Does Gregor Samsa Crawl over the Ceiling and Walls? Intra ... · metamorphosis of the main...

Monatshefte, Vol. 105, No. 2, 2013 2780026-9271/2013/0002/278� 2013 by The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System

Does Gregor Samsa Crawl over theCeiling and Walls? Intra-narrative Fiction

in Kafka’s Die Verwandlung

FERNANDO BERMEJO-RUBIO

Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Since all literature is invention, manyreaders, and critics too, fail to appreciatethat there is such a thing as lying infiction

(Stephen Vizinczey,Truth and Lies in Literature)

Wenn man immerfort als Hund behandeltwird denkt man schließlich man istswirklich

(Franz Kafka, Der Verschollene)

For Barbara Lubke and Jaime Feijoo, who have their feetfirmly on the ground, but who sometimes crawl up the walls

1. A New Hypothesis for a “Kanontext”1

As is well known, the prevailing interpretative paradigm of Die Verwandlungmaintains that the most celebrated of Kafka’s stories recounts the suddenmetamorphosis of the main character, Gregor Samsa, into a monstrous vermin(ungeheueres Ungeziefer).2 This implies that a central event in this novellacannot be understood. In fact, scholars all over the world call the text “in-comprehensible” and despite so many articles and books devoted to it, theyadmit to being ultimately incapable of unraveling its meaning.3

As surprising as it may seem, however, there is indeed a way to fullyunderstand this work. The solution lies in what I have elsewhere called cor-rupt objectivity, a phenomenon which very often takes place within a victi-mary circle. The existence of this phenomenon depends on the convergence

Intra-narrative Fiction in Kafka’s Die Verwandlung 279

of the following circumstances: 1) The unanimity of the persecutors in avictimary circle is attained, as they end up sharing a sole version of the facts(according to which the persecutors are the victims and the victim is guilty);2) This victimary version is internalized by the victim; 3) There are no in-dependent spectators, who could provide an alternative version to that main-tained by the persecutors and the victim alike. In these circumstances, thereis nobody left to tell the truth. This implies that the victimary version of thefacts, which is nothing but a lie and a distortion of truth, becomes indiscer-nible from truth.4 Corrupt objectivity is, of course, a very simple and frequentphenomenon, although its perversity provokes—as we will see—very com-plex situations.

Elsewhere I have extensively argued that the Samsa’s family is a vic-timary circle, within which the human (too human) Gregor is the victim. Infact, the main character refers to the travelling salesman—i.e., to himself—as a person who easily becomes an Opfer,5 and the novella abounds in theterminology typical of victimary processes.6 The most revealing thing, how-ever, is that the story makes sense if—and only if—it is understood as thedevelopment which takes place in a victimary context.7 Hence, my main hy-pothesis is that Die Verwandlung is the text in which Kafka has reflected theprocess of formation of a phenomenon of corrupt objectivity. In other words,that this work is the reflection of a distorted situation in which truth (Gregoris an innocent human being)8 has been replaced by falsehood (Gregor is adangerous monstrous vermin). Kafka has managed to reflect this corrupt ob-jectivity through a narrative procedure: although in Die Verwandlung thePrague writer adopts a non-personal narrator, the perspective he uses is notthat of an omniscient observer, but that of a person deeply involved in theevents that are narrated. The usage of the third person and of the past tenseleads the reader to expect a reliable vision, but we are thwarted in this ex-pectation. As several scholars have correctly remarked, the narrator of DieVerwandlung does not provide the reader with information from a substan-tially different perspective from that of the main character (who is, let us notforget, a victim).9 Of course, this entails that not only literary, but also ex-tremely serious ethical and epistemological issues are at stake in the inter-pretation of this novella.

In light of such a hypothesis, solutions to a good number of conundrumsfor which there were so far no convincing answers have already been pro-vided: who are the drei Zimmerherren and which is their function in DieVerwandlung? Why do we find many pieces of information regarding Gregor’sbody and the way the other characters react to him that plainly contradictGregor’s alleged metamorphosis? Why are there so many triads in this novella(which is, in turn, divided into three parts)? Why is Gregor sometimes des-ignated with the neuter pronoun es, but most frequently with the masculinepronoun er? Why the literary works whose echoes are found in Die Ver-

280 Fernando Bermejo-Rubio

wandlung are always stories of human beings, and not animal fables? and soon.10 The extraordinary explanatory power of this new reading allows us tounderstand Kafka’s novella in an unexpected way, to the point that virtuallyeverything becomes meaningful and intelligible.

Nonetheless, given that such a claim contradicts deep-rooted andcentury-long presumptions in scholarship (the representation of the monstrousvermin, the alleged “Kafkaesque absurd”, Kafka’s ultimate “Uninterpretier-barkeit”, and so on), I expect to meet sturdy resistance,11 all the more so asthe belief that Kafka recounts Gregor’s metamorphosis has practically becomea dogma in the world of literary criticism. Among the counter-objections, oneof the most foreseeable will undoubtedly be as follows: “The text clearlyrecounts that Gregor crawls over the ceiling and walls, and it speaks about asticky substance (Klebstoff) which Gregor has in his extremities. So, it is notreasonable to raise doubts about Gregor having metamorphosed into a mon-strous vermin”. People raising such a counter-objection could indeed easilyindicate that there is virtual unanimity in Kafka scholarship regarding theintra-narrative reality of Gregor’s crawling.12

Nevertheless, leaving aside that the argumentum ad verecundiam andthe consensus gentium are nothing but fallacies, several former articles ofmine have extensively demonstrated that literary critics too often overlookthe material complexity and precision of Kafka’s writing in favor of a selec-tive and arbitrary reading formed of cliches and inherited preconceptions,which powerfully condition what is to be considered meaningful in the text.There are serious reasons to suspect that the procedures which have beenfollowed to survey the references to “climbing” (“Herumkriechen”, “Kriechenin der Hohe”) and to the “sticky substance” (“Klebstoff”) also leave much tobe desired. Hence, the aim of the present article is to carefully examine thosereferences in order to check if they mean what almost every interpreter hasclaimed.

2. Why Questioning the Reliability of the Narrator’s References toGregor’s Crawling?

The reasons to undertake such an analysis of the passages concerning thealleged “Herumkriechen” and “Klebstoff” are twofold. On the one hand, thistask has not been undertaken before: just as scholars do not usually investigatewhether Gregor is or is not a vermin—rather they simply take it for granted—,they also assume the intra-narrative reality of crawling and the sticky sub-stance, but the passages relevant to these questions have, to my knowledge,never been thoroughly analyzed. On the other hand, there are several aspectswhich, right from the outset, make the prevailing view highly suspicious.

First, there are many elements pointing to the human nature of the maincharacter’s body. Despite the references to “Beinchen”, the one mention of


“Fuhler”, and other pieces of information which make us think of a non-human being, there are plenty of passages that contradict these details.Gregor’s body is made out of flesh and blood,13 has a neck,14 and possiblyhair.15 Gregor moves his head in many ways (almost twenty different verbsare used to describe these movements), can look at other people out of thecorner of his eyes and can also close his eyes.16 Besides, Gregor has a humanface (“Gesicht”),17 he smiles and sheds tears (proving that he has lachrymalglands),18 and he coughs and pants.19 Both in the first and the second part ofthe story, the central character manages to rise to the characteristic uprighthuman position.20 Moreover, according to several passages, Gregor’s voice,even if different from usual, is a human voice,21 and at least a part of Gregor’swords is well understood by the other characters.22 All these features do notfit an insect-like body, but only a human one,23 and therefore they must beconsidered serious anomalies in the entomological paradigm of interpretation.A human body, however, could hardly crawl over the ceiling and walls.24

Second, there is a great amount of information throughout the text hint-ing at the fact that Gregor is ill. Gregor’s mother repeatedly affirms that herson is “krank”, and she urges her daughter to summon the doctor.25 This iscorroborated by Gregor himself; the first time he delivers a speech, he saysthat what has prevented him from getting up is “ein leichtes Unwohlsein, einSchwindelanfall”, and he even states that last night he had already had apremonition that he was sick: ‘ “Schon gestern abend hatte ich eine kleineVorahnung. Man hatte es mir ansehen mussen. [ . . . ] man denkt eben immer,dass man die Krankheit ohne Zuhausebleiben uberstehen wird” ’.26 The nar-rative voice reproduces Gregor’s thoughts when they concretely point to thepossible sickness Gregor is experiencing.27 Moreover, in the third part thenarrator mentions the “Verschlimmerung seines Zustandes” (DL 172), andcompares him with “ein alter Invalide” (DL 191). Most scholars blithely dis-card all these references to Gregor’s illness by simply assuming that they arenothing but Gregor’s excuses, or that they represent attempts by the characters(also by the narrator?) to reduce the extraordinary to commonsensical cate-gories. This, however, is a wholly arbitrary procedure. First, it once moreuncritically assumes that Die Verwandlung recounts an extraordinary event,but whether there is or is not something extraordinary in this novella is justwhat is at stake. Second, there are too many references to Gregor’s illnessthroughout the story, and so they must be significant on their own—unlesswe hold Kafka for a careless writer—. Third, the references to illness areconsistent with the many references to Gregor’s aches and pains (“Schmer-zen”),28 whilst in the entomological paradigm they make no sense. Fourth, itis the whole family that bears witness to Gregor’s illness, as their behavioris unmistakably that of people caring for someone who is ill.29 Fifth, it isnonsensical to claim that a family treats a gigantic vermin as if it were a sickperson, because it would mean that they all are mad (and we have no hints


at such madness in the story). Sixth, as I have argued elsewhere, Gregor’sillness can explain much of the development of the novella.30

A further reason to doubt the actual existence of the information pro-vided by the narrator about Gregor’s crawling over the ceiling and walls liesin the fact that Gregor does not realize that he possesses this alleged abilityuntil a relatively late point in the story, when about two months have goneby.31 It is, however, truly odd and intriguing that a being which is permanentlylocked in a small room32 and has virtually nothing to do except experiencinghis body takes such a long time to discover his purported new abilities.33

Besides, references to this activity are limited to a very brief period of time,since at the beginning of the third part, just after the episode of the plunderingof Gregor’s room, the narrator states that Gregor can no longer reach thewalls and the ceiling.34 If Kafka’s aim had been to persuade his readers ofthe insect-like nature of his main character and of his wonderful crawlingabilities, he would surely have had Gregor crawl much earlier and much morefrequently.35

The fourth reason to make us suspicious is that nobody sees Gregorcrawling on the ceiling and walls. On one occasion the narrator recounts thatGrete perceives traces of that sticky substance which Gregor allegedly leaves(see DL 159–160). This information, however, is not supported by indepen-dent witnesses. The problem lies in the fact that the narrative voice faithfullyreflects Gregor’s perspective,36 and that that voice is not always trustworthy.It is indeed possible to check beyond doubt that the information provided bythe narrator in Die Verwandlung is very often wholly unreliable.37 This un-reliability is not due to his trying to deceive us, but to the fact that he ischaracterized by a large number of limitations, which exactly coincide withthe character flaws that we discover in Gregor Samsa: ignorance, self-deceit,confusion, and naivety. As I have proved elsewhere, throughout Die Ver-wandlung two very different versions of the facts are offered.38

Although the former observations are general points that do not yetconclusively prove anything, they are enough to prevent any thoughtful readerfrom blindly believing what has been repeated in scholarship for almost acentury and invite us to call it into question. Although appearances seem toindicate that Gregor crawls over the ceiling and walls, in Die Verwandlungappearances are very often deeply deceptive, and many things turn out to bevery different (in fact, the opposite) from what they prima facie seem to be.39

We have, therefore, very good reasons to subject the issue of Gregor’s crawl-ing to careful examination. There could be something more at stake here.

3. Zerstreuung/Zerstreutheit or the Fantasies of a Desperate Man

A close reading of the text gives us even more food for thought, because thevery first reference to climbing is found in a passage which starts by summingup the painful situation of the main character:


Wahrend des Tages wollte Gregor schon aus Rucksicht auf seine Eltern sichnicht beim Fenster zeigen, kriechen konnte er aber auf den paar Quadratmeterndes Fußbodens auch nicht viel, das ruhige Liegen ertrug er schon wahrend derNacht schwer, das Essen machte ihm bald nicht mehr das geringste Vergnugen,und so nahm er zur Zerstreuung die Gewohnheit an, kreuz und quer uber Wandeund Plafond zu kriechen. Besonders oben auf der Decke hing er gern; es warganz anders, als das Liegen auf dem Fußboden; man atmete freier; ein leichtesSchwingen ging durch den Korper; und in der fast glucklichen Zerstreutheit, inder sich Gregor dort oben befand, konnte es geschehen, daß er zu seiner eigenenUberraschung sich losließ und auf den Boden klatschte. Aber nun hatte er na-turlich seinen Korper ganz anders in der Gewalt als fruher [ . . . ] (DL 159)

As surprising as it may sound, scholarly surveys of Die Verwandlungseem to have overlooked the fact that the first four sentences of this paragraphclearly depict an impasse. Gregor is a captive in his own room and any sat-isfaction is denied to him. Out of consideration for his parents (perhaps ashis pitiful state could arouse rumors in the neighborhood?), he decides not toshow himself at the window, which previously had been for him a source ofa certain diversion and comfort.40 He can hardly move around his room owingto its small size (and probably also because of his pitiful state of health). Hecannot just lie quietly through the night (probably owing to the pains he feels).He finds no pleasure at all in food (something which is easy to understand,since he is only provided with leftovers and scraps). The helplessness ofGregor’s situation is clearly indicated by the grammatical construction of thepassage: all four sentences are negative; three of them have the particle nichtand the other has an unmistakable negative sense—Gregor can hardly bearjust lying still—.

