This week the Classics Book Discussions is going to take under consideration, "Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka. Born in Czechoslovakia, he studied German, finally finding his voice in writing at the age of 32. This short story is the tale of a traveling salesman who discovered upon waking, he has morphed into a giant cockroach. He is unable to speak and communicate with his family; they all assume he cannot understand them either. At first they have sympathy for him and his plight, but as the story progresses, they take a considerate amount of their frustration out on him, to the point of attacking and starving him to death. It was not the nightmare that I expected, but just the natural human tendency to take care of themselves at any cost and to blame all of their troubles on him. We are the reader, sympathetic to his arrangement, being locked in his room, with food thrown onto newspapers. Before long all the belongings in the household are being tossed into his room to make room for boarders the family is forced to take in to make ends meet. Since he had been the major breadwinner in the family, soon everyone is working and exhausted, and too busy to really care for him. Kafka is remembered for his addition to the literature of the world as someone who changed literature, having a great influence on the literature of his time. He died at the age of 41 probably of tuberculosis. Here is a quote of his that shows him to be a sensitive man, in his 20’s:
"We are as forlorn as children lost in the wood. When you stand in front of me and look at me, what do you know of the grief's that are in me and what do I know of yours. And if I were to cast myself down before you and tell you, what more would you know about me that you know about Hell when someone tells you it is hot and dreadful? For that reason alone we human beings ought to stand before one another as reverently, as reflectively, as lovingly, as we would before the entrance to Hell."Franz Kafka written at 20 years of age-
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