The Metamorphosis - Gregory Samsa’s ‘Kafkaesque’ Mind

Sonali Garg

Schizophrenia can be defined as a chronic mental illness characterized by psychosis, an abnormal interpretation or impairment in the way reality is perceived. It may result in a combination of cognitive, behavioral, and psychological symptoms, which result in it becoming a serious impediment to proper personal, family, social, educational, and occupational functioning. Often, the veil of fiction allows literary authors to reveal more truthful stories, without exposing their vulnerabilities and those of their family members (Kelley, 2014). By baring their soles behind this veil, their books give us a realistic portrayal of different types of mental illnesses, as in the case of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. This book is a poignant tale woven around the ramifications of mental illness. In this article, I will analyze Gregor Samsa’s character, as a case of schizophrenia, through the agency of the allegorical descriptions of positive, negative and disorganized symptoms of this disorder that the author commits to paper.

Franz Kafka (1883-1924), was one of the most appreciable German language novelists and short story writers of the twentieth century. It is generally agreed that Kafka had clinical depression, social anxiety, and many other stress exacerbated ailments throughout life (Abbasian, 2007). The word "Kafkaesque" has evolved to mean anything ordinary yet strange and bizarre and is reminiscent of the nightmarish qualities of Kafka's fictional world. He wrote The Metamorphosis in 1912, after suffering from a protracted illness which was characterized by severe loneliness and a belief that his family no more had any tender feelings for him (Antony, 2017).

In this book, the author pens down the story of Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman who works tirelessly to support his parents and younger sister. Overnight, Samsa metamorphoses into a giant vermin, radically altering his life and family dynamics, and alienating him from his own milieu. Despite the initial, concerted attempts made by his family to adjust to this unforeseen transformation, they eventually go through a drastic attitudinal change and neglect him, depriving him of the little humanity he had left and completely rejecting his identity. At the end of the story, Gregor accepts his transformation, gives up on life and dies.

The symptoms of Schizophrenia can broadly be divided into three groups, each of which are seen to be experienced by Gregor Samsa through the course of this book. In the following section, I will shed light on these three groups, and provide examples of these symptoms being exhibited by the protagonist in the novel.

The positive symptoms of Schizophrenia include hallucinations, such as hearing voices or seeing things that do not exist, paranoia and exaggerated or distorted perceptions, beliefs and behaviors (What is Schizophrenia, n.d.). A variety of these symptoms can be teased out from Kafka's descriptions of Gregor Samsa. Lycanthropy is an unusual belief or delusion in which the patient thinks that he/she has been transformed into an animal (Nasirian et al., 2009). It is largely considered to be an idiosyncratic expression of a psychotic episode caused by conditions such as schizophrenia. Further, delusions are epistemically irrational, and are accompanied by a strong sense of conviction (Bruno et al., 2012). The conviction of having become a bug is an example of Gregor experiencing such delusions. Moreover, Gregor constantly fears the loss of his remaining humanity, indicative of him experiencing paranoia. Gregor’s aggressive and possessive behavior towards his sister are also examples of these symptoms being exhibited.

Negative symptoms include a loss or a decrease in the ability to initiate plans, speak, express emotion or find pleasure (What is Schizophrenia, n.d.). As the story progress, Gregor's character is seen to be losing interest in activities, and his initial capacity to communicate with his family is exhausted by his worsening health. He begins to find it increasingly difficult to speak with his family, as feelings of isolation, alienation and guilt take over. However, the story reveals that Gregor was socially isolated even before his transformation, and preferred to be alone and have no friends.

Disorganized symptoms constitute confused and disordered thinking and speech, trouble with logical thinking and sometimes bizarre behavior or abnormal movements (What is Schizophrenia, n.d.). When Gregor’s family members are knocking on his door in an attempt to hear some kind of reciprocation, his voice turns into one that unrecognizable, accompanied with a squeaking echo which made his words unclear, “leaving the hearer unsure whether he had heard properly or not” (Kafka, 2002). He tries to remove this strangeness from his voice by “enunciating very carefully and putting long pauses between each, individual word” (Kafka, 2002). This is an example of disordered speech. Additionally, as the story proceeds, Gregor’s delusions of being a bug are worsened to the point that he begins to engage in bizarre behavior and abnormal movements, replicating that of an insects. “To entertain himself, he got into a habit of crawling up and down the walls and ceiling” (Kafka, 37). The sight of fresh food began to nauseate Gregor, who now enjoyed eating foods like old, rotten vegetables and cheese.

Today, mental health professionals recognize the importance of family in shaping the course and outcome of schizophrenia, laying a strong emphasis on “therapeutic alliances” between the treating psychiatrist and the patient's family, as well as the manner in which too much of “expressed emotion” in the family would cause a high relapse rate (Antony, 2017).

However, it is important to note that The Metamorphosis was written at a time when mental illness was a taboo, causing ashamed families to lock their loved ones away in institutions and never speak about them. Through his novel, Kafka wanted to depict the paralyzing realities of Schizophrenia, and the stigma that accompanies it. Though we are fortunate to be living in a time that such taboos have been done away with and those ailing can get necessary help, there are a large number of schizophrenics who drift, deteriorate, and in their chronic stage, get abandoned by their own families, as in the case of Gregor Samsa, who eventually goes back to his room and commits suicide, so as to rid his family from his burden (Antony, 2017). Hence, it is important for health professionals and medical practitioners to learn from Franz Kafka’s allegorical novel.

 References

Abbasian, C. (2007). The Metamorphosis. British Medical Journal , 335(7609), 42. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.39262.746100.94

Antony, J. T. (2017). Metamorphosis: A reason why many chronic schizophrenics get abandoned by their dear ones. Indian Journal of Psychiatry, 59(1), 10. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019- 5545.204446

Bruno, N., Sachs, N., Demily, C., Franck, N., & Pacherie, E. (2012). Delusions and metacognition in patients with schizophrenia. Cognitive Neuropsychiatry, 17(1), 1–18. https://sci-hub.hkvisa.net/10.1080/13546805.2011.562071

Kafka, F. (2002). The Metamorphosis (D. Wyllie, Trans.). E-Books Directory. (Original work published 1915). http://giove.isti.cnr.it/demo/eread/Libri/calm/Metamorphosis.pdf

Kelley, R. (2014, May 13). 11 of the Most Realistic Portrayals of Mental Illness in Novels. Bustle. Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www.bustle.com/articles/24100-11-of-the- most-realistic-portrayals-of-mental-illness-in-novels

Nasirian, M., Banazadeh, N., & Kheradmand, A. (2009). Rare variant of lycanthropy and ecstasy. Addiction & health, 1(1), 53–56. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905497/

What is Schizophrenia? American Psychiatric Association . (n.d.). Retrieved April 1, 2022, from https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/schizophrenia/what-is-schizophrenia