It should be obvious that in this moment Gregor is depicted as plungedinto despair. The context of the first passage in which we are told that headopts the habit of crawling all over the walls and the ceiling is one of extremeimpotence: there is really nothing that he can do. But, what do human beingsoften do when they are in a desperate situation? Like Blaise Pascal, Kafkaknew the answer to this elementary question. Faced with the misfortunes oflife, human beings usually choose divertissement, as a way of fleeing fromunbearable conditions.41 It is precisely this flight which the main characterundertakes by purportedly traveling on high. It is revealing that we are nottold about how Gregor discovers his alleged new movement abilities, butsimply that he suddenly adopts such a habit. The text indeed highlights thedirect dependence of his alleged crawling activity on his sad circumstancesthrough the use of a consecutive locution (“und so”). The pressing need toflee his unbearable present is the factor which seems to be distorting Gregor’sperception of reality here.

The suspicion that in this moment Gregor could simply be fantasizingincreases when we notice the terms which are used to describe his situationin this alleged new activity. In the space of a few lines, the narrative voice


uses two nouns with the same root: “Zerstreuung” and “Zerstreutheit”. Thefirst one designates a “distraction”, and it is the same word that the motherhad used before to describe the activity of her son—who “has nothing on hismind but the business”—when he is busy working with his fretsaw, for in-stance to carve a little frame for the photograph of a lady in furs.42 The secondone is used again in the novella,43 but there is a more nearly similar use ofthe expression in the correspondence of the writer himself, and particularlyin a letter addressed to Max Brod on October 8, 1912, in which Kafka recountssome events that, incidentally, seem to have had much to do with the psy-chological genesis of Die Verwandlung itself.44 In this letter, the writer avowsthat he has ignored the fact that his brother-in-law, the asbestos factory’sowner Karl Hermann, has gone away on a business trip. This trip will havedetrimental effects on Kafka, as it will result in his family (including his sisterOttla) trying to persuade him to inspect the factory. The significant thing isthat, in order to describe his lack of attention to circumstances that will provenegative for him (his distancing himself from real life), Kafka uses the ex-pression meine gluckliche Zerstreutheit. This is the same expression (“gluck-liche Zerstreutheit”) that the narrative voice uses to refer to Gregor’s “dis-traction”. In his “happy absent-mindedness”, Gregor seems to be as distantfrom real life as Kafka himself had been.

The fact that the terms “Zerstreuung”/“Zerstreutheit” denote distancingfrom real life is confirmed by the subsequent description of Gregor’s pur-ported time on the ceiling. This description has unmistakably pleasant over-tones: freedom (“man atmete freier”), lightness (“leichtes Schwingen”), en-tertainment verging on happiness (“fast glucklich”), something “completelydifferent” (“ganz anders” occurs twice in a few lines). Such an accumulationof positive terms is highly suspicious, as it designs an idyllic condition whichhas absolutely nothing to do with the pitiful circumstances in which Gregor’slife takes place.45 Is it plausible that a being who, shortly before, needed toprop himself up in an armchair to look out of the window now starts clam-bering all over the ceiling? Is it likely that someone who suffers from respi-ratory problems46 suddenly breathes “more freely” hanging from the ceiling?It seems that these questions must be answered with a categorical “no”, andthat, therefore, Gregor’s alleged wonderful state is not at all real, but purelyand simply a compensatory fantasy.47 Gregor’s real life is very different tothis fantasy: it is a victim’s life, so a deeply unhappy existence.

Furthermore, Gregor is characterized by escapist tendencies. Given that,by virtue of his self-denial, he is forced to indefinitely postpone the satisfac-tory existence he longs for, he cannot accept real life and, in order to com-pensate his state of unhappiness, escapes from reality by making do withfantasizing and self-deceiving substitutive elements. The detail of the pictureof a lady in furs is revealing, all the more so because Gregor’s mother de-scribes his work with his fretsaw—Gregor has carved a little frame for the


picture—as a distraction (“Zerstreuung”). It is not by chance that the term“Ersatz” is used twice in the story to indicate the nature of what Gregoraccepts to replace the true object of his desires (see DL 147, 172). If hepreviously escaped from his oppressive daily life by fantasizing about unat-tainable women such as the one in the photograph, he now escapes from hismiserable life by imagining a wonderful life high above.

All these details make us suspect that the sublime nature of Gregor’spurported new activity could merely be the imaginary result of sublimation.48

Kafka was fully aware of this psychological process, and he clearly alludedto it, for instance, in Bericht fur eine Akademie: “Nebenbei: mit Freiheitbetrugt man sich unter Menschen allzuoft. Und sowie die Freiheit zu denerhabensten Gefuhlen zahlt, so auch die entsprechende Tauschung zu denerhabensten.” (DL 154). The last lines of the passage further confirm oursuspicions:

[ . . . ] und in der fast glucklichen Zerstreutheit, in der sich Gregor dort obenbefand, konnte es geschehen, daß er zu seiner eigenen Uberraschung sich losließund auf den Boden klatschte. Aber nun hatte er naturlich seinen Korper ganzanders in der Gewalt als fruher und beschadigte sich selbst bei einem so großenFalle nicht.

The narrator affirms that, although Gregor falls from the roof andcrashes into the floor, he does not hurt himself despite the great height. Thisis, however, extremely suspicious. We are expected to believe that Gregorcontrols his body as never before, but this blatantly contradicts all what weknow about a being whose every movement takes a lot of hard work; in fact,this difficulty had been highlighted by the narrative voice just before provid-ing us with the information about the alleged climbing.49 Besides, if Gregorso marvelously and suddenly controls his body, how is it possible that he letsgo and drops to the floor, “to his own surprise” (“Uberraschung”)? We arealso expected to believe that a spectacular fall50 turns out to be innocuous forGregor. This kind of harmless accidents, however, happens only in the realmof comics and pure fantasy.51

There is every indication that the wonderful state described by the nar-rative voice is nothing but a mere invention reflecting Gregor’s distorted andself-deceiving consciousness. Far from being proof that Gregor has an insec-tile nature and gains a skillful control over his body, the first passage describ-ing his climb across the ceiling seems to be a desideratum, depicting only animaginary event.52 Here again Gregor’s fantasy does as it pleases.

4. Double Bind and Gregor’s Guilty Feelings

After having identified the factors that are distorting Gregor’s perception, letus now consider the second passage referring to the crawling on the walls


and ceiling. This passage is also found in the second part of the story, onlya few pages after the one analyzed above. In order to understand it, of course,it is essential to take into account the context. Grete (reluctantly supportedby her mother) has emptied out Gregor’s room and plundered his most cher-ished possessions. Even though Gregor tries to persuade himself that nothingserious is happening, the fact that he realizes that he is being harmed compelshim to react. In a moment of self-assertiveness, he emerges from beneath thecouch. The mother sees him, and according to her favourite strategy, col-lapses.53 Grete reacts as follows: “ ‘Du, Gregor!’ rief die Schwester mit er-hobener Faust und eindringlichen Blicken. Es waren seit der Verwandlungdie ersten Worte, die sie unmittelbar an ihn gerichtet hatte.” (DL 166). Grete’srejection of Gregor takes a twofold form: words and gestures. The words—the first ones, the narrator reminds us, that Grete had addressed directly toher brother since his transformation—adopt the form of a threat. Let us alsonote that the raising of Grete’s fist evokes the same gesture used by the fatherto force Gregor into his room on the morning the story begins.54 Moreover,there is a further factor that hurts him in this scene, this time physically. Gretegoes out to find something to revive her mother, and Gregor goes also out tohelp. But one of the bottles picked up by Grete falls on the floor and breaks,a splinter of glass wounds Gregor’s face and some kind of corrosive medicineflows around him.55 Then Grete closes the door behind her, so that Gregorremains alone in the living room.

If we seriously take into account Gregor’s human nature, we can easilyinfer that the psychological impact of this set of events must be devastatingfor him. His hopes of reintegrating himself into the family circle have beendashed to pieces, and his self-esteem has been destroyed. All this is confirmedin the subsequent passage, precisely that which contains the second referenceto crawling:

Gregor war nun von der Mutter abgeschlossen, die durch seine Schuld vielleichtdem Tode nahe war; die Tur durfte er nicht offnen, wollte er die Schwester,die bei der Mutter bleiben mußte, nicht verjagen; er hatte jetzt nichts zu tun,als zu warten; und von Selbstvorwurfen und Besorgnis bedrangt, begann er zukriechen, uberkroch alles, Wande, Mobel und Zimmerdecke und fiel endlich inseiner Verzweiflung, als sich das ganze Zimmer schon um ihn zu drehen anfing,mitten auf den großen Tisch. (DL 167, my emphasis)

The first interesting thing is that, just as in the former passage mention-ing crawling, this text starts by depicting an impasse in which there is no wayout. Gregor is cut off from his mother—he cannot gain access to her—andcannot open the door lest his sister be chased away (he wants his sister tostay with his mother). Besides, he has been seriously injured, both physicallyand emotionally. But this situation is even more serious for Gregor than itseems at first sight; not only does his being separated from the mother deprive


him of the presence of the only family member who still retains positivefeelings towards him,56 but he is now in a place which is forbidden for him,as from the very first day he had been locked up in his room and forbiddento leave.57 In other words: if Gregor goes back to his bedroom, he will beconsidered bad; if he stays in the living-room, he will also be seen as dis-obedient. Hence, the situation he faces, characterized not only by impotencebut also by the awareness that he has contravened the others’ injunctions, isindiscernible from a double bind, “a situation in which no matter what aperson does, he ‘can’t win.’ ”58 In fact, the text explicitly expresses the lackof a way out: “there was nothing for him to do except wait”.

We know that double bind situations, far from being innocuous, haveunmistakably pathogenic effects.59 Kafka has indeed made it extremely clearthat Gregor has not come through his experience unscathed. Even thoughthere is nothing to reproach him for (he is rather the victim of his sister’sstubbornness and his mother’s inability to protect her son), he feels guiltyabout not being able to help his mother after her faint.60 The extent of hisguilty feelings shows itself in the fact that he pathetically exaggerates theseriousness of the danger his mother faces: her faint (the reader knows howoften she suffers unimportant fainting fits) becomes, through his feverishimagination, an almost lethal collapse (“vielleich dem Tode nahe war”).

The text explicitly states that Gregor is tormented by self-reproachesand worry (“von Selbstvorwurfen und Besorgnis bedrangt”). Moreover, itdescribes his psychological and emotional state as one of desperation (“Ver-zweiflung”), to the point that the room seems to spin around him. But it isprecisely in this context of torment and desperation that we are told about his“Kriechen.” Again, we can perceive that serious distortions of objectivity areintervening in this very moment. In the same way that he turned his enclosureinto something positive through fantasy, he now transmutes the positive intothe negative—his innocence into guilt—, and his mother’s faint into a poten-tially fatal incident. Likewise, his distorted consciousness turns his despera-tion into a genuine wandering on the ceiling and walls, in a dazed movementthat does not seem to be anything but the reflection of his plunging himselfdeeper into the vortex of guilty feelings.61

5. Gregor’s Deeply Distorted Consciousness

So far we have argued that the two passages referring to Gregor’s climbingover the ceiling and walls contain a good number of hints at the desperatephysical and/or psychological situation he faces in every case. This surveyhas led us to suspect, and finally to deduce, that those references are unreli-able. The interesting thing is that Kafka has provided us with further revealinghints. When the father comes home, Gregor is accused by his sister of havingbroken out of his room. Then, his father chases him:


So machten sie mehrmals die Runde um das Zimmer, ohne daß sich etwasEntscheidendes ereignete, ja ohne daß das Ganze infolge seines langsamenTempos den Anschein einer Verfolgung gehabt hatte. Deshalb blieb auchGregor vorlaufig auf dem Fußboden, zumal er furchtete, der Vater konnte eineFlucht auf die Wande oder den Plafond fur besondere Bosheit halten. Allerdingsmußte sich Gregor sagen, daß er sogar dieses Laufen nicht lange aushaltenwurde, denn wahrend der Vater einen Schritt machte, mußte er eine Unzahlvon Bewegungen ausfuhren. Atemnot begann sich schon bemerkbar zu machen,wie er ja auch in seiner fruheren Zeit keine ganz vertrauenswurdige Lungebesessen hatte. Als er nun so dahintorkelte, um alle Krafte fur den Lauf zusammeln, kaum die Augen offenhielt; in seiner Stumpfheit an eine andere Ret-tung als durch Laufen gar nicht dachte; und fast schon vergessen hatte, daß ihmdie Wande freistanden, die hier allerdings mit sorgfaltig geschnitzten Mobelnvoll Zacken und Spitzen verstellt waren [ . . . ] (DL 172)

The first revealing thing is that, when other characters are able to seeGregor, the purported crawling is conspicuous by its absence. In fact, the textceases to mention the crawling at this point. It only alludes, at the beginningand at the end, to its possibility: if Gregor stays “provisionally” on the floor(in fact he will never abandon it), it is because he thinks he would be able tostay elsewhere—namely, to the ceiling (“Plafond”) and walls (“Wande”)—.Significantly, Gregor does not resort to that escape route. This is extremelystriking, because precisely in this moment a retreat to the ceiling would bemost helpful for Gregor, who is being chased by his father with unkind in-tentions. Besides, this is all the more surprising as such an escape would alsoprovide the solution for his breathing problems (he begins to feel winded,while the narrator had told us before that Gregor feels at ease on the ceiling,where he would “breathe more freely”).

This puzzling situation leads the reader to wonder why Gregor does notresort to his alleged extraordinary abilities just when it would be most usefulfor him. Of course, the author knows that any intelligent reader will pose thisquestion and has the narrative voice try to explain it. In fact, we find differentexplanatory attempts. According to the first one, Gregor does not climb sincehe is afraid that his father might interpret a retreat onto the walls or the ceilingas a particularly malignant act (“besondere Bosheit”). This “reason”, how-ever, is bizarre in the extreme, since nobody—not even the pursuer—couldconsider the fact that a chased person flees as proof of malignancy. The mostnatural and comprehensible reaction of a person who is being chased is toflee. Such an “explanation”, therefore, can only come from Gregor’s distortedperspective, not from an independent and lucid one.62

The obvious unconvincing nature of such an explanation is crying outfor another one. This is why we are provided with a second: Gregor does notclimb since, in his obtuseness (Stumpfheit), he does not think of any escapeother than running. The problem with this new explanation is not only itsintrinsic improbability—Gregor’s desperate situation should have been the


main reason to spontaneously select a better alternative—but also the fact thatit blatantly contradicts the first one: either Gregor considers the possibility ofclimbing and rejects it, or he does not even consider it.

The fact that both possibilities are equally unconvincing means that,just as the former passages mentioning the crawling, this one also reflects theexistence of a distorted and unreliable consciousness. Hence, both explana-tions turn out to be nothing but rationalizations reflecting Gregor’s mind. Thiscan be more easily perceived through the following sequence:

a) Gregor could escape by the walls and the ceiling (victimary version63)b) But he remains on the floor (truth)c) Because the father might interpret such a flight as a piece of malignancy

(rationalization)

a) Gregor could escape by the walls and the ceiling (victimary version)b) But he remains on the floor (truth)c) Because he is obtuse and does not even consider that possibility

(rationalization)

The dubious nature of these rationalizations is already visible in the factthat they are multiplied: since they are not convincing, the narrator pilesseveral of them together in an attempt to attain credibility. This accumulationis, however, self-defeating, as the different possibilities are mutually exclu-sive. The fact that they are adduced together patently violates the principleof non-contradiction.

As if all this were not enough, there is another even more revealingtextual detail. Whereas according the first “explanation” Gregor voluntarilydecides not to climb (he could do it but he does not do it out of deference tohis father), the last lines of the passage suggest that the furniture would inany case prevent Gregor from climbing, as the walls are lined with elaboratelycarved furniture full of notches and points: “[U]nd fast schon vergessen hatte,daß ihm die Wande freistanden, die hier allerdings mit sorgfaltig geschnitztenMobeln voll Zacken und Spitzen verstellt waren [ . . . ]” (DL 170). Put anotherway, even if Gregor wished to climb, he could not do it. The surprising thinglies in the fact that the narrative voice states that it is “here” (“hier”) wherewe find this kind of furniture. This implies that there is somewhere else(a “there” opposed to “here”) where the furniture is not of this kind, andwhere it would not prevent Gregor from freely crawling on the walls. But theroom where, some minutes before, Gregor is said to have crawled over walls,furniture, and ceiling (“uberkroch alles, Wande, Mobel und Zimmerdecke”)and whose big table he would have fallen onto, is the very same room whereGregor is now chased—precisely around this same table—by his father. Inother words: the walls covered with pieces of furniture “full of notches andpoints” are just the same as before, and, hence, they would have been asinaccessible then as they are now. Kafka has highlighted the mental confusion


of the narrative voice (reflecting the consciousness of his main character) byemploying the adverb “hier”, as if the room where Gregor is now were adifferent one to that where he was before. An attentive reader, however,should grasp that this is the same room—that is, the living room—and so thatthe former suggestions of Gregor’s climbing were not reliable at all, as theyreflected Gregor’s confused consciousness.64

By indicating that the narrative voice is not trustworthy, Kafka is in-viting his readers to distrust the entomological version and to definitely rejectas unreliable the information concerning the climbing abilities of his maincharacter. Of course, the information provided by the narrator is untrustwor-thy not because in fiction a man cannot turn into a monstrous vermin or—forthat matter—into a sewing machine, but because the text is riddled with hintspointing to the distorted and confused nature of the perspective providing thatinformation.65

Kafka has scattered clues and signs throughout his text allowing hisreaders to understand the truth.66 At this stage of the analysis it should beclear that, despite appearances, Gregor’s “crawling” has taken place nowherebut the subjective realm of his distorted consciousness. In this light, we caneasily understand why Gregor does not crawl over the walls and the ceilingwhen he is chased by his father, precisely when this activity would be mostuseful to him—he cannot do it purely and simply because he is a humanbeing—, and also why nobody supports the reliability of that information:nobody sees Gregor’s movements over the ceiling and walls for the simplereason that such movements never take place.67

6. Detecting a Rationalization Pattern throughout the Text

The former analyses imply that Gregor finds himself in a pitiful physical andpsychological state, and thereby confirm beyond any reasonable doubt thathe is a victim. His pains are indeed mentioned time and time again throughoutthe story.68 As a result of the victimization he has suffered, as we have seen,even his capacity for sound reasoning is seriously disturbed. Grasping thisaspect of the novella is absolutely essential in order to understand its devel-opment and its meaning.

The victimary logic works as far as there is unanimity within the vic-timary circle regarding the need to get rid of the victim. This entails that themembers of the victimary circle—the persecutors—try to persuade them-selves that the victim is a despicable—even subhuman—being who deservesuniversal contempt. To this end, they also conspire to make the victim thinkabout herself in the same debasing terms.69 Such a task is usually carried outsuccessfully, since physical and psychological pressure eventually force thevictim to accept a degrading self-perception, but it happens only as the resultof a process. Until the victim has wholly internalized the degrading view


offered to her, she will affirm her human dignity, and will go on reasoningand striving to find a meaning in her experience. This entails that, when thevictim perceives in herself features showing worth, merit or dignity, thesefeatures will clash with the degrading view through which the others try toundermine her self-esteem. As the victimary version is, by definition, a dis-tortion of truth, the contact with reality necessarily contradicts that very ver-sion, or the conclusions drawn from it.

When such a clash occurs in the victim’s consciousness, two different(and opposite) possibilities arise. The victim can rely on experiences of herown dignity to call into question the reliability of the victimary version andof the distorted perceptions prompted by it; this happens only when the victimhas still a certain degree of critical awareness and can accordingly use someexperiences to defend her worthiness. There is, however, a more ominouspossibility, namely, that the victim, having been persuaded of her depravity,questions not the victimary version but her own ability to refute this version.In this last case, the victim is bound to reinterpret the experiences which seemto refute the victimary version. This task is carried out by devising auxiliaryrationalizations which eliminate perplexing contradictions, but leave only thevictim’s self-degraded perception. This convoluted dialectics can be moreclearly expressed through the following triadic pattern:

a) Distorted perception (in keeping with the victimary version)b) Refutation of the distorted perception (through contact with reality)c) Ad hoc auxiliary rationalization

Given that b entails a blatant contradiction of a, the person who feelsconstrained to believe a must neutralize b through c, in such a way that cinvolves a kind of return to a. For instance, an innocent person can be unfairlyblamed by a victimary community for having poisoned the wells of theirregion and for being responsible for the community’s calamities, so that shemight even see herself as a despicable being (a). At the same time, however,the victim chosen as a scapegoat is well aware that she has never committedsuch a misdeed (b). But if the victim has internalized the accusation as trust-worthy, she could infer, for instance, that she carried out the misdeed whilesleepwalking or while being carried in dreams by witches or the Devil (c).This “explanation” c is a rationalization of b prompted by a: given that thevictim takes a very seriously, she must explain her own experience b bydevising c. Let us note that, as the rationalization serves to support a distortedperception, the inferences drawn from it are not reliable at all. Such ration-alizations are indeed nothing but pseudo-explanations.

We have already seen this pattern operating in some pieces of informationprovided by the narrative voice of Die Verwandlung, reflecting Gregor’s con-sciousness. But, as we will see below, this same process of rationalization ispresent in a significant number of passages in the story. All these passages


bear the unmistakable trace of that frail victim who is Gregor Samsa. In fact,Gregor is presented everywhere in Die Verwandlung as a heteronomous per-son, always at his family’s beck and call. His emotional dependence is graph-ically expressed in the image of a Gregor who, every time he hears the othersspeak, rushes immediately to the living-room door.70 As a result, his self-perception is heavily, even decisively, influenced by the judgments of theother characters and especially his three relatives, even when these judgmentsare unfair. In fact, the image which the others (particularly the father and thesister) usually try to inculcate in Gregor is that of a miserable, guilty being,undeserving of respect and love.

Although the strong disparagement and rejection Gregor suffers at thehands of his relatives make him perceive himself as “Ungeziefer”,71 realityrefutes his distorted perception. For instance, in the first pages of the story,his possession of a voice (an unmistakably human feature) puts into doubtthe alleged metamorphosis72 and forces him to devise an additional expla-nation:

Gregor hatte ausfuhrlich antworten und alles erklaren wollen, beschrankte sichaber bei diesen Umstanden darauf, zu sagen: ,,Ja, ja, danke Mutter, ich steheschon auf.“ Infolge der Holztur war die Veranderung in Gregors Stimmedraußen wohl nicht zu merken, denn die Mutter beruhigte sich mit dieser Er-klarung und schlurfte davon. (DL 119)

The narrator had previously mentioned a variation in the main charac-ter’s voice.73 The mother’s reaction, however, seems to deny that such a vari-ation has happened: she leaves reassured because she is not especially worriedby the change in Gregor’s voice. But if this voice is to a certain extent anormal human voice, the impression that something odd has taken place is(for Gregor and for the reader) in danger of vanishing. Kafka maintains adegree of ambiguity by making the narrator concoct an explanation: themother probably (“wohl”) would not have perceived the change in Gregor’svoice because she does not hear this voice directly but through a door. Thisis the underlying logical scheme of the explanation:

a) Gregor’s voice has changed and it is no longer a human voice (victimaryversion)

b) Gregor’s voice has not changed, as the mother does not seem to haveperceived such a substantial change (truth)

c) The wooden door prevents the mother from noticing the change(rationalization of b)

The rationalization of b which is contained in c is, however, nothingbut a pseudo-explanation. First, the perception of a voice is not improved bybeing heard through a door (made of wood or not), rather the opposite wouldbe true. Second, the other characters will be surprised only a little later by


how Gregor’s voice sounds behind doors such as this one.74 Hence, the “ex-planation” provided by the narrator is a spurious one.

Reality—of course, intra-narrative reality—contradicts Gregor’s dis-torted self-perception not only in this case but also in several others. Forinstance, the movements Gregor makes after leaving his bed also contradicthis purported metamorphosis into a vermin:

Und wahrend Gregor dies alles hastig ausstieß und kaum wußte, was er sprach,hatte er sich leicht, wohl infolge der im Bett bereits erlangten Ubung, demKasten genahert und versuchte nun, an ihm sich aufzurichten. [ . . . ] Zuerst glitter nun einigemale von dem glatten Kasten ab, aber endlich gab er sich einenletzten Schwung und stand aufrecht da (DL 130)

Gregor’s movements will necessarily plunge anyone who believes theentomological version into the utmost puzzlement: the main character doesnot move around as a vermin (or generically as an animal). Far from it, hetries to stand up, and he manages to reach this position.75 Admittedly, hisdreadful physical and mental state makes his movements difficult, and he canstand only by successively leaning on a wardrobe, a chair, and a door (usingthese objects as if they were crutches). The text, however, does not presentGregor as unable to reach the bipedal position; quite the opposite, he resortsto the movement which is unmistakably typical of a human being. Given thatthis human feature is inconsistent with his supposed metamorphosis, the nar-rative voice resorts again to a rationalization:

a) Gregor’s movements must be those of a subhuman being (victimaryversion)

b) But he stands up, a feature pointing to his human nature (truth)c) He can stand up probably due to practice gained in bed (rationalization

of b)

This “explanation” according to which Gregor manages to stand up byvirtue of earlier practice is, however, again unconvincing and odd. Gregorhas had neither time nor opportunity to “practice” movement in bed, and evenif he had been able to practice, such an exercise would not have helped himin the least nor would it explain why he tries to stand up. In fact, such apseudo-explanation comes from the distorted perspective of Gregor himself,as (again) the use of the doubt particle “wohl” proves. The justification pro-vided is not trustworthy information coming from an omniscient narrator, buta concoction coming from a perspective reflecting a subjective (and not al-ways very reliable) consciousness.

