Gregor King

The Notion of “Insect” in Kafka’s Metamorphosis

The Notion of “Insect” in Kafka’s Metamorphosis

In few other works of modern fiction can we encounter the use of the image of an animal so odious as Kafka’s “insect”. It is said that in the original transcription in German, that the word Ungeziefer is used to convey the term roughly as “insect” but it may refer to vermin just as well; a word which may have been equally abhorrent.

So why is it that Kafka insisted on the specific word insect but not a specific species? Nor why would he not permit, any drawing or other referent or facsimile to its looks on the cover of the book when printed? Why was it important to have such an object of attention receive so much scrutiny but result in such little specific description?

I think that the answer can be found in many of Kafka’s thoughts on the subject of family and society as well as his undermining psychological description of humanity that he and others held at the time of the writing of the story. First, to many of us, insects are not a species to be loved nor for that matter, cared for, readily, so it must be an appreciable consideration for anybody to regard an insect with any amount of concern. (which some of his family members initially were inclined to do). Second, the insect though not specifically described, seemed to have a “beetle like” appearance with a hard or rounded back of a carapace. Third, the animal, into which Kafka had to be transformed had to be large, (as large almost as he) in effort for us as readers and the players to understand that it was Gregor Samsa who had been transformed into this specific insect and not into some insignificant and miss-noticed bug scurrying across the floor like any other common household insect. In fact the insect had, itself, a need to be just so big and neither larger nor smaller: if a bug is detestable, then certainly a big bug would be much more monstrous.

Another consideration that we must indulge is how Gregor Samsa (or Kafka) felt as a member of society and family. We know from other readings that Kafka had a rather low opinion of society members and how each treated their fellow humans. Also we know that he had a poor opinion of government who he felt treated people in inhumane ways. So, it is not too surprising to encounter the analogy of the bug in society and how people are generally disgusted with bugs and how they treat them: distrust, loathe; harbouring germs, mistrust, and above all, exterminable.

His family members behave variously towards the sight of Gregor. Starting with his sister Grete, who initially was very sympathetic towards Gregor and experimented with a diet suitable to him, soon after altered her behavior in a predictable way. This in part led to Gregor’s rapid deterioration and demise. His mother was most affected by Gregor’s appearance, finding him repulsive and very unsettling to look at. His colleague ran, upon his sight of Gregor and many of the house guests once they knew of his existence left the house or were inclined to and demanded that Gregor be removed. And the Charwoman, who is hired to look after Gregor’s needs, gleefully disposes of him once learning that he has died. Last, his father, whose own self image needed improvement, finds that there is someone more loathsome than himself and takes it out on Gregor in a fit of rage by flinging an apple at Gregor’s back which lodges there to fester and eventually kill him.

In fact, though Gregor seems to have the run of freedom to do as he wants, he is in fact a prisoner in his own room” confined like the undesirable that he has become to all. But I think that Gregor uses the time to be self indulgent to his plight as an under appreciated worker and Kafka uses the metamorphosis of the bug to indulge his fantasy that society members are no more nor less than insignificant bugs on the pages of societies history.

To finally analyze why Kafka chose this image of a “monstrous vermin” to symbolize Gregor’s metamorphosis from clerk and family food provider to hideous bug we can conclude the following. It is clear, that when Kafka came to choose what form of thing...his protagonist should transform into, it should be something loathsome so that the other characters could at first be repulsed by, then tolerated then abhorred. A giant bug is certainly a good choice here. Second, it should be a kind of thing which inspires dislike and therefore excludes such animals such that may illicit feelings of beauty, pity, and other anthropomorphic attitudes. And finally, the animal must be unpleasant to actually look at and be familiar enough for people to identify with...such is the odious beetle-like insect.

To conclude, it may be that Gregor felt like an insect himself and so that it was natural for him to emerge as this hateful vermin himself and perhaps Kafka himself thought of members of society being treated as such that inspired him to use this form of reference. At any rate, the choice was perfect. No other choice would have proven to be as illustrative or as bizarre as this choice. In the end, Kafka wanted to b clear enough that his animal was a bug of some kind but not so clear as to precisely identify the species because it didn’t matter that much: suffice that the animal was detestable, grotesque, vile and hated by the readers and by the protagonists in the story.

The Case of Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street"

From the first sentence the reader is introduced to the narrator, “I am a rather elderly man.” From this statement we can assume many characteristics which help us to understand the narrator’s growing relationship with Bartleby the scrivener.

  We can, for example, suppose that the narrator, as he suggests, has great experience in meeting and knowing all sorts of people and is close to the end of his life. A few sentences later we can conclude that his experience has left him rather tolerant of other’s peculiar behavior and he can even overlook the behavior of his employees: he makes excuses and permits them their little unconventional behaviors. He is especially experienced, as he suggests, with the people who take up the work as scriveners, employing many during the course of his work and career. He is a lawyer and by his own admission, not concerned with criminal law or talking to juries or even public praise. He deals with rich men’s mortgage and real estate needs. He seems to be a very practical and uncomplicated man. And by his own admission, he especially values simplicity in life, order and a peaceful environment, which he is used to.

  His employees, before adding Bartleby to the office, consist of three men of various talents with the nicknames of Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut, who were variously named by their peers for there peculiar behavior. These peculiarities are not so uncommon, however, as to be understood.

