Franz Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis no so long after he had finished writing The Judgment. It must be noted that the two stories have a lot in common. After reading The Metamorphosis if a look is taken into the biographical and historical context of Kafka, it can be argued that this story that the author published in 1912 expresses not only his own sense of self-alienation but other various other aspects of his life. Like Kafka, the main character of the novel, Gregor Samsa is a German Jew living in seriously anti-Semitic times. Samsa’s metamorphosis into an abominable insect can be viewed as an expression of the author’s feelings of inferiority and isolation ("egs.edu"). There are various other things that Samsa and Kafka have in common, and the purpose of the paper is to compare and analyze the similarities between Kafka's personal life and Gregor Samsa in the short story The Metamorphosis.
For anyone who has read The Metamorphosis and is aware of Kafka's personal life, the similarities between Samsa and Kafka tend to stand out. These obvious similarities lead the reader to believe that that Kafka wrote this story to reflect his own life, which true to quite an extent. One of the most cleverly hidden clues that point to the autobiographical nature of Kafka’s character is the apparent similarities between his character’s and his own name, and the play on words. The names Samsa and Kafka have the same arrangement of the consonants and vowels. So, if the two Ss and the m in Samsa are replaced with Ks and an f, respectively, it changes to the author’s last name. More significantly yet, in Czech the meaning of Samsja is “being lonely,” something that Kafka was throughout his life.
Moreover, Samsa and Kafka have several similarities that might not be easy to see. For instance, in the short story, Samsa is depicted as an insignificant failure, which is how Kafka saw himself; or rather that is how his father viewed him (Franz, Hannah, and Stokes). The office where Kafka used to work made him feel dehumanized. Similarly, although it is not known whether Samsa turns into an insect physically or mentally; but perhaps the reason for his metamorphosis is because he felt as useless as a bug. It can be assumed that Samsa merely underwent a mental metamorphosis because he everyone, including his family, considered him unimportant. Often Kafka has been described as “small, anonymous individual trapped in an existential nightmare” ("wps.ablongman.com"), a description that can also be used for Samsa as well. Thus, a common theme between Samsa and Kafka is both of them felt unimportant and useless.
Another similarity between Samsa and Kafka is that both men hated their jobs. Kafka hated being a traveling salesman but could not quit because of the debt his family had to pay the CEO of the company he was working for. Kafka also hated his first and second job. Gregor and Kafka’s health is another thing they have in common. After the metamorphosis, Gregor became thin, weak and absolutely unenergetic just like Kafka, who suffered from tuberculosis and died of the consuming disease ("nndb.com"). Moreover, Samsa’s bug body and Kafka’s weak body became a limitation for them. Another similarity between the two is that Samsa was not a social person and Kafka suffered from social anxiety. Like Samsa’s dark and depressed mood, Kafka also had emotional problems and suffered from depression during his life (Kafka, Muir, Muir, and Rahv). Similarly, although both Samsa and Kafka were involved with women at some point or the other, these relationships were not healthy or strong.
There are several other less obvious similarities between Samsa’s and Kafka’s lifestyle. For instance, it is said that Kafka had food problems and suffered from insomnia (Felisati and Sperati). In the short story, before the metamorphosis, Samsa would often wake up from “unsettling dreams” (Kafka), and had very little sleep after turning into a bug. The story also discusses how Samsa was not easily able to find the food that he preferred to eat. Although Samsa seems to be more energetic about eating at the beginning of the story, but he just stopped eating later in the story. Both Samsa and Kafka lived with their parents. Similarly, both Samsa’s and Kafka’s family members did not understand them and apparently, both of them believed that their families were habitually too “preoccupied with their immediate troubles” (Kafka).
In the story, Samsa’s family thinks that he is disgusting and as time passes, they even start thinking of him as a burden. As the story progressed, they treated him less like a human and a member of the family. Perhaps Kafka also felt he was a burden and his inability to please or live up to the expectations of his parents made him feel as worthless as an insect. It is seems that Samsa tries to seek the approval, attention, and love from him family by constantly trying to please them by doing a job that he hated, hiding under a couch or covering himself with a sheet so that his family does not have to look at him. At some point in his life even Kafka struggle to seek approval for his family, but his family, especially his father, never approved of him. Similarly, Samsa’s family also looked down on and shunned him.
Another thing that suggests that Samsa is an autobiographical character is Samsa’s and the author’s family, and their relationship with them. Both Samsa and Kafka had a strained relationship with their father. Samsa always feels that he has to appease his father who most often “approaches [him] with a grim face” (Kafka). Samsa dies is severely injured when his father bombards him with apples and his father believes that his presence will ruin the family. On the other hand, “Kafka often described his relationship with his father, Hermann Kafka, as a “Prozess” (“trial”), and legal terms such as “Urteil” (“judgment” or “sentence”) and “Schuld” (“guilt”)” (Kafka, Stokes and Stokes). Kafka regarded his father as a domineering figure and the reason for his insecurties. In fact, “Kafka holds his father in part responsible for his own failure to marry and enter true adulthood” (Kafka, Stokes and Stokes).
Even Samsa and Kafka’s mothers seem to be similar in nature. Samsa’s mother believes her son’s state is just some kind of a temporary illness and she pleads for her son’s life. After Samsa’s death, she even leaves the furniture in his room exactly as it is “so that when he comes back to us he will find everything as it was and will be able to forget what has happened all the more easily” (Kafka). Similarly, Kafka’s mother was also protective of him to some extent, and Kafka even wrote to his father that his method of upbringing was canceled by his mother’s “kindness”. Kafka actually identified with his mother and put “himself in her play” (Kafka and Schlotter). Although unlike Samsa, Kafka had three sisters, but Kafka was closest to and loved his younger sister, Ottla the most, even though his father liked her least, and she was the one who took care of him. Similarly, it is Samsa’s sister Grete who takes care of him and tries to help him and understand him after his metamorphosis.
Strangely, and perhaps ironically, both Samsa and Kafka died because of the same reason, i.e. starvation. Samsa starved to death because his sister eventually neglected him because she did not want to relinquish her “normal” life. Kafka starved to death as it became too painful for him to eat because of the throat aches caused by tuberculosis. Despite these striking similarities, some might argue that there are also several differences between Samsa and Kafka, for instance Samsa could not escape his family’s lifestyle and this ultimately led to his death. However, Kafka managed to escape his family’s lifestyle and he died much later, eventually succumbing to tuberculosis.
No doubt, there are also differences between Samsa and Kafka but most of them seem insignificant, especially in comparison to the similarities that exist between Franz Kafka and his character. The details that Samsa and Kafka have in common cannot be ignored or overlooked. These similarities clearly signify the autobiographical nature of the Kafka’s character and suggest the possibility that Kafka wrote this short story as a reflection of his own life.
Works Cited
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"Franz Kafka." nndb.com. NNDB. Web. 2 Dec 2012.
Felisati, D, and G Sperati. "Acta Otorhinolaryngol Ital."Acta Otorhinolaryngol Ital. 25.5 (2005 ): 328–332. Print.
Kafka, Franz, and Jürgen Schlotter. Ein Hungerkünstler. Feierabend Unique Books, 2009. Print.
Kafka, Franz, Stokes Hannah, and Richard Stokes.Dearest Father (Oneworld Modern Classics). Oneworld Classics, 2009. Print.
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