Up to now we have examined the rationalizations that the narrator,reflecting Gregor’s perspective, draws out in order to make Gregor’s degrad-ing self-perception consistent, which is decisively influenced by the treatmentthat his relatives inflict upon him. But these characters also try to presentthemselves as just and irreproachable people. Hence, the distortion involved


in a victimary circle does not only concern the image of the victim but alsothat of the persecutors. In fact, in Die Verwandlung, Gregor’s relatives presentthemselves as morally good people, and they are also presented sometimesin this way by the narrator.76 Many pieces of information, however, blatantlycontradict such a positive image. From a moral point of view, Gregor’s rela-tives and the office manager leave much to be desired.77 All this means thatthe main character, pressed to have a positive view of the people around him,needs to reinterpret his experiences time and time again. And this implies, inturn, that he must concoct rationalizations in order to obtain a consistent viewof his relatives. This need is indicated by the author in several passages. Thefollowing is a good example:

Und Gregor schien es, daß es viel vernunftiger ware, ihn jetzt in Ruhe zu lassen,statt ihn mit Weinen und Zureden zu storen. Aber es war eben die Ungewißheit,welche die anderen bedrangte und ihr Benehmen entschuldigte. (DL 128)

From the very moment the three family members realize that Gregor isat home, they unrelentingly harass him to come out of his room and let theoffice manager in. Gregor needs to understand why all these characters, whosegoodness he tries to believe in, so insistently bother him.78 The revealing thingis that, far from distrusting their goodness, the naive Gregor makes an inbonam partem interpretation of their behavior. We find here again the triadicpattern:

a) The others are good people (victimary version, internalized by Gregor)b) But they bother and harass him (truth)c) This is because uncertainty does not let them behave otherwise

(rationalization)

The construction of the final sentence quoted above, coming from thenarrator, makes it clear to what extent the main character does not usuallylay blame on his relatives and the office manager: it is uncertainty (“Un-gewißheit”) which causes the others to disturb him, not their lack of respectand sensitivity. Nevertheless, this “explanation” of the others’ behavior is—once again—wholly unreliable and untenable, as we know that they—at leastthe father, the office manager, and the sister—act almost exclusively out ofself-interest. They are not concerned at all for Gregor’s well-being; the merefact that they have been taking advantage of him for five years and have leda very comfortable life79 while he has been leading a deeply unrewarding lifeis proof enough of it. Gregor’s relatives and the office manager insistentlydemand that he go back to work, without paying attention to his actual needs.

Let us now turn to a passage concerning Grete, the member of the familyGregor thinks is closest to him.80 The fact that she is the only person whodaily enters his room and tidies it would seem to suggest that this opinion isaccurate. The passage, however, begins by enumerating the kind of food Grete


carries—a “wide assortment” among which there are half-rotten vegetables,bones left over from the evening meal, and a piece of cheese which somedays before Gregor had declared inedible—and goes on to refer ironically toher “goodness” (“Gute”).81 What interests us now is the concluding sectionof this paragraph:

Und aus Zartgefuhl, da sie wußte, daß Gregor vor ihr nicht essen wurde, ent-fernte sie sich eiligst und drehte sogar den Schlussel um, damit nur Gregormerken konne, daß er es sich so behaglich machen durfe, wie er wolle.

This passage is especially revealing, as it offers two linked rationalizations.On the one hand, the narrator—reflecting Gregor’s perspective—tries to ex-plain why, if Gregor’s sister is so well-intentioned towards him, she does notstay a while in his bedroom to keep him company, rather she leaves hurriedly.On the other hand, he must explain why, if Grete is close to Gregor, she turnsthe key and locks him in his room. The explanations devised by the narrativevoice are contained, once more, in the last point of every triadic scheme:

a) Grete is close to Gregor and a kindhearted person (victimary version)b) But she goes away hastily (truth)c) She behaves in this way out of tact, so as to let Gregor eat at his ease

(rationalization)

a) Grete is close to Gregor and a kindhearted person (victimary version)b) But she locks him into his room (truth)c) She behaves in this way so as to let Gregor make himself comfortable

(rationalization)

Grete’s behavior, far from corresponding to the sisterly affection Gregor at-tributes to her, patently contradicts it. In these circumstances, the idyllic imageGregor has formed of his sister runs the risk of being erased. This disappoint-ment, however, would be very hard for the main character to bear. For thisreason, in order to underpin that idyllic image, the narrator (reflecting Gregor’sconsciousness) is forced to multiply rationalizations. These rationalizations,however, display such a degree of naivety—and, consequently, so clearlyshow their untenable nature—that further comments become unnecessary.82

We know that when the writer read Die Verwandlung to his close friendsthey all laughed a great deal.83 In fact, irony is a device which Kafka has usedthroughout his story, sometimes to comic effects. For instance, the hard shoveMr. Samsa gives Gregor at the end of the first part, which makes him bleedprofusely, is described as “wahrhaftig erlosend” (DL 142). The long five-yearperiod in which Mr. Samsa has not worked is described, tongue in cheek, as“die ersten Ferien seines [ . . . ] Lebens” (DL 154). But we can better under-stand what led them to laugh if we take into account Gregor’s frequent inbonam partem interpretations, because they are undoubtedly a source of(black) humor in Die Verwandlung: insofar as they verge on the ridiculous,they make evident the extent of Gregor’s naivety and self-deceit.84


7. Doubting the Intra-narrative Existence of the Klebstoff

A long detour has been necessary in order to reveal the great number ofrationalizations provided by the narrative voice in Die Verwandlung. Per-ceiving the wide extent of this strategy of rationalizations will allow us tobetter understand the other issue we are tackling in this paper: the stickysubstance (“Klebstoff”) that Gregor is said to have in his extremities.

There are only two references to “Klebstoff” in the whole story. One isfound in the first part and the other in the second. Given that in the latter thenarrator states that the sister perceives traces of this substance, it is consideredby virtually every scholar to be proof of the existence of a metamorphosis.85

In fact, some literary critics even sing the praises of the Prague writer forhaving delighted us with “naturalistic details” that only an entomologistwould provide.86 Before drawing hasty conclusions, however, we must oncemore carefully examine the text.

The two passing references to the sticky substance are very brief men-tions in interpolated clauses, clearly indicated by dashes. What is revealingis the fact that these passages fit exactly the same structure as the afore-mentioned rationalization examples. This makes us suspect that they mightcontain mere rationalizations devised by a distorted mind. Let us consider thefirst of them:

Gregor schob sich langsam mit dem Sessel zur Tur hin, ließ ihn dort los, warfsich gegen die Tur, hielt sich an ihr aufrecht – die Ballen seiner Beinchen hattenein wenig Klebstoff – und ruhte sich dort einen Augenblick lang von der An-strengung aus. (DL 132)

The underlying problem implied in this passage is just the same as insome examples quoted above: the experience of a person who adopts theupright position vigorously denies his alleged metamorphosis into a sub-human being. In these circumstances, whoever thinks that a metamorphosishas taken place will be perplexed and bound to wonder how such movementsand body positions are possible at all. In such a context, the only answer willbe to resort to some rationalization as a way of solving the puzzlement. Theresulting argument can be represented by the same triadic pattern:

a) Gregor is a vermin (victimary version)b) But he can stand up, so showing his human nature (truth)c) This is because his extremities have a kind of sticky substance

(rationalization)

As it happens in the former examples, the rationalization devised by thenarrative voice is an ad hoc hypothesis whose weakness can be easily per-ceived. The flimsy nature of such a hypothesis is obvious in that, instead ofsolving anything, it arouses new questions and perplexities: How is it possi-


ble, for instance, that Gregor has not realized before that his extremities areendowed with such a sticky substance? If Gregor actually had “Klebstoff”,he would have perceived it when he was using his legs in bed. He shouldalso have perceived it the first time he tries to stand up, but on that occasionwe are told that he repeatedly slides off the polished chest of drawers.87 Wherewas then the “Klebstoff”, with which Gregor would have been able to gripon the very first attempt? Retrospectively, it was conspicuous by its absence.In fact, the existence of such a substance is indirectly denied some lines later:

Er mußte sich erst langsam um den einen Turflugel herumdrehen, und zwarsehr vorsichtig, wenn er nicht gerade vor dem Eintritt ins Zimmer plump aufden Rucken fallen wollte. Er war noch mit jener schwierigen Bewegung be-schaftigt [ . . . ] (DL 133–4)

The difficulty of Gregor’s movements (highlighted by the abundance ofadverbs and adjectives: “langsam”, “sehr vorsichtig”, “schwierig”) makes itclear that Gregor is not held to the door by any sticky substance, and in factthe text explicitly states that he runs the risk of falling flat on his back. IfGregor actually produced such a substance, however, this would not happen.And later he would not need, when he looks out of the window, to lean on achair (which he must painstakingly drag into position first):88 if he had thesticky substance in his extremities, he could easily stick to the windowsill orto the glass. Everything points therefore to the fact that the first passagementioning the “Klebstoff” comes from a distorted perspective. At least forthe moment, there are serious reasons to be skeptical about its existence.

8. Klebstoff as a Purely Imaginary Device

Significantly, the only other passage where the sticky substance is mentionedalso belongs to the same category as the others which we have examinedabove. Moreover, just like one of those we have already surveyed,89 thatpassage is found in the second part of the story, concerns Grete and containstwo linked rationalizations:

Die Schwester nun bemerkte sofort die neue Unterhaltung, die Gregor fur sichgefunden hatte – er hinterließ ja auch beim Kriechen hie und da Spuren seinesKlebstoffes – , und da setzte sie es sich in den Kopf, Gregor das Kriechen ingroßtem Ausmaße zu ermoglichen und die Mobel, die es verhinderten, also vorallem den Kasten und den Schreibtisch, wegzuschaffen. (DL 159–160)

Before hastily turning these lines into an indisputable proof of the ex-istence of “Klebstoff”, they must be read very carefully and in context. Thisis the passage immediately following the first mention of Gregor’s purportedclimbing over the ceiling and walls, which—as this paper has argued—re-flects Gregor’s subjective and distorted perspective. Hence, we are bound tosuspect that this same distorted perspective might be at work here.


In this long sentence, there are indeed at least two aspects betraying thesubjective nature of the narrative voice. On the one hand, rather than thenonjudgmental verb “denken” or an equivalent, the narrator employs the col-loquial turn of phrase “sich etwas in den Kopf setzen” (“and so she got it intoher head”). This expression is not only a colloquialism, but also has a criticalconnotation, as it unmistakably suggests that the decision taken by the sisteris caused by stubbornness; and this, in turn, implies a certain value judgement,suggesting that Grete’s decision is detrimental to Gregor. On the other hand,the explanation offered for Grete’s plan to plunder her brother’s room (namely,that she wants to improve Gregor’s possibilities of crawling by taking out thefurniture which stood in his way) seems to be nothing but a naive and inbonam partem interpretation, which is so typical of the main character. Thisis confirmed by the fact that such an explanation blatantly contradicts whatthe rest of the text reveals about the lack of good intentions in that selfishgirl. Hence, the information provided not only proceeds from a subjectiveperspective, but also from an untrustworthy one, since it reflects Gregor’sdistorted consciousness once more.

The fact that the whole passage comes from a distorted consciousnessmakes us suspect that the information about Gregor leaving traces of a stickysubstance and his sister seeing them could be unreliable. This suspicion in-creases when we notice that, while the first allusion to “Klebstoff”—in anaside indicated by dashes—does not appear until a relatively late moment inthe story, the second one—also in a very brief aside indicated by dashes—appears at least two months after the alleged “metamorphosis.” In the mean-time, the “Klebstoff” is not cited again and plays no role.

