More importantly that getting a better job, however, is what that better job would bring him, which is control over his life. Gregor clearly desires to have a better life and part of that better life would be in no longer having to put up with the drudgery that it is current job. He is exploited by his bosses and then exploited by his own father. In addition, he really isn’t even working for a wage for himself his wages are directed toward taking care of his father’s debts. Gregor is a perfect example of what Marx is complaining about he is alienated from the product he works to create because he doesn’t own it. According to Marx, the laborer’s “work is external to the worker, i.e., it does not form part of his essential being so that instead of feeling well in his work, he feels unhappy, instead of developing his free physical and mental energy, he abuses his body and ruins his mind” (Bloom 107). Rules and systems dominate his life–and he is profoundly unhappy and isolated. Important to fully understanding the theme of alienation in the story is comprehending Karl Marx’s theories on how capitalism is devised to undermine the humanity of the species. In addition, he has such a deeply felt sense of doing what is right that it overtakes every other consideration. Such is Gregor’s utter alienation from life around him that becoming a bug comes to be seen as a just another inconvenience. The point of these trivial concerns is to show that Gregor is now only a bug in physical form, but that he has been little more than a bug in psychic form all along. He even considers calling in a sick and then just as quickly faces the quite mundane fear that the office would send a doctor to check on him. He still remains worried about oversleeping and being late for work just as any other person waking up late that morning. “Instead of reacting with open anxiety, Gregor thinks, at length, about his job and family he becomes anxious about the passing time and preoccupied with his new bodily sensations and his strange aches and pains” (Bouson 56). Despite awaking one morning to find himself transformed into a giant bug, despite realizing that he is no longer human, Gregor persists in thinking like the deprogrammed entity he was before. Interestingly, Gregor clings stubbornly and one might say almost unthinkingly to those very same constricting rules even after his metamorphosis has taken away any ability to fulfill his role. However, he feels trapped and incapable of breaking free from the constricting rules of society. Clearly, on the inside Gregor Samsa wishes to rebel his alienation has not reached through to his soul. He holds a deep and abiding hatred for his boss. Despite this, it is important to remember that inside Gregor is not the contented worker he appears to be. Gregor’s family is dysfunctional yet he manages to find it necessary to work hard and without complaint in order to help them survive. Just as real insects go about their business with no worries about familial ties or love relationships, so is Gregor even before his transformation little more than a bug to begin with. The alienation from his work also threatens Gregor’s family life, and the implicit assumption is that all of modern life is constructed to alienate people not only from their work but even from each other. The mechanism of oppression in Gregor’s case is the bureaucracy in which he is forced to work a meaningless life that contributes nothing to his dreams or aspirations, but instead merely makes of him a human insect playing his role in the greater cycle of nature. Unquestionably Gregor Samsa is meant to portray the more dehumanizing aspects of the contemporary struggle against the suppression of human ideals. The Metamorphosis is an illustration of how modern society works to alienate people from society by stripping away even the little power they have over their own lives. Gregor is the epitome of management’s conception of the perfect laborer: hardworking and respectful and unyielding in his acceptance of his role in the larger machinery of society. Following hard upon Karl Marx’s theories of worker alienation, the protagonist of the story, Gregor Samsa, is the personification of the deadening of the soul amidst the rise of the industrial revolution. Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis is a classic in the genre of fiction that arose in the early 20 th century.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |