The Metamorphosis is Kafka's masterpiece, and the novel depicts the salesman Gregor. Samsa's absurd story of going from an independent breadwinner to an economic pillar of an independent family overnight to a big beetle shows the isolation, fear and despair of individuals being alienated by society, and also reflects the indifference of human nature and the coldness of society.
After Gregor turned into a beetle, the attitude his family treated him changed as his role in the family changed. At first, he was the only source of income for the family, and he did not go to work normally in the morning, his mother worriedly reminded him outside the door, his father called him softly while knocking on the door, and his sister was more concerned about his body. When he kept the shape of a bug and his family was forced to be busy making money, he was seen by his family as a monster and a burden. When he scared away the tenant, even his closest sister couldn't resist driving him away. When he died, the family was so relieved that they took time off to go on an outing to relax.
In real life, people cannot become beetles, but people will get sick, such as cerebral infarction patients will lose language function, mobility problems, appetite loss, vision loss, but the head is still awake, just like the situation in the novel after Gregor became a beetle. If we turn the incident of Gregor's transformation into his terminal illness, we will not feel absurd, often there is no filial piety at the bedside, and the family members will go from the initial concern to the complaint of the burden of life, to the abandonment of the burden of life, until he dies and is happy, this is human nature. Kafka just added an absurd coat and turned into a bug to express the truth of human nature, as Keigo Higashino said: "In this world, only the sun and the human heart cannot look directly."
<h1 class= pgc-h-arrow-right > first, in order to support the family, you have to work the job you don't like</h1>
Gregor did not like to be a traveling salesman, had a busy job, had a lot of trouble going out to talk about business, was tired and troubled by the trip, could not eat on time, the food was quite poor, and had enough sleep time. But he had to do it, because his parents owed the boss a lot of money, and he had to buy a big house for his family, and ask his mother for a kitchen lady and a nanny so that his parents could enjoy a comfortable life. He also wanted to fulfill his sister's dream of going to conservatory. He did not dare to steal, and the boss did not allow him to steal, and he could only be driven by the boss like a slave. Other colleagues can be leisurely, not in a hurry to have breakfast, he can't, he is afraid of being fired by the boss, leaving the family in trouble, and can only endure the pain.
Such people in the workplace are like the middle-aged people around us who carry mortgages and car loans, they have parents and children, and the responsibility on their shoulders is overwhelming them. Even so, the boss still thinks that 996 is a blessing for employees, and if you don't work hard, the position will be replaced immediately. So there is a disease do not dare to ask for leave, some programmers even put a folding bed next to the computer, overtime to the point of not being able to stand it, fall on the bed for a while, wake up and continue to work. They are almost alienated into money-making machines, not flesh and blood.
Gregor worked hard, traveled every day, did not dare to get sick once in five years, and did not take half a day off. When he turned into a bug, the alarm went off at four o'clock, and when he woke up it was already half past six, and he missed the train at five o'clock, and he was so anxious that he tried his best to get up and go to work, but he couldn't do it. At six forty o'clock his mother urged him to get up, and he wanted to tell his mother about his situation, but finally he only said one sentence: "Well, Mom, thank you, I will get up right away." ”
The whole family was surprised to realize that he had not gone to work, but no one went to investigate what was wrong with him. The father knocked on the side door with his fist and shouted, "Gregor! What's going on with you? The sister said from the other side of the door, "Gregor, is there something wrong with your body?" How he wished his father would come in and help him out of bed, but he didn't want his family to worry, but he said insincerely, "I'll be fine right away." ”
How hard we work outside and don't want to sigh in front of our parents, even if we are sick, we laugh and tell our families, it's okay, it's okay right away. We are afraid that they are worried, only to report the good news and not the worry, so that they can rest assured, their hearts are all them, but there is no self. Sometimes we lie alone in the dormitory, feverish, weak, want to tell my mother that we are uncomfortable, but when we really talk on the phone, we still say with tears: "Very good, rest assured!" ”
Gregor deals with people all day, but no one can make deep friends, he is like an island, no one can share his pain, anxiety and loneliness, no one cares about his body, no one considers his needs, not even his family. He had hoped that after five or six years of work, after paying off his parents' debts, he could start a new life, but before this time, his body collapsed and became a bug.
Nearly a hundred years after Kafka wrote this novel, it still resonates with it today because human nature is interconnected. Hangzhou express delivery brother was caught in violation of the law, instant emotional collapse and crying; Nanjing express brother, working more than 12 hours a day, the result of sudden death on the way; Shenzhen programmers were resigned by the company, in order not to let the family worry, still go out on time every day; Beijing Internet company layoffs, some elites also went to raise signs to protest. For the sake of our families, we have no choice but to fight with weight.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > second, lose the ability to support the family, and lose the value of being a human being</h1>
Gregor turned into a beetle, just thinking that he had a cold, a bad sleeping position, numbing his hands and feet, or as usual, the pain was just an illusion, he did not worry about his body, but worried about what to do if he missed the train? Will the boss believe that the company should deal with it, and once the boss is fired, what should the boss do if he chases the debt to the parents?