In these circumstances, we must wonder why the “Klebstoff” reappearsat this stage of the narrative. In light of our former analysis, the answer mightbe that the mention of the sticky substance is useful for Gregor to find an“explanation” for Grete’s embarrassing behavior. One day, the main characterhears that his sister intends to remove the furniture from his bedroom. Ofcourse, this plundering constitutes a full attack on his (physical and psycho-logical) well-being and even on his dignity, as any reader easily understandsand the mother explicitly avows:

Wohl nach schon viertelstundiger Arbeit sagte die Mutter, man solle den Kastendoch lieber hier lassen, denn erstens sei er zu schwer, sie wurden vor Ankunftdes Vaters nicht fertig werden und mit dem Kasten in der Mitte des ZimmersGregor jeden Weg verrammeln, zweitens aber sei es doch gar nicht sicher, daßGregor mit der Entfernung der Mobel ein Gefallen geschehe. Ihr scheine dasGegenteil der Fall zu sein; ihr bedrucke der Anblick der leeren Wand geradezudas Herz; und warum solle nicht auch Gregor diese Empfindung haben, da erdoch an die Zimmermobel langst gewohnt sei und sich deshalb im leeren Zim-mer verlassen fuhlen werde. ,,Und ist es dann nicht so“, schloß die Mutter ganzleise [ . . . ] als ob wir durch die Entfernung der Mobel zeigten, daß wir jede


Hoffnung auf Besserung aufgeben und ihn rucksichtslos sich selbst uberlassen?Ich glaube, es ware das beste, wir suchen das Zimmer genau in dem Zustandzu erhalten, in dem es fruher war, damit Gregor, wenn er wieder zu uns zu-ruckkommt, alles unverandert findet und umso leichter die Zwischenzeit ver-gessen kann (DL 161–162)

By giving the mother such a long and revealing speech in this moment,Kafka has made clear that Grete’s decision is ruthless and extremely detri-mental to Gregor. And, since Grete’s plan to plunder his room does not fitthe sisterly affection Gregor attributes to her (nor does it fit the victimaryversion, according to which the members of the victimary circle are irre-proachable people), the narrative voice reflecting Gregor’s perspective elab-orates an explanation in order to justify her suspicious conduct. This expla-nation lies in claiming that Grete, far from trying to harm Gregor, entertainsa noble purpose:

a) Grete is well-intentioned (victimary version, internalized by Gregor)b) But she plans to take Gregor’s bedroom furniture, so harming him (truth)c) This is because she wants to make his movements easier (rationalization)

This new rationalization, however, is again wholly untenable. It reflectsGregor’s tendency to interpret in bonam partem his relatives’ behavior, butsuch an interpretation is exceedingly naive. Grete is actually a girl who feelsfor her brother—if anything at all—a completely superficial affection; likeher parents, she has profited for years from Gregor’s generosity without liftinga finger to lighten his workload. Once her brother becomes ill and unable towork, she will progressively abandon him to his fate, and will pronounce hisdeath sentence.90 The text confirms this unkind truth a little later, when thenarrator suggests the true motives of Grete’s behavior:

Und so war auch jetzt der Rat der Mutter fur die Schwester Grund genug, aufder Entfernung nicht nur des Kastens und des Schreibtisches, an die sie zuerstallein gedacht hatte, sondern auf der Entfernung samtlicher Mobel, mit Aus-nahme des unentbehrlichen Kanapees, zu bestehen. Es war naturlich nicht nurkindlicher Trotz und das in der letzten Zeit so unerwartet und schwer erworbeneSelbstvertrauen, das sie zu dieser Forderung bestimmte; sie hatte doch auchtatsachlich beobachtet, daß Gregor viel Raum zum Kriechen brauchte, dagegendie Mobel, soweit man sehen konnte, nicht im geringsten benutzte. Vielleichtaber spielte auch der schwarmerische Sinn der Madchen ihres Alters mit, derbei jeder Gelegenheit seine Befriedigung sucht, und durch den Grete jetzt sichdazu verlocken ließ, die Lage Gregors noch schreckenerregender machen zuwollen, um dann noch mehr als bis jetzt fur ihn leisten zu konnen. Denn ineinen Raum, in dem Gregor ganz allein die leeren Wande beherrschte, wurdewohl kein Mensch außer Grete jemals einzutreten sich getrauen. (DL 163)91

Even if we could be tempted to distrust some of the final words of thispassage as coming from an in pessimam partem interpretation,92 what we


know about Grete allows us to infer that her behavior is not dictated by well-intentioned purposes, but by ruthless, selfish interests. Her purpose is patentlyfar from the noble intention that the optimistic rationalization by the narrativevoice had formerly attributed to her.

That the explanation according to which Grete would like to makeGregor’s movements easier is an untenable rationalization is further con-firmed by the fact that it creates, in turn, a new problem. We know that everytime Grete goes into her brother’s room he hides under the couch (becauseshe behaves as if his sight were unbearable to her), so that she cannot seehim.93 Hence, every attentive reader will conclude that Grete cannot haveperceived her brother’s movements. But then, if she has not seen Gregormoving in his room, how could she know that Gregor crawls over the ceilingand walls? This question must be anticipated by the narrative voice. In orderto answer it, the narrator (reflecting Gregor’s perspective) resorts to an aux-iliary explanation which had already been used before, namely, the existenceof the sticky substance:

a) The sister tries to make Gregor’s movements easier (victimary version)b) But she never sees Gregor, so she cannot know that he walks on the

ceiling and walls (truth)c) She knows of his movements since he leaves traces of a sticky substance

(rationalization)

Once we realize that it is the subjective perspective of the main characterthat is speaking here, and that this perspective reproduces time and again thesame kind of rationalization typical of the victimized Gregor, we can under-stand what really happens. The second reference to Klebstoff is nothing butan attempt by the central character to become convinced that his sister is notwhat she actually is, namely, a ruthless girl lacking any scruples. This ration-alization implies a reassuring view that leaves Gregor with some hope in arather hopeless situation, but it is completely unreliable. Just as the “expla-nations” of the relatives’ insensitive behavior contrived by the narrator areincredible, so is the “explanation” resorting to the sticky substance. It hasnothing to commend it except that it gets Gregor out of the difficulty createdby his own naive view about Grete.

We should now return to the text cited at the beginning of this sectionto grasp how brilliantly Kafka has reflected the distortion of facts that takesplace in a situation of corrupt objectivity, namely, a situation in which vio-lence and injustice go unnoticed as truth has been successfully replaced byits opposite. The passage where the second reference to “Klebstoff” is founddoes indeed utterly misrepresent reality. It begins with a purported fact (“DieSchwester nun bemerkte sofort die neue Unterhaltung, die Gregor fur sichgefunden hatte”), continues with a second purported fact (“er hinterließ jaauch beim Kriechen hie und da Spuren seines Klebstoffes”), and then draws


an apparent conclusion (“und da setzte sie es sich in den Kopf, Gregor dasKriechen in großtem Ausmaße zu ermoglichen und die Mobel, die es verhin-derten, also vor allem den Kasten und den Schreibtisch, wegzuschaffen”). Aclose reading of the text allows us to conclude, however, that the truth isutterly different—in fact, it is just the opposite—. The only true fact is thelast one mentioned in the passage: Grete has decided to remove the furniture.Given that this decision is disturbingly cruel for Gregor, he rationalizes it byinventing an explanation designed to safeguard his positive image of his sis-ter: she would have taken the decision of making Gregor’s movements easier.In other words: Grete does not infer the existence of Gregor’s odd displace-ments from the actual presence of the sticky substance (she cannot do sobecause Gregor’s crawling activity over the ceiling and walls has only takenplace in Gregor’s imagination, and because the sticky substance lacks anyreality); quite the opposite, it is Gregor himself who mistakenly deduces theexistence of the substance from his imaginative explanation according towhich his sister wants him to move freely and undisturbed. Hence, there isno external evidence in corroboration of the existence of the “Klebstoff”.

A further indirect proof that the alleged sticky substance does not exist(and that Gregor is nothing but a human being) is Grete’s speech in the thirdpart of the novella. In that speech, aiming at legitimizing Gregor’s extermi-nation and at persuading her parents to get rid of him, Gregor becomes theobject of a whole string of accusations, according to which he is guilty ofevery evil, and is designated as “Tier” and “Untier.” The revealing thing,however, is that in this wholly fallacious speech, which piles upon Gregorthe most degrading charges, there is no reference to the “Klebstoff” that Gretewould supposedly have seen before. Just as the speech lacks any mention ofGregor’s purported many legs, antennae, and monstrous appearance, so itlacks any mention of the alleged climbing and the sticky substance. Thisconspicuous absence is eloquent since, if Gregor were actually a monstrousvermin exuding a sticky substance, this would be enough to justify the willto get rid of it, and Grete would not have failed to mention it as an extremelydisgusting feature of him.

The two references to the sticky substance do not have an autonomousvalue. They rather work as a device through which the narrator (reflectingGregor’s mind) tries to account for experiences that he can only feel as puz-zling. Those references, therefore, only constitute an ad hoc hypothesis in theface of experiences that refute Gregor’s distorted self-perception and his naiveview of Grete as a benevolent person, and which he cannot otherwise ex-plain—and that the readers could not explain either, if they assume the ex-istence of a metamorphosis—. Once we have unveiled the fantastic nature ofthe narrator’s “explanations”, we can infer that the “Klebstoff” does not exist.It belongs, along with the purported metamorphosis or the crawling over theceiling and walls, to the realm of a distorted consciousness.


9. Conclusions and Further Remarks

The consequences of our reading for the Kafka-Forschung are indeed far-reaching. One of the pillars of the prevailing entomological interpretation ofDie Verwandlung—the idea that Gregor actually crawls over the ceiling andwalls—has been proved to be unreliable. The information about Gregor’spurported crawling and sticky substance exclusively comes—in the same wayas other information provided by the narrative voice—from his distorted self-perception, and it should be accordingly dismissed as distorted reality.94 Oncemore, the allegedly obvious proofs that Kafka describes a metamorphosis ofhis main character into a monstrous vermin show their inconsistency whenthe text is carefully examined.

This conclusion confirms our view that in Die Verwandlung manypieces of information on Gregor—and on other characters—are not to betrusted, as its narrator is not always trustworthy. Within the novella, true andfalse information coexist. Far from being surprising, this fact is utterly un-derstandable and it is to be expected in light of the reading I have advancedin former articles: in a victimary context, there is always true and false in-formation (conflicting versions) about the victim and the persecutors, so that,in order to understand what is really taking place and not to be deceived, wemust face the difficult task of discerning lies from truth, the reliable materialfrom the unreliable. Such a differentiation requires us to identify the distor-tions that characterize the words and/or the behavior of the various charac-ters.95 Only once the distortions at work are detected, can we understand whatKafka has really told in his fascinating text.

The survey carried out in the previous pages may appear to be a rathercomplex approach to the text. This complexity, however, is not imposed uponbut emerges from the text itself. For instance, the fact that the author hasplaced such great emphasis on Gregor’s ability to stand up is meaningful, allthe more so because it generates the need for explanations, and thus for thenarrator to invent an imaginary sticky substance. Put another way: if Kafka’saim had been to tell us a metamorphosis story, the existence of a doublecomplication—passages reflecting Gregor’s ability to stand up and the ra-tionalization that explains this ability—would be inexplicable, as it would benonsensically superfluous. Likewise, the fact that the author unmistakablysuggests that Grete’s behavior harms Gregor is revealing, as by doing so hecreates the need for the narrator to exculpate Grete through subsidiary expla-nations, which demands the use (once more) of the device of the sticky sub-stance. We find again in the text a double complication, which Kafka couldhave easily spared himself if his aim had been to convince us of Grete’sgoodness.96 We can also detect this complication in the information providedabout the “crawling”: every time we are told about this purported ability, weare provided with much information hinting at the presence of important


distorting factors at work that make the reality of that activity suspect. IfKafka’s purpose had been to persuade us to believe in the existence of suchcrawling, he could have spared himself the creation of such a convoluted text.The complexity itself proves that he never wished his readers to believe thatthe crawling and the sticky substance are part of the intra-narrative truth.

We should realize that this complexity is to be expected in light of myoverall hypothesis. In his longest story, Kafka has given expression to all thetwists and turns of the victimization processes taking place within a victimarycircle, and one of them is precisely the distortion of the victim’s mind throughthe physical and psychological violence inflicted on him by the persecutors,implying that the victim develops a self-debasing perception. Given thatKafka has thereby reflected in his work the phenomenon of corrupt objectiv-ity, the distorted view of Gregor is presented by the narrator as if it were thetruth. And this, in turn, makes it difficult for an observer to discover the actualtruth. Kafka himself was well aware of the extreme difficulty of attaining thetruth when the lie has deep roots. The narrator of Forschungen eines Hundesputs it in the following terms: “Und es zeigt sich dabei zwar nicht die Wahr-heit—niemals wird man soweit kommen—aber doch etwas von der tiefenVerwurzelung der Luge” (NSF II 448).97

In Die Verwandlung, the Prague writer has reached one of the heightsof his mastery and achieved several inextricably linked goals. On the onehand, through the pseudo-information such as Gregor’s climbing and pseudo-explanations such as that of “Klebstoff” he has managed to show the seri-ousness of the distortion of a human consciousness within a victimary context(Gregor’s mind is sometimes distorted to such an extent that not even hisown experiences are capable of undoing the confusion he suffers), and therebythe kaleidoscopic malignancy of the victimization processes and the labyrin-thine perfidy of the phenomenon of corrupt objectivity. On the other hand,by scattering his text with much information concerning the factors that distortboth Gregor’s consciousness and the words and behavior of the other char-acters, and by virtue of the inconsistency of the explanations contrived by thevictim and recounted by the narrative voice, the writer has provided histhoughtful readers with a kind of Ariadne’s thread leading them out of thelabyrinth.

The disturbing thing, of course, is to realize that many readers andscholars who do not perceive the intra-narrative fiction will go on foreverrepeating the same hackneyed and futile cliches that so many others haveproclaimed before them: that Die Verwandlung is an absurd and incompre-hensible story and that a desperate human victim lying impotent on the flooris a monstrous vermin crawling on the ceiling and walls.

1 I am deeply grateful to Ulf Abraham, Walter Meyerstein, and Ramiro Moar for theirhelpful and encouraging comments on an earlier draft of this paper. My heartfelt thanks go also


to the anonymous reviewers of Monatshefte, whose critical remarks have led me to qualify andfurther explain some of my statements.

2 There is admittedly a minority of scholars (Friedrich Beißner, Robert Ulshofer, RudolphBinion, Frank Mobus . . .) who have never agreed with the prevailing view, and who havesuggested that the “metamorphosis” could be, for instance, simply a Wahnidee on Gregor’spart.

