What is the value of being alive?
In the middle of the night, when you are lying on the sofa with your tired body in tow, have you ever thought about why people should live and be a "social animal" endlessly, what is the value of such a life?
When you're feeling lost, check out Kafka's Metamorphosis.
What is the greatness of Metamorphosis?
When we return the protagonist to a person, what kind of tragic experience does he have.
"One day at breakfast, Gregor Samsa woke up from an uneasy sleep and found himself lying in bed transformed into a giant beetle."
The beginning of the story is full of strangeness, but after the protagonist confirms the facts, he does not panic much, but wants to sleep for a while. At this time, Gregor was already ill, but he just wanted to drag, in fact, because he had a rebellious personality.
However, he could not get his wish, usually he was used to sleeping on his side, and now his body was too bulky to turn over. Eventually he gave up and thought about life directly in bed. He thought, "Oh my God! How can I pick such a tiring job, running around for many years, much harder than sitting in the office. Coupled with the trouble of going out often, worried about the reversal of various trains..."
From the protagonist's complaint, the background of the story is that Gregor is a traveling salesman, a very hard job, but in order to pay off the debt of his bankrupt father at home, he has to continue to endure. It is also because of this long-term fatigue that it has laid the root of his illness.
Gregor, who was thinking about life, was shocked when he looked at his watch, it was already half past six. At this time, the family came knocking on the door, first of all the mother, her voice was unusually kind, and said: "It is almost seven o'clock, don't you still have to catch the train?" Gregor wanted to answer, but his voice became muffled. So his father urged impatiently and knocked on the door with his fist. Finally there was the sister, who asked softly, "Are you uncomfortable?" Do you need anything? I beg you to open the door. ”
In response to Gregor's abnormality, the rest of the family showed a different attitude.
Although Gregor was eager to respond, his voice was slurred and even his body was so bulky that he lost his balance. Until the company's supervisor came to him, Gregor fell out of bed in a hurry, struggling to bite the key with his hard palate and open the door with all his strength. With that, the supervisor was so frightened that he fell to the ground, his father clenched his fists viciously, and Gregor begged the supervisor not to fire him. Although he tried desperately to explain, no one could understand, and the supervisor turned and ran.
From this description, it can be seen that Gregor is very ill, first of all, the voice is affected, and secondly, the body is also difficult to move. One of the more ironic is that after he fell, he walked on many thin legs at the same time, and for the first time in the day, he felt physical comfort.
Reading this paragraph makes people feel how desperate. How much pain a person has to bear when standing will feel comfortable after falling down. What really crushed him was not this body, but the pressure of being a normal person.
Gregor, who went out for the first time, lost his job and was driven back to his room by his father with a cane, and he was isolated. The father is full of shame and resentment, while the mother does not look, listen, and do not say, pretending that it does not exist. The only one who cared about him was his sister, but her sister was also afraid, and would knock on the door before delivering food, suggesting that Gregor was hiding; the sister went straight to the window after each time she left, slammed the window open and took a deep breath. Her series of actions suggest that Gregor is actually suffering from an infectious disease.
Kafka's work is always full of irony, and the first time Gregor became a beetle, he went out to keep his job, and instead lost his job. After becoming a beetle, Gregor kept his mind alive, while his family no longer regarded him as a human being.
It had been half a month since Gregor turned into a beetle, and he began to adapt to this life, and he liked to crawl around the walls and ceilings, especially hanging upside down from the ceiling. He also began to enjoy a beetle. When her sister discovered his behavior, she asked her mother to move all the furniture together. At this moment Gregor felt that the unfurnished room was like a cave. In order to preserve the last of humanity, Gregor clings to a painting on the wall.
And this painting is from a French novel, Venus in a Fur Coat.
InGrigor's move, his mother was frightened, and his sister clenched her fists like fathers and scolded him. At this time, Gregor wanted to come forward to care for his mother, but after the transformation, he could only turn around. Until my father came home, he shouted as soon as he entered the door, full of anger. Gregor found that his father had completely changed into a man, always wearing a nightgown and walking weakly. At this moment, he is wearing a bank uniform, straightening his waist, and his steps are strong and energetic. The father picked up a plate of apples and beat Gregor, one of which was deeply embedded in Gregor's back. He didn't stop until his mother woke up and hugged his father and begged For Jaugal's life.
Another month passed, and Grigore's life was even more difficult. Because even his sister no longer thinks about his meals, just puts some food for him before going to work, and does not care whether he eats or not. In fact, Gregor had hardly eaten anything. Later, the family rented the apartment to three tenants, and Gregor's room became a utility room.
One night, my sister played a violin for the tenants. Gregor had not seen his sister for a long time, so he had the courage to climb out. This was the third time he had been out, and he was covered in dust, hair, and leftovers, and came to the door of the guest room. He wanted to tell his sister that he would find a way to send her to the conservatory. But at this moment, a tenant found Gregor, and everything was in disarray. The tenants were scared away and said they wouldn't pay a penny.
After this incident, the family gathered around to discuss, and the sister calmly said: "He must go, we take care of it, tolerate it, we have done our best, and I don't think anyone will accuse us in the slightest." How could he be Gregor, and if so, he should have realized that people and animals could not live together and should leave voluntarily. We don't have a brother, but we can go on living and remember him. But this animal is persecuting us and driving away the tenants, obviously trying to occupy the whole apartment and let us sleep on the street. Gregor listened, went back to the room with difficulty, and died on this night.
Ironically, this house was bought by Gregor desperately to make a good life for his family, and now he has become the culprit in the persecution of this family.
Only then did it become clear why Kafka had to turn the protagonist into a beetle, at least so that people would have the courage to read it. If the protagonist is just a beetle, then we can ignore his pain and even feel a sense of victory in the end. The beetle in German refers to the pest, that is, it finally dies, but returns the world to a pure land.
It is also true that when Gregor fell ill, his father regained his vitality and his sister began to grow. At the end of the novel, they plan to move to a smaller, more practical house, watching their sister grow into a plump girl, and their parents are ready to find a son-in-law, it seems that everything is moving in a good direction.
While gregor was alive, he struggled to make money to keep the middle-class family on foot, and after his death, they moved on practical grounds. I never thought about how the previous comfortable life came about.
The beetle in the novel symbolizes a disease, which may be physically ill or mentally ill. In short, it refers to the perception of how a person will face his family and society after he loses his value. Gregor changed his body, but he still maintained his humanity, and this group of living family members had long since lost their humanity. The so-called deformation, the real change is not the body, but the human heart.