From the Bookshelf of 24 Classics for 2024…

The Metamorphosis

Franz Kafka

Start date: April 1, 2024

Finish date: April 30, 2024

Discussion: The Metamorphosis (April)

Why we're reading this: Would you still love me if I turned into a worm?
[close] Would you still love me if I turned into a worm?

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 2 topics — 2 comments total

The Metamorphosis (April)

Gregor's Sister and the Revelation of Names
By Ruth · 1 post · 8 views

last updated Apr 18, 2024 11:37AM

Potentially false story about Kafka
By Ruth · 1 post · 20 views

last updated Apr 01, 2024 12:20PM

What Members Thought

Jun 17, 2024 Aiysha rated it it was amazing

This whole book is just Kafka wondering if people would still love him if he was a worm. And honestly that is one of the deepest questions a person can ask despite it being trademarked as “the neurotic gf question”.

Gregor goes from taking care of his entire family to becoming an unbearable burden on them. And despite the family’s initial attempts to “care” for him, they become so overwhelmed that they can no longer even tolerate him.

This is a very dark story. I think at first you can be thrown This whole book is just Kafka wondering if people would still love him if he was a worm. And honestly that is one of the deepest questions a person can ask despite it being trademarked as “the neurotic gf question”.

Gregor goes from taking care of his entire family to becoming an unbearable burden on them. And despite the family’s initial attempts to “care” for him, they become so overwhelmed that they can no longer even tolerate him.

This is a very dark story. I think at first you can be thrown off by the absurdity of Gregor turning into a “bug” but that’s just a metaphor for the dehumanization and prejudice he experiences from his family and society in general. The “bug” he transforms into could have easily been a debilitating mental or physical condition or anything that results in him becoming of “no use”.

I don’t think Kafka was simply suggesting that the family never loved Gregor. But rather since he had transformed into something they could no longer recognize as human (“a bug”), that their love wasn’t so unconditional. They’re unable to accept who Gregor had become. At first they’re hoping he’ll just “transform back into a human” but when that’s clearly not happening, their treatment of him worsens. And as a direct result of their treatment of him, Gregor also hates his new self and is unable to accept his new reality [even when he has the instinct to do so! (i.e removing the furniture from his room)]. Ultimately the alienation, neglect and straight up abuse leads Gregor to starve himself to death. The choice of starvation is also symbolic. He died from the lack of love and acceptance he needed from his family for just being. Again this is DARK.

But I still loved this story despite the darkness because it inspires a lot of reflection. We all have a desire to feel like we’re needed especially by our loved ones. That we serve some purpose in their lives. And while on the surface this can seem selfless, on some other level it can also be a selfish desire if “feeling needed” is what provides us with a sense of security that we’re important and have value. That we’re not disposable. What happens when we’re not needed or become “burdensome”? Obviously the people that truly love us would love us regardless of our perceived “value”….but is there a breaking point to every relationship? And how do we behave when we perceive ourselves to be a burden? Gregor is not only alienated by his family but he himself also isolates and tries to hide himself as much as possible because he also can’t cope with the burden he has come to think of himself.

It’s ironic that when he first undergoes this transformation, he is worried that the family won’t be able to survive without him. Yet by the end, they have it all figured out. They don’t even care to know what the maid did with his dead body. He spent so much of his life trying to be “needed” but what did that get him? In the end the people he loved didn’t see the innate value he had. God this was DARK. I don’t know how this gets shelved as partial comedy. Nothing was funny about this story. ...more

Like · see review

Jan 20, 2024 Kathryn Jones rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, classics, q1, 2024, s-libby, g_literaryfiction

What an odd little book, but with a profound and interesting story to tell.

We all know the beginning - guy wakes up to find he has turned into a massive bug overnight - but other than that, I had no real idea where it was going to take me.

The three most important themes from this story to me were family, and the things we do to try to look after or "do our duty" to those we love, work and the time we spend being a cog in another's machine, and isolation given that Gregor does indeed live a lone ...more

Like · see review