3 In the most extensive monograph written on this novella, Binder speaks of “das un-verstandliche Werk” and “die Unverstandlichkeit des Dargestellten” (Binder, Kafkas “Ver-wandlung” 439); “The expectation of complete understanding must remain unfulfilled” (Hib-berd, Die Verwandlung 51); “Es ware naiv und falsch zu sagen, Kafkas ‘Verwandlung’ bedeuteetwas Bestimmtes” (Vietta and Kemper, Expressionismus 78). Concerning Gregor, Heinz Pol-itzer speaks about “unentratselbarer Komplexitat” (Politzer, Franz Kafka 131). “Insoluble co-nundrum” (Gallagher, Metamorphosis 141).

4 For a thorough explanation of the notion of “corrupt objectivity”, see Bermejo-Rubio,“Die Luge wird zur Weltordnung gemacht”; Id., “Truth and Lies” 456–460.

5 “Der Reisende, der fast das ganze Jahr außerhalb des Geschaftes ist, so leicht ein Opfervon Klatschereien, Zufalligkeiten und grundlosen Beschwerden werden kann, gegen die sichzu wehren ihm ganz moglich ist, da er von ihnen meistens gar nicht erfahrt.” (DL 136).

6 See, for instance: “Schuld”, “Gewissensbissen”, “Vorwurfe”, “Ungluck”, “Unheil”,“Verdacht”, “Strafe”, “Verfolgung”, “Plage”, “Zusammensturz”, “Opfer”, “opfern”.

7 Before his “transformation” (nothing but an illness; see infra, section 2), Gregor hasbeen the victim of his family in several ways: a) he has been working himself into the groundfor them (DL 116–118, 126), whilst they lead a very comfortable life (DL 144, 154–155); b)he has been unscrupulously deceived, not only regarding his relatives’ ability to work, but alsoby his father about the true extent of the debt and the family finances (DL 151–154); c) becauseof his exacting job, he is a deeply unhappy person, who leads an unsatisfactory life in virtuallyevery aspect, lacking proper sleep, decent food, and lasting relationships (DL 117). After his“transformation”, his status of victim is even more evident. d) Before leaving his room for thefirst time, he is harassed by his relatives (DL 119–120, 126–127), and is slandered by themanager of the firm (DL 128–129); e) On several occasions, he is brutally mistreated—some-times bordering on the sadistic—by his father, and this mistreatment causes him physical andpsychological wounds (DL 140–142, 169–171); f) He is abandoned by his relatives: his fatherand his sister prevent his mother from visiting him (DL 158–159), and the only time she entershis room is to help Grete to remove some furniture (DL 159–165); g) His sister Grete treatshim as if he had a foul, contagious disease and a disgusting odour, and provides him with rancidfood (DL 147–148; 157–159); g) He is treated with disdain and disrespect by the cleaningwoman (DL 179–180); h) He is slandered by Grete, who tries to persuade her parents to get ridof him (DL 189–191). Not to take all this seriously into account leads to gross misinterpreta-tions: “Erst die Fursorge Gregors macht [ . . . ] seine Angehorigen in gewisser Beziehung zuOpfern” (Binder, Kafkas “Verwandlung” 458). For a thorough explanation of the victimarynature of the story, see Bermejo-Rubio, “Truth and Lies” 434–445, 450–455.

8 Note that Gregor is innocent only in the sense that he is not guilty of the charges forwhich he is blamed by other characters, but he is not presented in the least by Kafka as a moralparadigm. For important qualifications on Gregor’s moral character, see Bermejo-Rubio, “Truthand Lies” 439–445.

9 This is what Friedrich Beißner, in two famous articles, called “Einsinnigkeit der Per-spektive”: “Aber darin liegt das Besondere [ . . . ] daß der Erzahler im Augenblick nicht mehrzu wissen scheint als der Zuhorer oder Leser. Der Erzahler – das ist das Geheimnis derWirkung – ist nirgends dem erzahlten voraus, auch wenn er im Praeteritum erzahlt” (Beißner,Der Erzahler 32); “Und das is Kafkas Errungenschaft, [ . . . ] die wundersame Einsinnigkeit derDarstellung, die den Erzahler eins werden laßt mit der Gestalt seiner Kunst, auch wo er in derdritten Person berichtet [ . . . ] Neben dem empirischen Vorgang ist also kein Raum fur denErzahler mehr und erst recht nicht fur dozierende Reflexionen” (Beißner, Kafka der Dichter12–13); see also Pascal, Kafka’s Narrators 32f; 55f.

10 See my articles in the Works Cited list. As to the last question, the current assumptionthat Die Verwandlung belongs to the long literary history of metamorphoses is unwarrantedand wholly misleading. Despite so many claims about the alleged impact of fairy tales and


fantastic literature such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses or Apuleius’ The Golden Ass on Die Ver-wandlung, no scholar has been able to prove it. In fact, a survey of the most convincing pre-texts and literary echoes in Die Verwandlung (Dostoyevsky’s The Double, Dickens’ DavidCopperfield, Sacher-Masoch’s Venus im Pelz, Gordin’s Der wilde Mensch, Christian Gospels)proves that those works have striking features in common. Firstly, far from fantasy, monstersand metamorphosis, all of them unmistakably relate stories regarding human beings. Secondly,every main character is treated in their respective stories, at different degrees, with physicaland/or psychological violence, and they accordingly undergo a sharp (physical and/or psycho-logical) degradation. Thirdly, the process of degradation reaches such an extent that, in everycase, the protagonist is compared to an animal. See Bermejo-Rubio, “Convergent LiteraryEchoes”.

11 When confronted by even severe and prolonged anomalies, scientists do not renouncethe paradigm they hold, as “they do not [ . . . ] treat anomalies as counter-instances, though inthe vocabulary of philosophy of science that is what they are” (Kuhn, Structure 77); “They willdevise numerous articulations and ad hoc modifications of their theory in order to eliminateany apparent conflict” (ibid. 78).

12 See e.g. Ulshofer, “Entseelte Wirklichkeit” 32; Politzer, Franz Kafka 119; Henel, “DieGrenzen der Deutbarkeit” 71; Abraham, Franz Kafka. Die Verwandlung 31; Binder, Kafkas“Verwandlung” 192, 472; Weninger, “Sounding out the Silence of Gregor Samsa” 105; Sinka,“Kafka’s Metamorphosis” 151; Gallagher, Metamorphosis 132.

13 “Und er flog, heftig blutend” (DL 142); “als sichtbares Andenken im Fleisch” (DL 172).14 “Er fuhlte den Hals steif werden” (DL 192).15 In the third part of the story the narrator states that Gregor also has hair (“Haare”) on

his body (DL 184). Presumably this is his own hair.16 “Unter unaufhorlichen angstlichen Seitenblicken nach dem Vater” (DL 141).17 “Ein Splitter verletzte Gregor im Gesicht” (DL 167).18 “Trotz aller Not konnte er bei diesem Gedanken ein Lacheln nicht unterdrucken” (DL

124); “Mit vor Befriedigung tranenden Augen verzehrte er den Kase” (DL 148).19 “Um fur die sich nahernden entscheidenden Besprechungen eine moglichst klare

Stimme zu bekommen, hustete er ein wenig ab” (DL 132); “er konnte nur essen, wenn derganze Korper schnaufend mitarbeitete” (DL 143; see also DL 192).

20 The verbs which are used leave no room for doubt: “sich aufrichten” (DL 130, 141),“aufrecht stehen” (DL 130), “sich aufrecht halten” (DL 132, 133, 153).

21 “Gregor erschrak, als er seine antwortende Stimme horte, die wohl unverkennbar seinefruhere war” (DL 119). The mother asks Grete to call for a doctor after having heard Gregor’sfirst speech: “Rasch um den Arzt. Hast du Gregor jetzt reden horen?” (DL 131). Besides, thenarrator describes what Gregor does with the verbs rufen, sagen, sprechen and the substantivesWorten (DL 120, 137) and Gesprach (DL 120).

22 “Herr Samsa”, rief nun der Prokurist mit erhobener Stimme, “was ist denn los? Sieverbarrikadieren sich da in Ihrem Zimmer, antworten bloß mit ja und nein . . .” (DL 128) Andthe mother says: “bestimmt ist ihm nicht wohl, trotzdem er es am Morgen geleugnet hat”(DL 127).

23 Many scholars who are unable to reconcile the details concerning Gregor’s body (“Wirhaben kein uberzeugendes Ganzes vor uns”) prefer to draw unfounded inferences: “Die leib-lichen ‘Daten’ durfen also nicht als Fakten verstanden werden” (Schubiger, Die Verwand-lung 56).

24 The statement by Stanley Corngold (“The omniscient narrator of the close of the storyconfirms Gregor’s body to be actually verminous”: Franz Kafka 74) is another example ofarbitrariness, as the narrator of the final part of the story is not omniscient at all, but suffers thesame limitations (including the space-time indications: “Als die Bedienerin kam”; “Sie be-schlossen, den heutigen Tag zum Ausruhen”: DL 198) that characterize the previous narrativevoice. This is proved by the value judgments (“Sie hatten diese Arbeitsunterbrechung nicht nurverdient, sie brauchten sie sogar unbedingt”: DL 198), and especially by the fact that very oftenthe narrator of the “epilogue” can only surmise, without being able to guarantee the correctnessof his many conjectures: “als ob sich die Dinge in seinem Kopf zu einer neuen Ordnung zu-sammenstellten [ . . . ] und sah zu Herrn Samsa auf, als verlange er [ . . . ] wie in Angst [ . . . ]”(DL 197).


25 “ ‘Ihm ist nicht wohl’, sagte die Mutter zum Prokuristen, wahrend der Vater noch ander Tur redete, ‘ihm ist nicht wohl, glauben Sie mir, Herr Prokurist’ ”; “Bestimmt ist ihm nichtwohl, trotzdem er es am Morgen geleugnet hat.”; “ ‘Grete! Grete!’ schrie sie dann [ . . . ] ‘Dumußt augenblicklich zum Arzt. Gregor ist krank. Rasch um den Arzt’.” (DL 126, 127, 131).The mother’s insistence that Gregor is ill is significant, as—unlike the father and the sister—the mother is never depicted as someone who lies or provides false information.

26 DL 129–30. The proof that this is not an excuse or an invention is the fact that Gregorhints at the possibility of an inter-subjective verification of his claims: his relatives must havebeen able to tell that he was not fine.

27 “Daß die Veranderung der Stimme nichts anderes war, als der Vorbote einer tuchtigenVerkuhlung, einer Berufskrankheit der Reisenden, daran zweifelte er nicht im geringsten”(DL 121).

28 DL 116 (“einen noch nie gefuhlten, leichten, dumpfen Schmerz zu fuhlen begann”),120, 121, 125, 131 (“auf die Schmerzen im Unterleib achtete er gar nicht mehr, so sehr sie auchbrannten”). Later, his “Leiden” and his “leidender Zustand” are mentioned (cf. DL 138, 191).

29 “The family treats him not as transmogrified but as disgustingly sick” (Binion, “WhatThe Metamorphosis means” 217). In fact, the scene depicting the parents waiting outsideGregor’s room while his sister tidies it up, and Grete telling them in detail whether Gregor hadshown some improvement is obviously a description of the anteroom of a convalescent person,and would make no sense at all if the main character were a monstrous vermin: “Nun aberwarteten oft beide, der Vater und die Mutter, vor Gregors Zimmer, wahrend die Schwester dortaufraumte, und kaum war sie herausgekommen, mußte sie ganz genau erzahlen, wie es in demZimmer aussah, was Gregor gegessen hatte, und ob vielleicht eine kleine Besserung zu bemer-ken war” (DL 158). Another reference to Gregor’s possible “Besserung” is found: “Und ist esnicht so, als ob wir durch die Entfernung aller Mobel zeigten, daß wir jede Hoffnung aufBesserung aufgeben und ihn rucksichtslos sich selbst uberlassen?” (DL 161).

30 For a detailed analysis of this issue, see Bermejo-Rubio, “Truth and Lies” 445–450.Several decades ago, at least two scholars realized that Kafka depicts Gregor as ill. See DalmauCastanon, “El caso clınico de Kafka” 385–388; Ulshofer, “Entseelte Wirklichkeit” 27–36. Un-fortunately, the obsession with the purported “metamorphosis” has prevented most scholarsfrom taking the relevant information into account.

31 When we are told for the first time about the crawling, we are also told that the sisterimmediately notices the new entertainment (“die Schwester nun bemerkte sofort die neue Un-terhaltung”: DL 159–160). Then she decides to plunder Gregor’s room. It is in this episodewhen we are told that two months have gone by: “im Laufe dieser zwei Monate” (DL 162).

32 “Die Schlussel steckten nun auch von außen” (DL 145); “Gefangenschaft” (DL 151).There are several references to the small size of Gregor’s room: “ein richtiges, nur etwas zukleines Menschenzimmer” (DL 115); “den paar Quadratmetern des Fußbodens” (DL 159).

