful and his sister is lazy and also acts as a leech vis-a-vis his earnings. He has had no sex life and his work is monotonous and meaningless and unfulfilling -- also tragic. In other words he was a tragic figure, unappreciated notwithstanding that he worked hard and tried to do his best.

The story also has its humor. A guy wakes up as an insect and worries about getting to the train on time for work? That is funny, not in a slapstick way, but the image in the reader's mind of a huge bug (who was a man just yesterday) worrying about his duties. Turning the key in the door with his insect jaws -- seeing that ridiculousness of activity would bring chuckles to most audiences.

In the beginning of the story, as Gregor awakens and the rain is falling, he is apparently vaguely aware that he has been transformed from a man to a large insect. Among the first glances he takes around his bedroom is a magazine photo he had cut out and put in a "pretty gilt frame," which is an interesting juxtaposition: a cheap magazine photo of a woman whose arm has disappeared into a fur muff, the photo placed in a gold frame and the woman "sat erect" in the photo (Kafka, 3).

That is an ironic contrast -- more comedy than tragedy for sure -- because Gregor can't sit erect. He "must have tried a hundred times" to sit up straight. And the missing arm in the picture of the woman mirrors the arms and legs that Gregor was now missing. He was "quite melancholy" with the rain which is also ironic as an understatement. Here is a healthy traveling salesman who wakes up a big insect and he is "melancholy" over rain falling? Actually, he should be in shock, not able to be melancholy, but he still has his human emotions. And oh well, he figures, I'll just go back to sleep and "forget all this foolishness" (Kafka, 3). Forget all that foolishness? That is humorous in an ironic way because there is nothing at all foolish about waking up as a massive insect.

He mulls over how difficult his job is, how angry his boss would be if he stayed home "sick." But in the meantime on page 5 this story brings in some tragedy, which is technically an event "causing great suffering" or used in literature, tragedy is a story with an unhappy ending and some negative events happening to the main character. On page 5-6 Gregor mentions that the boss's "minion" (tattle-tale) would report that Gregor was absent; the "minion" had no "backbone" and of course neither does Gregor anymore -- he has a shell, not a backbone.

His family, viewed by Kafka as parasites (totally dependent on Gregor for their sustenance), bug him (no pun) to get up and to get going; he figures getting out of bed would help "his present fantasies…gradually dissipate" (Kafka, 7). But getting out of bed is problematic, and it is a humorous picture when a reader imagines what it must have looked like as he hears someone from his office arriving and he "…almost froze while his small limbs only danced around all the faster" (Kafka, 10).

It is also tragic that the apple that his father threw at him has caused inflammation; it is tragic that his room is now a dumping area; it is tragic that the new lodgers threaten to sue and that Gregor's sister thinks they should get rid of Gregor because he was driving away the renters. The incident in which Gregor's mother fainted and was "perhaps near death, thanks to him" (Kafka, 48) is tragic. Add to that the fact that broken glass wounded Gregor in the face and some "corrosive medicine dripped over him" -- and this is ironic and tragic. Medicine on his body that would do him absolutely no good nevertheless is harmful.

Tragedy is far more salient to this story than humor, and it goes on and on as the narrative continues. His family has all been forced to work (which is justice) and they are full of complaints, which doesn't cause readers to shed tears. And on page 57 his sister "kicked some food or other…" into Gregor's room, her way of feeding him; and when cleaning his room, "she perceived the dirt as much as he did, but she had decided just to let it stay" (Kafka, 58). In other words Gregor was of no more use that a pile of dire. More tragedy is heaped on the reader's consciousness as the cleaning lady "…simply flung anything that was momentarily useless" into the room where Gregor was trying to survive as an insect (Kafka, 61).