The company's chief legal representative is still on the door, the only time he is late in five years, the company will send someone to the door to accountability, completely disregarding his body, saying what "business people will not care about those insignificant small problems, after all, it is still the most important thing to do business" "For the reason for your absence, the boss has already prompted, thinking that he has just taken over the work of collecting the bills, so you are absent from work." The company is not without you, your performance is very poor, how can you make the company accept it? "Gregor's performance is so good, but the representative wantsonly distorts him.
He was indeed sick, speaking clearly, unable to stand up, not having the strength to open the door and lock, his family still cared about him, wanted to knock on the door, wanted to call the locksmith, wanted to call the doctor, after all, he was the pillar of the family. When he heard his family trying to figure out a way, his heart was warm, and he plucked up his courage, and finally opened the lock with great difficulty, and then leaned out half of his body. He wanted to keep the representative, let him say a few nice words in front of the boss, help him retain his position, he believed that he was too tired to deform, and would return to his original state when he rested. He couldn't be unemployed, he couldn't put his family in trouble again.
When everyone found out that he had turned into a beetle, the boss representative fell backwards, the mother was frightened, and the father was like a great enemy, his eyes were full of confusion, and then he cried bitterly. He endured the pain all over his body and crawled out to explain, trying to hold the representative, but the representative fled in panic. The father, annoyed that his son was frightened, hissed, and drove his son back to the room like an animal.
Gregor, afraid that his parents would beat him with his cane, and in a panic retreated back to the room, because he could not control his body, turned awkwardly, forced himself into the door, because his body was too large, stuck in the doorway, his back was squeezed, his father kicked him fiercely, kicked him in, let him hurt more, and then locked him in the room with his cane.
Kafka's father was very authoritarian and rude to his children, and Kafka had always feared him in his heart. The image of the father in the novel has the shadow of his own father, and the father's rudeness and indifference are the deepest pain in his heart. It is the father's fault that the family is in debt, and in order to make up for his father's mistake, he can only work hard regardless of his body. Now that he was sick and had become a worm, his father did not help him, but instead thought that it was a matter of hurting face that he was sick and scared away, and kicked him with his feet in anger.
There was a hospital outside the window, and his family did not take him to the hospital, nor did he ask a doctor to treat him, nor did he have the idea to make him change back. He was hungry for a day, and his sister still recognized him as his brother, and left the food at the door, a small basin of milk floating on top of the bread fragments. His injured body was unable to eat on its own, and it took a lot of effort, and the milk spilled outside the basin and could not drink into his stomach. The sister saw that the milk was not less, and did not want to feed him with a spoon, but took it away.
In the past five years, I have worked hard to raise my family, let my family eat well and live well, but I have not exchanged for a day of careful care for my family, and my most beloved sister only put food on the ground at the door, without directly carrying the basin with her hands, but covering the basin with a rag and then lifting it up, looking disgusted. Although he has the shape of a bug, his vision, hearing and thinking have retained the function of humans, and he himself did not think that he was an animal, and what his family did really chilled him.
The door was open, and the doors on three sides could enter the room, but no one wanted to go into the room to take care of him and listen to his voice. In order not to cause trouble to his family and let his family tolerate himself, he took the initiative to hide under the couch. He wouldn't make any money anymore, he felt like he was a waste, so he was ashamed to continue to enjoy the big bed, put his posture to the lowest position, under the sofa, and minimize the sense of presence.
Remembering a news on the Internet, 48-year-old Mr. Wei has been working outside for many years, because he is unwell, he went home to see a doctor, was diagnosed as coronary heart disease by the hospital, and the preoperative examination heard that it would cost 100,000 yuan for treatment. He was afraid of dragging his family and quietly left, and the family finally found it after several days of searching, but Mr. Wei had passed away.
The sister also brought him food, brought some water from the basin, and put it on the ground with the old newspaper, and then put the meat bones that had been eaten at dinner, rotten vegetables, almonds and a few raisins, spoiled cheese, and a few loaves of bread. He was no longer regarded as an older brother at all, only as an animal. The food that her brother ate leftovers or did not eat was dumped in the bucket as garbage.
Home is a refuge, a haven, the warmest place, when you are injured, there is a family to heal your wounds; when you are tired, there is a family to boil soup for you; when you are frustrated, there are family members to give you comfort. So you are willing to do your best for the happiness of your family, in order not to add to the blockage of your family, the pressure of the sky is also carried by one person. But home can also hurt people, when the family becomes your parasite, take your efforts for granted, turn a blind eye to your hard work, and once you lose the ability to make money, abandon you like waste.