Turkey

and Nippers are apparent opposites and we are gradually guided to accept that Bartleby and the narrator are opposite characters in philosophies and temperament. This is an important device used by Melville to distinguish one character’s personality and behavior by providing a mirror image of another character in the story and in this way drawing more attention to both. This device is evident in such phrases as:” He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light”; “When Nippers’ was on, Turkey’s was off; and vice versa”; “assumed tranquility, but an inward tremor”; and “Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance”.

 When we are first introduced to Bartleby, the narrator suggests that he immediately hired Bartleby “After a few words touching his qualifications”, because he was “singularly sedate” and “a motionless young man—pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!”

 I think that the story falters here. It should be questioned: would a man of the narrator’s success and position so readily hire an employee, even a lowly scrivener, with so shallow an interview process. I have read other stories of the period where it suggests that it was customary during the time of the story that employees were to furnish many references or were preferably introduced by a relative or acquaintance. I think that this action is out of character with the narrator’s natural behavior and that perhaps, Bartleby so impressed him in some other way, so as to make this hasty choice.

 But before continuing, it is essential that we look at the end of the story, first. We are told in the conclusion of the story that there was a “rumor” that Bartleby had been employed by the Post Office as a “subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at

Washington

”. It seems to be an after-thought of the writer to include this information in efforts to help us understand Bartleby. Surely the narrator would have asked Bartleby, before he was hired, where he worked in the past. So this new and last information seems a contrived addition and not really helpful in understanding Bartleby’s true nature.

 On one level, Bartleby is presented as the opposite of the narrator: Where the narrator is industrious and works towards, commercialism and enterprise, Bartleby proves not to be industrious except at the very beginning of his employment. In fact he chooses to be contrary. Where he is expected to work, he is idle; where he is expected to go, he remains.

 “At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing  for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There  was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light  and by candle-light. I should have been quite delighted with his application,  had be been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely,  mechanically.”

 We see Bartleby in an inhospitable environment of confinement and routine with a wall three feet from him on one side and a folding partition on the other where he could not be seen but merely heard. In fact he is surrounded by people but never engages in social communication. And when expected to be ‘happy’ in his industry, he merely does it “mechanically.”  And we are persuaded to suppose that Bartleby represents the modern man out of synchronization with his natural environment. I think this approach to an explanation is reaching too far even though it is a common interpretation of Bartleby. The first glimpse of Bartleby’s true nature comes, when “Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replies, “I would prefer not to.””

  From this singular phrase I think we can determine much about Bartleby’s true character and how he is regarded by the narrator. The most meaningful inference we can gather from the phrase “I would prefer not to”, is that it denotes willing, informed, choice. Bartleby does not refuse the narrator. If he did, the narrator would have surely fired him immediately for disobedience, as would be expected. Bartley merely resists the request passively. He states his position in a steady speech without malice or aggressive overtones. This first perplexes the narrator and then aggravates him. But he is nonplused by Bartleby still. He is bewildered at this response having never encountered it before in an employee.

 Why does Bartleby use the phrase in this way? I think the exact words imply that Bartleby is a free thinking man and has made a rational choice about his existence and his place in the world. Bartleby is not the pitiful homeless man that the narrator takes him as. The narrator sympathizes with him and even offers him a used coat and asks him home after deciding that he can accept his idiosyncrasies. Frustrated even more, the narrator even tries to provoke him by suggesting “You will not?” and Bartleby repeats himself, “I prefer not” emphasizing the “prefer” as the narrator emphasizes the “will.”

  Because the narrator cannot explain Bartleby’s behavior in any way that his experiences in life have taught him, he tries to justify his position by describing him as “his great stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition,” And “I had a singular confidence in his honesty,” but he very naturally or willfully describes him variously as “sad”, solitary,” “mute” and worthy of his pity and condolences because not explaining him in this way contradicts his general knowledge as to how the world should be and how people in the world are expected to behave.

  Moreover, more frustrating and confusing to the narrator, is Bartleby’s refusal to neither be provoked nor to react. In fact, the tension in opposing forces is this point exactly: Bartleby does not behave in any predictable way. In fact the features and character of Bartleby is what confronts the narrator, not Bartleby as a man necessarily. Bartleby in essence won’t go away; he won’t disappear even when the narrator preposterously moves away, Bartleby won’t disappear and the narrator is held responsible for him as if they are an inseparable pair; one unable to exist without the other. Bartleby’s final statement to the narrator in the prison yard, “I know where I am,” and more to the point, Bartleby knows who he is which is an uncommon condition in the world that the narrator knows.

  Bartleby the scrivener is a man un-manipulated by his environment but who chooses to guide his own life and not submit to the controls of others. The narrator is his opposite as Melville intends to place him. The narrator’s interest and Bartleby's interest come into conflict. The narrator is completely and entirely controlled by his environment even to the point of assigning common and acceptable reasons for Bartleby’s behavior and as mentioned earlier, trying to justify this behavior in a last attempt to convince himself, that he was already in the “dead end” of life. But so in control of his destiny, Bartleby even deliberately chooses the time of his death, lying on his side in a fetal position and closing his eyes. But I believe the narrator really understood the value of Bartleby and understood his courage, when he declared that now he was “With kings and counsellors,” rather an uncommon man.”

  Perhaps the narrator tolerated Bartleby’s behavior because he recognized courage in his attitude that he himself could not muster. And he wanted to show his admiration for Bartleby by his demonstrations of kindness and his sympathetic but ignorant understanding of Bartley’s commitment to his beliefs. 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Giles, Todd. “Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener.” Explicator; Winter 2007, Vol. 65 Issue 2, p88-91, 4p

 

Melville, Herman. “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”. Bartleby .com. July 1999. http://www.bartleby.com/129/.