Metamorphosis, episode 2. In which we explore how Gregor Samsa's transformation into an 'ungeheures Ungeziefer' makes him a failed sacrifice, trapped between familial duty and crushing debt.
"But Gregor’s transformation makes him simultaneously the perfect and the impossible scapegoat: perfect because he bears the community’s (his family’s) burdens, impossible because his very nature renders him ritually unclean."
This is a very interesting insight and it fits so well with what I see as an eternal Kafka theme of the subject being trapped between two opposing roles or identities, blocked and paralysed.
There is a tendency to go straight for the allegorical reading where Gregor simply represents the plight of the central European Jew, such as:
"A man could go to sleep an employed Jew and wake up the next morning as vermin. A Jew could study at the university and yet find himself called a dog. In German and Austrian anti-Semitic political publications, Jews were frequently referred to as “rats,” “mice,” “insects,” and “vermin.” If a person can go to sleep a Jew and wake up transformed into some kind of “vermin,” what is to prevent an animal going to sleep a dog and waking up a person? It is as if Kafka took that reality, the ever-present possibility of being referred to as some sort of animal, and pondered what it would be to truly become an animal"
Hadea Nell Kriesberg “Czechs, Jews and Dogs Not Allowed” in _Kafka's Creatures_, ed Marc Lucht.
This reading is certainly valid but I think it's much too obvious to be the reading we could settle on as 'definitive'. The idea that he is not simply a vermin in the eyes of European society from his condition of Jew, but also unclean to be offered as a sacrifice gives it that dimension that I consider to be truly Kafkian, where he takes that particular identity - Jew, Czech, German-speaker, European and expands on it through archetypal resonances. The scapegoat or sacrifice is one such - to be unworthy even as a sacrifice is typical of K's fascination with the frustrated destiny or desire.
So yours is a fascinating idea to be considered further. I'm very interested in two Deleuzian concepts in relation to K - minor lit and animality, and how they connect. This is another very interesting potential strand in that weave.
Thanks for your kind words! I agree that reading Kafka through Jewish victimhood is undoubtedly valid but a bit too reductive for my taste. There is something more profound and more universal (archetypal, as you said) that needs to be highlighted. And yes, the Deleuzian/Guattarian reading and the concept of "devenir-animal" is another fascinating approach I'll cover going forward!
"But Gregor’s transformation makes him simultaneously the perfect and the impossible scapegoat: perfect because he bears the community’s (his family’s) burdens, impossible because his very nature renders him ritually unclean."
This is a very interesting insight and it fits so well with what I see as an eternal Kafka theme of the subject being trapped between two opposing roles or identities, blocked and paralysed.
There is a tendency to go straight for the allegorical reading where Gregor simply represents the plight of the central European Jew, such as:
"A man could go to sleep an employed Jew and wake up the next morning as vermin. A Jew could study at the university and yet find himself called a dog. In German and Austrian anti-Semitic political publications, Jews were frequently referred to as “rats,” “mice,” “insects,” and “vermin.” If a person can go to sleep a Jew and wake up transformed into some kind of “vermin,” what is to prevent an animal going to sleep a dog and waking up a person? It is as if Kafka took that reality, the ever-present possibility of being referred to as some sort of animal, and pondered what it would be to truly become an animal"
Hadea Nell Kriesberg “Czechs, Jews and Dogs Not Allowed” in _Kafka's Creatures_, ed Marc Lucht.
This reading is certainly valid but I think it's much too obvious to be the reading we could settle on as 'definitive'. The idea that he is not simply a vermin in the eyes of European society from his condition of Jew, but also unclean to be offered as a sacrifice gives it that dimension that I consider to be truly Kafkian, where he takes that particular identity - Jew, Czech, German-speaker, European and expands on it through archetypal resonances. The scapegoat or sacrifice is one such - to be unworthy even as a sacrifice is typical of K's fascination with the frustrated destiny or desire.
So yours is a fascinating idea to be considered further. I'm very interested in two Deleuzian concepts in relation to K - minor lit and animality, and how they connect. This is another very interesting potential strand in that weave.
Thanks for your kind words! I agree that reading Kafka through Jewish victimhood is undoubtedly valid but a bit too reductive for my taste. There is something more profound and more universal (archetypal, as you said) that needs to be highlighted. And yes, the Deleuzian/Guattarian reading and the concept of "devenir-animal" is another fascinating approach I'll cover going forward!
Heyyyyy!!! Where are you? You haven't posted in so long!