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > three, loneliness and despair are soft knives that kill people</h1>
Gregor was still alive, and had only been a worm for more than a month, and when his sister saw that he could no longer be human, she was going to empty the contents of his room and empty all his memories of him as a human being. It also means emptying all the care her brother once had for her. Her mother objected at first, but eventually helped her sister move the furniture. In order to preserve a little human memory, he did not hesitate to lie on the painting on the wall, the painting of the beautiful woman he had carefully decorated.
A person will die three times in his life, the first time is brain death, which means that the body is dead, the second time is a funeral, which means to die in society, the third time is forgetting, no one in this world thinks of you again, that is, completely dead. ——Zhang Ailing
His sister and mother were forgetting Gregor a little, while his father had seen him as a monster, smashing an apple into his back and burying it deeply, rotting and stinking, and his mother, though she couldn't bear it, didn't help him clean up his wounds.
The family's time was over, the time to enjoy a leisurely life was gone, the father was looking for a job as a bank security guard, the mother was working as a needle and thread to subsidize the family, and the sister was a salesman, and the full income of the three of them was not enough to maintain the standard of living when Gregor worked in the past.
If they had worked together in this way earlier, why would they have deformed Gregor's body to such an extent? Instead of reflecting on their faults, they reject him and snub him. A bucket of rice raises a benefactor, a stone of rice raises an enemy, Gregor shoulders all the responsibilities and raises a family of white-eyed wolves.
On the morning when he turned into a beetle, how much he wanted to tell his mother about the details, but he couldn't say it. He loved his sister the most, knew that she loved music, liked to play the violin, and wanted to pay for her to study. But his sister never asked him what he thought or wanted. Don't communicate with him.
The first time she put the milk in a small basin and put it in her brother's door, let him climb out and drink it himself, and then covered the small basin with a rag and carried it without hand. The food given to my brother for the second time was spoiled products left over from the family' food, which were then swept directly into the bucket as garbage. The third time, as her brother's spokesperson, she emptied the furniture in her brother's room. The fourth time, when her brother climbed into the room to admire her violin and scare away the tenants, she advocated driving her brother out of the house without the slightest pity.
His father was a tyrant, and when Gregor raised his family, he was still asleep when he left in the morning, and at night he was wearing pajamas and waving in his easy chair to say hello. On the first day of Gregor's transformation, he forced him to squeeze through the narrow door into the room, and could not squeeze in and kicked him in, causing him to be injured. On the day his mother and sister moved the furniture, in order to protect the only memory of the people, he protected the paintings on the wall from moving, and as a result, his mother was frightened to see his image, and he was afraid that his mother would die, so he climbed out of the door to visit, and was chased and beaten by his father, nailing the apple into his back.
Gregor died, after isolation, loneliness, despair, inhuman torture such as beatings, hunger, and filth. After dying like a discarded bed bug, the family breathed a sigh of relief and then took a leave of absence to travel. In the eyes of his family, The Gregor, who was desperately working for his family, began to die little by little on the first day of transformation.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > fourth, the deformation of man is due to the alienation of social values</h1>
Kafka lived after the First World War, the society was filled with chaos, selfishness, loneliness, despair, human values and concept of survival have been distorted to varying degrees, and later developed Hitler's theory of racial superiority, feeling that lowly, worthless life is not worthy of living in the world. In "The Bitter Winter of the World", it is revealed that Nazi Germany implemented Project Four, "to carry out mass killings of disabled and intellectually disabled people, elderly people who cannot take care of themselves, babies born with deformities, people paralyzed in bed, mentally handicapped people and people who cannot take care of themselves alone, on the grounds that these people only add to the burden on society and have no value in living." ”
The deviation of the perception of the value of life will bring great disasters to mankind. When Gregor became a worm, lost the value of working for his boss, and lost the ability to earn money for his family and support his family, he also had the right to survive and the value of existence. But society and his family took his life with indifferent discrimination, no different from the cruelty of the Nazis.
This novel makes people think about how terrible it would be if the value of people, if it is not measured by usefulness, will be defined by money. In turn, it is to tell people that people can not live only for money, but also more important than life. If there is no love, work is a means of making money coldly, if you love, work is the cause of struggle, is the channel to achieve dreams; if there is no love, the person who loses the ability to work is a burden to the family, is a worm that is abandoned, if love, the illness of relatives is our heartache, we will feel empathy, dedicate their care, patience and love, so that he is always surrounded by love, full of hope.
In his later years, someone asked Sigmund Freud, the famous Austrian psychologist and founder of the psychoanalytic school, what is the most important thing for people? Eli Freud's decades of psychology and research and insight into life, he summed it up in two sentences: "To love!" Go to work! ”
Although life is long and complicated, in fact, it is enough to do two things well, love and work.