Just Finished Reading Franz Kafka's Short Story Metamorphosis

The German-Bohemian early twentieth-century writer Franz Kafka wrote a short story, published in 1915, titled Metamorphosis, and which I just read.  Its overt theme is preposterous: a young man wakes up one morning to discover that he has suddenly and completely transformed into a huge, human-sized bug.  His parents and sister, with whom he is living and whom he has been supporting through his employment, are more disgusted and horrified at his transformation than surprised...which is a clue leading the reader to assume that this is an analogy to something else the author wants to discuss. This unfortunate young man, Gregor Samsa, is still fully in possession of his reasoning faculties, but his efforts to communicate his thoughts to others around him fall on deaf ears: all they can hear are his insect sounds.  Gregor soon finds himself locked in his room, with only his sister showing the compassion to care for his needs.  But eventually even she tires of dealing with him, and he ends up wasting away by himself while his family stigmatizes and hates him.  So what is the analogy, anyway?

Some believe that this all has something to do with the persecution that Jews experienced in Europe, persecution that led to concentration camps and the Holocaust in later years. The sudden change in the story, this way, relates to the change in which Jews were suddenly viewed in society. I tend to disagree with this interpretation because the analogy breaks down too much.  Gregor has actually changed, not just others' interpretation of his status, and recognizes it himself.  Instead, as I see it, this tale has a two-fold meaning...

The first aspect I see is that the people one is closest to and most familiar with in life tend to be almost reactionary in their resistance to personal change...and if that change comes suddenly then a breakdown in communication can lead to shunning and a break in the relationship.  So if someone suddenly changes their religious belief system (or completely renounces religion) or succumbs to a form of mental illness such as schizophrenia, they may (at least to themselves) still remain in full possession of their faculties.  But the unwelcome rift caused by the draconian change will impede their ability to communicate effectively.  The fact that Gregor's transformation is so massive makes me believe that this may be an allegory for the descent into severe mental illness...and the prejudice against those so afflicted that ran so rampant through society back then (and even now, to a lesser extent).  Remember that just twenty years after the publication of this story, Hitler's Holocaust would begin with the rooting out and extermination of Germany's mentally ill, along with the physically and mentally handicapped.

A second aspect to Metamorphosis, as I see it, is how, once someone like Gregor, who has been holding his family together with his work supporting them, is taken out of the picture, the other members will adapt, grow, and become stronger and more self-reliant.  So this may also have been an early study on the phenomenon of co-dependence.

That's my own reaction to Kafka's Metamorphosis.  But as many writers will tell you, their own intentions behind their stories are not carved in granite and that what each reader takes away from the material carries its own validity...