33 Here Gunther Anders’ inaccuracy is clear: “Also wacht in der ‘Verwandlung’ Samsaals Kafer auf, der an der Zimmerdecke zu kleben liebt” (Anders, Kafka. Pro und Contra 40).Gregor does not wake up as Kafer, nor loves to climb. Of course, one could claim that DieVerwandlung recounts a story of development in Gregor’s body (this claim has sometimes beenadvanced): Gregor would only develop into a full beetle after some time, thus acquiring theability to crawl. Unfortunately, such an approach is not explanatory at all. For instance, if Gregorhad developed into a full subhuman being at the end of the second part of the story, why wouldthe father speak about Gregor with the masculine pronoun “er”? Why would the narrator usethe term Leiche (not Kadaver) to describe Gregor’s corpse? Why would the family cross them-selves in the face of the corpse? Why would Grete’s speech in the third part of the story be soutterly inconsistent? There are dozens of questions like these that the entomological paradigm(with or without the idea of a “development”) can not convincingly answer. If we aspire tomake Literaturwissenschaft, we are compelled to accept a hypothesis only when a) it is notcontradicted by the facts (in this case, textual data), and b) it can explain the facts that the otherhypotheses which have been advanced can not explain.

34 “An das Kriechen in der Hohe war nicht zu denken” (DL 172).35 This is particularly so if, as one scholar states, “crawling up and down is an insect’s

instinctive response to a frightening situation” (Sweeney, “Competing Theories of Identity”146).


36 The narrator of Die Verwandlung does not provide the reader with information froma substantially different perspective from that of the main character, and does not give thereaders authoritative moral judgments or norms. See supra, n. 9.

37 For instance, we cannot trust the narrator when he says that it would be extremelyembarrassing and suspicious for Gregor to say he was sick because during his five years withthe firm he had not been sick even once: “Wie nun, wenn er sich krank meldete? Das ware aberaußerst peinlich und verdachtig, denn Gregor war wahrend seines funfjahrigen Dienstes nochnicht einmal krank gewesen” (DL 118). Of course, this would obviously not be suspicious atall! See Ewald Rosch’s apt comment on this passage: “bezeichnende alogische Argumentation,bei der Gregor die Sicht des Firmenchefs internalisiert: Was funf Jahre lang storungsfrei funk-tionierte, habe erst recht keinen Grund, einmal nicht zu funktionieren” (Rosch, Die Verwand-lung 163).

38 See Bermejo-Rubio, “Truth and Lies” 422–429.39 I cannot tackle this issue extensively here, but the reader must notice, at least, that in

Die Verwandlung we find 36 occurrences of als ob constructions, 19 occurrences of scheinen,23 occurrences of vielleicht and 20 occurrences of wohl as an adverb of doubt (most of themare used by the narrative voice). At first glance, for instance, Grete’s speech in which she callsGregor an “animal” and a “monster”, and charges him with several misdeeds is fully justified,but, in fact, when minutely scrutinised, that speech turns out to be nothing but a bundle of lies,slanders and distortions. For a thorough demonstration of this statement, see Bermejo-Rubio,“Grete Samsa’s Inconsistent Speech” passim.

40 “Oder er scheute nicht die große Muhe, einen Sessel zum Fenster zu schieben, danndie Fensterbrustung hinaufzukriechen und, in den Sessel gestemmt, sich ans Fenster zu lehnen,offenbar nur in irgendeiner Erinnerung an das Befreiende, das fruher fur ihn daringelegen war,aus dem Fenster zu schauen” (DL 155). This is, for Kafka, a favourite image of the commu-nication of the person with the world; he wrote in this way to Oskar Pollak November 9, 1903:“Du warst, neben vielem andern, auch etwas wie ein Fenster fur mich, durch das ich auf dieGassen sehen konnte” (Kafka, Briefe 1900–1912 28).

41 “Divertissement—Les hommes n’ayant pu guerir la mort, la misere, l’ignorance, ils sesont avises pour se rendre heureux, de n’y point penser” (Blaise Pascal, Pensees 168).

42 “Es ist schon eine Zerstreuung fur ihn, wenn er sich mit Laubsagearbeiten beschaftigt”(DL 126).

43 “[Die Mutter] setzte sich, als sie bei ihm angekommen war, wie in Zerstreutheit, eiligauf ihn” (DL 139). “Zerstreutheit ist eine Schlusselvorstellung Kafkas. Seine Helden unterliegender Zerstreutheit oft, wenn die Zwange der Außenwelt fur sie am großten sind und sie ihnenzu entfliehen suchen” (Beicken, Die Verwandlung 29).

44 Kafka began to write Die Verwandlung only five weeks later (November 17, 1912).45 Several studies have proved that the perception of people subjected to isolation can

dramatically change, to the point of having a variety of delusions and hallucinations. See e.g.Grassian, “Psychopathological Effects”; Zubeck, “Behavioural and Physiological Effects”.

46 “Keine ganz vertrauenswurdige Lunge besessen hatte” (DL 170).47 In the third part of the story, we find again Gregor’s fantasizing imagination: “Die

Nachte und Tage verbrachte Gregor fast ganz ohne Schlaf. Manchmal dachte er daran, beimnachsten Offnen der Tur die Angelegenheiten der Familie ganz so wie fruher wieder in dieHand zu nehmen” (DL 176). This is nothing but “halluzinatorische Allmachtsphantasien”(Fingerhut, “Die Verwandlung” 54).

48 Compare with the opinion of several authors, according to whom Gregor “a atteint unecondition superieure a la condition humaine: la capacite de s’elever, la souveraine legerete desoiseaux et des anges, un bonheur tout a la fois physique et spiritual, le don incomparable dujeu, la joie contemplative” (Citati, Kafka 84).

49 “Er erkannte daraus, daß ihr sein Anblick noch immer unertraglich war und ihr auchweiterhin unertraglich bleiben musse, und daß sie sich wohl sehr uberwinden mußte, vor demAnblick auch nur der kleinen Partie seines Korpers nicht davonzulaufen, mit der er unter demKanapee hervorragte. Um ihr auch diesen Anblick zu ersparen, trug er eines Tages auf seinemRucken—er brauchte zu dieser Arbeit vier Stunden—das Leintuch auf das Kanapee und ordnetees in einer solchen Weise an, daß er nun ganzlich verdeckt war.” (DL 158).

50 Gregor’s room seems to have a high ceiling: “das hohe, freie Zimmer” (DL 145).


51 Of course, Kafka’s skill in reflecting a situation of corrupt objectivity allows the hastyreader to believe that this description is logical: a vermin such as an insect can fall from theceiling without being damaged.

52 Instead of carefully analyzing Kafka’s text, scholars uncritically take it at face value,calling this passage a “delightful interlude” in which Gregor is “swinging like a gymnast fromthe ceiling, walking the walls, defying the material constraint of gravity much like the trapezeartists, circus riders, and floating dogs” (Anderson, Kafka’s Clothes 139). Ironically, what thisscholar considers “delightful” is, according to our reading, one of the passages where Kafkahas more clearly depicted the psychological destruction of a human being: compensatory illu-sions are useless and plunge Gregor even more deeply into impotence.

53 “Sie trat zur Seite, erblickte den riesigen braunen Fleck auf der geblumten Tapete, rief,ehe ihr eigentlich zum Bewußtsein kam, daß das Gregor war, was sie sah, mit schreiender,rauher Stimme: ‘Ach Gott, ach Gott!’ und fiel mit ausgebreiteten Armen, als gebe sie alles auf,uber das Kanapee hin und ruhrte sich nicht.” (DL 166). This collapse has nothing to do withthe sight of a monstrous vermin. It becomes clear throughout the story that collapsing (orsimulating a collapse) is Mrs. Samsa’s favourite strategy to face—or, better said, not to face—delicate situations, so managing to dodge her responsibility. This has been recognised by severalscholars: “Diese Ohnmacht, mit der sie die unfreundliche Welt erfolgreich abweist, ist ihrebevorzugte Antwort auf schwierige Fragen” (Schubiger, Franz Kafka Die Verwandlung 43);“In entscheidungsvollen Augenblicken fluchtet sie sich in Ohnmacht, Husten und Schlafen”(Bodeker, Frau und Familie 38).

54 “Der Vater ballte mit feindseligem Ausdruck die Faust” (DL 134).55 “Er lief dann auch ins Nebenzimmer, als konne er der Schwester irgendeinen Rat geben,

wie in fruherer Zeit; mußte dann aber untatig hinter ihr stehen, wahrend sie in verschiedenenFlaschchen kramte; erschreckte sie noch, als sie sich umdrehte; eine Flasche fiel auf den Bodenund zerbrach; ein Splitter verletzte Gregor im Gesicht, irgendeine atzende Medizin umfloß ihn”(DL 166–167).

56 As will be shown a little later in the text, when the mother begs her husband forGregor’s life (DL 171).

57 In fact, some instants later, his sister says to the father: “Gregor ist ausgebrochen”(DL 168).

58 Bateson, Steps 201. A double bind could also be defined as an emotionally distressingdilemma in communication in which an individual (or group) receives two or more conflictingmessages, in which one message negates the other. This creates a situation in which a successfulresponse to one message results in a failed response to the other (and vice versa), so that theperson will be automatically wrong regardless of their response. Double bind situations aboundin Kafka’s works; see e.g. the illuminating comments in Abraham, Der verhorte Held 15–19;58–59.

59 This idea was firstly developed by Bateson et alii, “Towards a Theory of Schizo-phrenia”.

60 Unfounded feelings of guilt are a recurrent pattern in Gregor: “Wenn die Rede aufdiese Notwendigkeit des Geldverdienens kam, ließ zuerst immer Gregor die Ture los und warfsich auf das neben der Tur befindliche kuhle Ledersopha, denn ihm war ganz heiß vor Bescha-mung und Trauer” (DL 155).

61 Although remaining within the entomological paradigm, Stanley Corngold has rightlyremarked that, in the story, “transformations in the direction of a verminous consciousness areintermittent. They occur during family crises. But during a family crisis anyone could reasonlike a beast” (Corngold—Wagner, Ghosts 72).

62 This is further confirmed by the fact that this is not the only example of confusedreasoning we have in the novella, reflecting Gregor’s perspective. See supra, n. 37.

63 According to the victimary version, the victim is usually categorized as a mean, sub-human being.

64 It is amazing that Kafka scholars have not realized this important detail. See, for in-stance: “Though he can still position himself at the window and crawl over walls and ceilingthrough most of part 2, toward the end of this section he does not even seriously considerescaping onto the walls, especially since the cutting edges and sharp points of the finely carved


furniture provide only dangerous access to them” (Sinka, “Kafka’s Metamorphosis” 151). Thisis another example of how cliches usually prevail over a careful reading of the text.

65 We have a confirmation of this fact in Gregor’s own reflecting one of the few momentsof true lucidity in the victim: “Beim Anhoren dieser Worte der Mutter erkannte Gregor, daßder Mangel jeder unmittelbaren menschlichen Ansprache, verbunden mit dem einformigen Le-ben inmitten der Familie, im Laufe dieser zwei Monate seinen Verstand hatte verwirren mussen,denn anders konnte er es sich nicht erklaren, daß er ernsthaft darnach hatte verlangen konnen,daß sein Zimmer ausgeleert wurde. Hatte er wirklich Lust, das warme, mit ererbten Mobelngemutlich ausgestattete Zimmer in eine Hohle verwandeln zu lassen, in der er dann freilichnach allen Richtungen ungestort wurde kriechen konnen, jedoch auch unter gleichzeitigem,schnellen, ganzlichen Vergessens einer menschlichen Vergangenheit? War er doch jetzt schonnahe daran, zu vergessen, und nur die seit langem nicht gehorte Stimme der Mutter hatte ihnaufgeruttelt. Nichts sollte entfernt werden; alles mußte bleiben; die guten Einwirkungen derMobel auf seinen Zustand konnte er nicht entbehren; und wenn die Mobel ihn hinderten, dassinnlose Herumkriechen zu betreiben, so war es kein Schaden, sondern ein großer Vorteil” (DL162). Alone and confined, the unfortunate Gregor loses his sense of reality and takes refuge inthe “completely different” state of fantasy. Only when he is capable of some lucidity does herightly describe what he suffers as confusion (“verwirren”) of his mind and forgetfulness (“ver-gessen”) of his human nature. The alleged “Herumkriechen” is then labelled as “sinnlos”.

66 The last reference to the alleged crawling over the ceiling is a reference to its impos-sibility: “Und wenn nun auch Gregor durch seine Wunde an Beweglichkeit wahrscheinlich furimmer verloren hatte und vorlaufig zur Durchquerung seines Zimmers wie ein alter Invalidelange, lange Minuten brauchte—an das Kriechen in der Hohe war nicht zu denken—” (DL 172).Let us again note that several features of this passage (the use of “nun” and “wahrscheinlich”or the repetition of the adjective “lange”) betray that the narrative voice comes again fromGregor’s perspective.

67 One of the few scholars who have concluded that there is no metamorphosis at all hasclearly perceived this point: “Where, as here, the narrator indicates no witnesses’ reactions toa putative happening, such a reconstruction of the physical reality behind Gregor’s imaginingslacks dramatic urgency” (Binion, “What The Metamorphosis means” 218).

68 In the first pages of the story many references to Gregor’s “Schmerzen” are found: DL116 (“einen noch nie gefuhlten, leichten, dumpfen Schmerz zu fuhlen begann”), 120, 121, 125,131 (“auf die Schmerzen im Unterleib achtete er gar nicht mehr, so sehr sie auch brannten”);see also the mention of Gregor’s “Kalteschauer” (DL 117).

69 “Tant que la victime est en vie, elle fait partie de la communaute; elle peut doncparticiper a l’unanimite qui se forme contre elle-meme. L’exigence d’unanimite la concerne aupremier chef. Il n’y a aucune raison de l’exempter. Bien au contraire; aucun assentiment n’estplus precieux que le sien [ . . . ] l’efficacite du mecanisme victimaire en depend” (Girard, Laroute antique des hommes perverses 129–130).

