A note on metamorphosis by kafka

Metamorphosis written by Franz Kafka is a book on gregor samsa who turns into a gigantic beetle of sorts one day from a human, now it's very absurd in its nature if you look at the event without its context

Let's take a look at the title, metamorphosis is defined as the change from one form of a life cycle to another like a butterfly from caterpillar, now usually when this happens the insect gains a new or particular function in the environment or ecosystem but in the book, because of the event of metamorphosis the main Charecter samsa looses his function in society.

The book is a rather deep dive on one's purpose in life and a reflection of how absurd life can be, it's about meaningless suffering that comes from living a life with self consciousness.

samsa if you observe is also awfully similar to kafka which points out that this work is autobiographical as much as it's fictional.

The main idea of the book as I see it is to make the reader wonder about his own purpose in life is dependent on what function he serves in his immediate environment in samsa's case the person who provides food. The book emphasis on the loneliness and alienation ones face immediately after losing their function is also very raw and true, if i have to summed in one word the book is a beautiful explanation of existentialism.

Now that's a heavy word, a word that's thrown around, here and there by people who want to sound intellectual, but to simply put it, it's the emphasis of how a person creates his own purpose through his own choices in a meaningless absurd world , the existentialist, the followers believe and reject that the human have a purpose predetermined in the world, according to the them humans creates and define their life through their choices.

Now this sounds a lot depressing, why ? Well if we don't have a predetermined purpose like in most of the major world religions, then there's no repentance and whole and sole responsibility of everything you have done all the wrong or right you have committed is on you!, this works if your the most righteous perfect person, but one should know that perfect does not exist or it does and it's just that we are not able to experiance it with our limited senses.

The book also has a profound sense of loneliness that comes with the feeling of existentialism, which I think is felt by everyone at some point of time in some part of life. In everyone's life there comes a time when you wonder if what you're doing is what you're meant to do.

Now without spoiling what happens in the end or the grotesque details provided by kafka of the torture one faces due to heightened awareness, id like to reflect a bit on one perticular line, the line goes as this and this is me paraphrasing so please don't mind samsa says" if my family is able to calmly understand my situation then I have no reason to be upset with them and their behaviour", this exact line articulates what happens when one feels truly aware.

Most of the time people are afraid to share anything with others expecting that their reaction would turn out to be offensive but i think some people are afraid that if they share and the people give a very mature and appropriate response, then there won't be any self pity left for themselves to feel. There won't be any reason to feel okay for whatever situation that they themselves have gotten into

Self pity is quite a luxury to feel in some manner, it's a mechanism to cope up with whatever you have gone through and it's good for us in some extent but sometimes it might make you a condescending wicked sortve person who never shares and yet would want everyone to understand them.

But overtime this leads to the realisation of sonderism which is the emotion you feel that every person lives a just as complex life as you if not more

But without further going into this tangent metamorphosis is a book that highly recommendable work to understand existentialism for it covers the basic parts and a story told to explain such a hard concept.

In conclusion it's a work that reflects reality at a rather objective level and explains what importance does the aspect of function holds in a person's life. It's a book that should be read at least once to experience the work of kafka whose work is so famous that it changed from a noun to an adjective kafkaesque " nightmarish surreal experience"..............