70 “Gregor machte nun unmittelbar bei der Wohnzimmertur halt” (DL 144); “Wo er nureinmal Stimmen horte, lief er gleich zu der betreffenden Tur und druckte sich mit ganzem Leiban sie” (DL 150).

71 The context of the ocurrence of the term Ungeziefer in other Kafka texts (especiallyin Der Heizer and Brief an den Vater) shows that it can be used to express contempt for humanbeings.

72 This aspect has been correctly perceived by some scholars: “Der vorgebliche Kaferverfugt zu Beginn der Erzahlung uber normale Sprachfahigkeiten” (Mobus, Sunden-Falle 57).

73 “Gregor erschrak, als er seine antwortende Stimme horte, die wohl unverkennbar seinefruhere war, in die sich aber, wie von unten her, ein nicht zu unterdruckendes, schmerzlichesPiepsen mischte, das die Worte formlich nur im ersten Augenblick in ihrer Deutlichkeit beließ,um sie im Nachklang derart zu zerstoren, daß man nicht wußte, ob man recht gehort hatte”(DL 119).

74 Gregor’s room has three doors. On the meaning and the importance of triads in thestory, see Bermejo-Rubio, “Triads Explained”.

75 Later we are told that, when he listens to the family conversations, he presses uprightagainst the door: “[ . . . ] wahrend er dort aufrecht an der Ture klebte und horchte. Manchmal


konnte er vor allgemeiner Mudigkeit gar nicht mehr zuhoren und ließ den Kopf nachlassiggegen die Tur schlagen, hielt ihn aber sofort wieder fest” (DL 153). See supra, n. 20.

76 “Wir haben das Menschenmogliche versucht, es zu pflegen und zu dulden, ich glaube,es kann uns niemand den geringsten Vorwurf machen.” (DL 189); “der ganzen unschuldigenFamilie” (DL 125).

77 See supra, n. 7; infra, n. 95.78 The mother—the only character taking her son’s side—says that they are tormenting

Gregor: “ ‘Um Gottes willen’, rief die Mutter schon unter Weinen, ‘er ist vielleicht schwerkrank, und wir qualen ihn.’ ” (DL 131).

79 “ ‘Was fur ein stilles Leben die Familie doch fuhrte’, sagte sich Gregor” (DL 144);“Nun war aber der Vater ein zwar gesunder, aber alter Mann, der schon funf Jahre nichtsgearbeitet hatte [ . . . ] er hatte in diesen funf Jahren [ . . . ] viel Fett angesetzt und war dadurchrecht schwerfallig geworden” (DL 154); “denn fur den Vater war das Fruhstuck die wichtigsteMahlzeit des Tages, die er bei der Lekture verschiedener Zeitungen stundenlang hinzog” (DL135). The mother has not had to work, as Gregor’s earnings paid for a maid to take care of thehousework; she has led instead a pleasurable life, attending parties and celebrations with herdaughter: “verschiedene Familienschmuckstucke, welche fruher die Mutter und die Schwesteruberglucklich bei Unterhaltungen und Feierlichkeiten getragen hatten” (DL 175). As for Grete,her life has been similarly comfortable: “Ihre bisherige Lebensweise [ . . . ] daraus bestandenhatte, sich nett zu kleiden, lange zu schlafen, in der Wirtschaft mitzuhelfen, an ein paar be-scheidenen Vergnugungen sich zu beteiligen und vor allem Violine zu spielen” (DL 155).

80 “Nur die Schwester war Gregor doch noch nahegeblieben” (DL 152).81 “Niemals aber hatte er erraten konnen, was die Schwester in ihrer Gute wirklich tat.

Sie brachte ihm, um seinen Geschmack zu prufen, eine ganze Auswahl, alles auf einer altenZeitung ausgebreitet. Da war altes halb verfaultes Gemuse; Knochen vom Nachtmahl her, dievon festgewordener weißer Sauce umgeben waren; ein paar Rosinen und Mandeln; ein Kase,den Gregor vor zwei Tagen fur ungenießbar erklart hatte” (DL 147).

82 See also: “Mit diesem Laufen und Larmen erschreckte sie Gregor taglich zweimal; dieganze Zeit uber zitterte er unter dem Kanapee und wußte doch sehr gut, daß sie ihn gewiß gernedamit verschont hatte, wenn es ihr nur moglich gewesen ware, sich in einem Zimmer, in demsich Gregor befand, bei geschlossenem Fenster aufzuhalten.” (DL 157–158). It is possible toturn this text into the well-known triadic pattern:

a) Grete is well-intentioned (victimary version)b) But she frightens Gregor twice a day with her racing to the window and pulling it

open (truth)c) She behaves in this way because it is impossible for her to stand in a room with

him with the window closed (rationalization).

83 “Ein schoner Abend bei Max. Ich las mich an meiner Geschichte in Raserei. Wir habenes uns dann wohl sein lassen und viel gelacht” (Kafka, Briefe 1913–Marz 1914 115).

84 This means that most critics’ statements about humor in Die Verwandlung miss thepoint. See, for instance: “Die wirkungsvollsten komischen Effekte werden zweifellos durch dieDiskrepanz erzielt, die sich im ersten Kapitel durch die falsche Wahrnehmung Gregors ergibt:Er ignoriert seine Verwandlung und handelt weiter so, als ware er noch im menschlichen Korper.Auch hier empfindet der Leser Uberlegenheit, weil er die Selbsttauschungen Gregors durch-schaut” (Pfeiffer, “Kafka lacht” 19–20). In fact, the funniest and most ironic thing might bethat what scholars take for granted—Gregor’s metamorphosis—lacks any intra-narrative reality.

85 “The insect leaves here a trail of slime” (Boa, “Creepy-crawlies” 24); Fingerhut refersto his “freies, Spuren hinterlassendes Herumkrabbeln an den Wanden und an der Decke”(Fingerhut, “Die Verwandlung” 67); Binder, Kafkas ‘Verwandlung’ 190; Gallagher, Metamor-phosis 130; among many others.

86 “Particolari naturalistici degni di un entomologo” (Baioni, Kafka. Romanzo e Para-bola 85).

87 “Zuerst glitt er nun einigemale von dem glatten Kasten ab, aber endlich gab er sicheinen letzten Schwung und stand aufrecht da [ . . . ] Nun ließ er sich gegen die Ruckenlehneeines nahen Stuhles fallen, an deren Randern er sich mit seinen Beinchen festhielt” (DL130–131).


88 “Oder er scheute nicht die große Muhe, einen Sessel zum Fenster zu schieben, danndie Fensterbrustung hinaufzukriechen und, in den Sessel gestemmt, sich ans Fenster zu lehnen”(DL 155). “Einmal [ . . . ] kam sie ein wenig fruher als sonst und traf Gregor noch an, wie er[ . . . ] aus dem Fenster schaute” (DL 158).

89 See supra (section 6) the comments on the passage beginning “Und aus Zartgefuhl . . .”(DL 147).

90 It is quite clear that, to a certain extent, Kafka has fictionalized here an autobiographicalexperience with his sister Ottla. On October 8, 1912, his brother-in-law Karl Hermann, theowner of an asbestos factory, went away on a business trip. Kafka’s parents then tried topersuade and cajole their son into inspecting the factory. That same day Ottla, who at othertimes had backed him up, “abandoned” her brother by taking her parents’ side. All this happenedonly some weeks before Kafka began to write Die Verwandlung. On these circumstances, seeBinder, “Kafka und seine Schwester Ottla” 417.

91 Let us note the tension in the central part of this text: it is said that Grete “hattetatsachlich beobachtet”, but later it is stated that Gregor did not use the furniture “soweit mansehen konnte”.

92 Note that this same corrupted idea of love is that expressed by Alceste in Moliere’sLe misanthrope (act IV, scene III): “Oui, je voudrais qu’aucun ne vous trouvat aimable, / Quevous fussiez reduite en un sort miserable, / Que le Ciel, en naissant, ne vous eut donne rien, /Que vous n’eussiez ni rang, ni naissance, ni bien, / Afin que de mon Coeur l’eclatant sacrifice/ Vous put d’un pareil sort reparer l’injustice, / Et que j’eusse la joie et la gloire, en ce jour, /De vous voir tenir tout des mains de mon amour”. Understandably, Celimene will respond:“C’est me vouloir du bien d’une etrange maniere!”.

93 “Er war schon langst mit allem fertig und lag nur noch faul auf der gleichen Stelle, alsdie Schwester zum Zeichen, daß er sich zuruckziehen solle, langsam den Schlussel umdrehte.Das schreckte ihn sofort auf, trotzdem er schon fast schlummerte, und er eilte wieder unter dasKanapee” (DL 148); “Kaum hatte sie sich umgedreht, zog sich schon Gregor unter dem Kanapeehervor und streckte und blahte sich” (DL 149); “Einmal, es war wohl schon ein Monat seitGregors Verwandlung vergangen, und es war doch schon fur die Schwester kein besondererGrund mehr, uber Gregors Aussehen in Erstaunen zu geraten, kam sie ein wenig fruher alssonst und traf Gregor noch an, wie er, unbeweglich und so recht zum Erschrecken aufgestellt,aus dem Fenster schaute [ . . . ] sie trat nicht nur nicht ein, sie fuhr sogar zuruck und schloß dieTur; ein Fremder hatte geradezu denken konnen, Gregor habe ihr aufgelauert und habe siebeißen wollen. Gregor versteckte sich naturlich sofort unter dem Kanapee, aber er mußte biszum Mittag warten, ehe die Schwester wiederkam, und sie schien viel unruhiger als sonst. Ererkannte daraus, daß ihr sein Anblick noch immer unertraglich war und ihr auch weiterhinunertraglich bleiben musse, und daß sie sich wohl sehr uberwinden mußte, vor dem Anblickauch nur der kleinen Partie seines Korpers nicht davonzulaufen, mit der er unter dem Kanapeehervorragte. Um ihr auch diesen Anblick zu ersparen, trug er eines Tages auf seinem Rucken—er brauchte zu dieser Arbeit vier Stunden—das Leintuch auf das Kanapee und ordnete es ineiner solchen Weise an, daß er nun ganzlich verdeckt war” (DL 158).

94 This proves that the interpretation according to which the “traces” of the sticky sub-stance would be an allusion to Kafka’s own writing is wholly misguided. See e.g. Fingerhut,“Die Verwandlung” 67 (“Anspielung auf sein Schreiben”). Anecdotically, arbitrariness mani-fests itself to the point that the sentence “Schmutzstreifen zogen sich die Wande entlang” (DL177) has been translated into Catalan in the following way: “Ratlles de brutıcia, testimoni deles trajectories de Gregor [traces of Gregor’s trajectories], corrien d’un cap a l’altre de lesparets” (Llovet, Franz Kafka. La metamorfosi 71). Contravening one of the most elementaryrules of philological accuracy, the sentence in italics has been interpolated, in order to supportan indefensible interpretation.

95 In Die Verwandlung we find many distorting factors: mental confusion, physical andpsychological weakness, ignorance, naivety, heteronomy, abnegation, escapist tendencies, guiltyfeelings and lack of critical thinking in the case of Gregor (and the narrative voice); cowardice,frailty, lack of intelligence, and emotional dependence on the father in the case of the mother;selfishness, brutality, impatience, and hypocrisy in the case of the father; selfishness, ambition,and hypocrisy in the case of the sister; ruthlessness, prejudices regarding his employees, cyni-cism and lack of scruples in the case of the manager, and so on.


96 Let us also take the example of Grete’s speech in the third part of the story: if Kafkahad wanted his readers to think that Gregor is—as his sister states—an animal and a monster,why is her speech unreliable from beginning to end? For a thorough demonstration of theinconsistency of that speech, see Bermejo-Rubio, “Grete Samsa’s Inconsistent Speech”.

97 This sentence should not be misconstrued to mean that truth is in principle unattainableand that, therefore, the sentence undermines my own project to unveil the truth of Kafka’s story.The sentence can and should be understood in the light of the phenomenon that I have called“corrupt objectivity”. In Der Proceß, K. states: “Die Luge wird zur Weltordnung gemacht”.This means that lie/falsehood is not originally the rule of the world (it “becomes”—wird), andthat accordingly a distortion has taken place. This implies, in turn, that it would be possible intheory to distinguish between truth and lie (both in literature and life). But the (depressing) factthat the lie is “made into the rule of the world” means at the same time that it has replacedtruth. In a situation of corrupt objectivity, falsehood has so perfectly supplanted the truth (it isso deep-rooted: tiefe Verwurzelung der Luge) that it becomes virtually impossible to tell onefrom the other. In these circumstances, even if a careful reader can detect the truth, it will remainhidden from inattentive onlookers, to such an extent that sometimes they will never attain thetruth (niemals wird man so weit kommen). In other words, Kafka (rightly) states that truth existsbut that it sometimes cannot be known. In fact, according to my own reading of Die Verwand-lung there is a truth within the story, but that truth is exceedingly hard to find and demandspainstaking work from the reader.

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Fernando Bermejo-RubioAvenida de los Comuneros 46, 4� B37003 [email protected]

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