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Graphos, a creative space maintained by and for undergraduate artists, is spearheaded by students at St. Norbert College, a Catholic, Norbertine, liberal arts institution founded in 1898 on the banks of the Fox River, in De Pere, Wisconsin. Some form of Graphos has been in existence since 1990, staffed by students and faculty, serving the Read More ...
Assessing Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” as a Coming Out Narrative
Since its first publication in 1915, Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” (“Die Verwandlung” in the original German) has been examined many times over by those on the margins of their society. Over the last 106 years, any person or group who, for whatever reason, has been set apart — othered — by a majority group for their difference can relate on some level with Gregor Samsa’s plight and intimately understands his emotional turmoil and sense of isolation. Many marginalized groups have taken up the novella in turn and connected its narrative to their own experiences, to their physical and emotional wounds. The LGBTQIA+ community is no different. Queer theory provides a distinct vocabulary through which to analyze “The Metamorphosis” in relation to the experience of sexual and gender minorities.
Queer theory, as defined by Ali Erol and Lisa Cuklanz in their 2020 article, “Queer Theory and Feminism Methods: A Review,” is “a reactionary academic movement that emerged in the early 90’s against the proliferation of normative approaches to culture and society across academic disciplines on the grounds of sexuality and gender” (215). Erol and Cuklanz go on to explain that the theory has been “expanding… beyond the realm of sexuality to include gender as well as any advocacy, activism, or theorizing about being in the world that takes a counter position to the normativity of a given context” (215). To this end, let us take a counter position by decentralizing the “cisheteronormative” assumptions by which nearly all texts, “The Metamorphosis” included, are plagued, and liberating a text from expectations of straightness and gender rigidity (Fenaughty 630). Instead, let us contemplate what would occur if we considered our main character — Gregor Samsa — a queer figure. While Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is an exploration of otherness in all of its forms, the shape of its story possesses a strong affinity with the real-life experience of “coming out” as a queer person; this similitude opens up the door to a reading of the text as an expression the queer trauma and an object lesson in the deadly consequences of fear and hatred for the other — for the queer.
The beginning of any queer person’s coming out journey is a moment of realization, a self-identification with emotional or physical experiences that they recognize as other; in effect, the person comes out to themself (Brumbaugh-Johnson and Hull 1149). For Gregor, this moment comes as the novella’s opening conceit; Gregor awakes to “[find] himself transformed into a monstrous insect” (Kafka 262). Rising from “troubled dreams” — perhaps the indistinct rumblings of identity-based anxiety — Gregor recognizes his queerness, and just like that, conceives of himself as utterly metamorphosed into something other, inhuman, and monstrous by an unknown force beyond his understanding. The man he was before is no more. In this way, a queer Gregor Samsa begins the story from place of estrangement, no longer seeing himself as a part of humanity from the very first sentence. Of course, Gregor does not accept his transformation without struggle. His first reaction to his situation after the initial confusion falls away is one of attempted avoidance; he asks himself, “‘What if I went back to sleep again for awhile and forgot about all this nonsense’” (Kafka 263)? Yet he finds that sleep is “absolutely impossible,” as his new form will not allow him to roll onto his preferred side. He is unable to merely forget the knowledge he has learned about himself, no matter how horrific it may be. The sudden recognition of your own otherness, insisting that it came from some outside force, on some level wishing that you could go back to before you had this knowledge, before you understood who you truly were: all of these emotions, deeply familiar to any queer person, are seen in Gregor’s first waking moments, starting him on his tragic journey with his queerness.
As a queer person inches closer to opening the closet door, a swirl of emotions consumes nearly every moment as they approach the great reveal of their new, authentic self: denial, bafflement, curiosity. In his mighty struggle to reach the door of his bedroom, Gregor displays each one of these sentiments and more. Almost immediately, Gregor chooses to ignore his new status quo in favor of moving forward with his life as he had lived it before, as if nothing has changed. His line of thinking is solely focused on getting to work and keeping his job — none of his calculations factor in how others will perceive his new form, let alone how he will be able to get to work in the first place, given he now has a plethora of legs he has no idea how to control. He chooses to deny what is happening, even stating that when he finally leaves his bed that “he was looking forward to finding out how this morning’s fantasy would fade away” (Kafka 265). And all this time, Gregor is experiencing new sensations that baffle him. His body is brand new and foreign to him and prevents him time and again from making any progress to the door. He does not understand what it is capable of or how it moves. As he begins to come into his own, he acknowledges his body’s peculiarities clinically, not passing judgement on them but acknowledging their functionality and usefulness, such as when the carapace on his back protects him in his fall from his bed (Kafka 267). Finally, Gregor displays a morbid curiosity about what would happen if he were to leave his room, now that he fully comprehends his predicament and is asked to show himself — what would happen if he came out? Gregor insists:
“he actually wanted to open the door, he actually looked forward to showing himself… he was eager to find out what the others, who so wanted to see him, would say when they caught sight of him. If they were frightened, then Gregor was no longer responsible and he could rest in peace. But if they took everything calmly, then he, too, had no grounds for alarm” (Kafka 269).
The sort of indifference that Gregor displays in this passage is seen in queer people who have been in closet for long enough that they are tired of fearing the unknown (Brumbaugh-Johnson and Hull 1165). Gregor is weary — he just wants to go back to bed. Who knows how long he has been living with this knowledge, suppressing it before at last consciously acknowledging it. He hates not knowing the consequences of his identity more than the idea of revealing his truth. Gregor’s fervor to get to the door while for some time possessing a physical inability to do so quickly informs the next step of his journey, the contradictory struggles of a closeted queer person: desiring to be seen while wishing no one will ever know, or that these feelings will simply go away before you are ever tempted to tell anyone.
There exist innumerable reasons to come out, but one thing is for certain: once a queer person does come out, there is little chance of returning to the life they had before, for better or for worse. Gregor’s “coming out” goes nearly as bad as it could possibly go. His mother “first looked toward his father with her hands clasped; then she took two steps toward Gregor and collapsed to the floor” (Kafka 271). Mr. Samsa “clenched his first with a menacing air as if he wanted to knock Gregor back into his room; then he looked uncertainly around the living room, covered his eyes with his hands, and sobbed so hard that his powerful chest heaved” (Kafka 271). His office manager escapes from the apartment in a terrible panic, so perturbed is he by the sight of Gregor. In a 2019 study of transgender people’s coming out stories, the researchers Stacey Brumbaugh and Kathleen Hull broadly explained that “coming out is a process of navigating both the anticipated and the actual reactions of others,” later adding that “transgender people must… consider the worst-case scenario, a reaction of violence” (1162, 1167). Gregor’s lack of expectations makes the horror of this moment all the more intense. However, there is a glimmer in the darkness. Gregor’s family’s extremely poor reaction to his transformation, gruesomely familiar to many queer people, is coupled with a moment of pure bliss, as Gregor fully acts upon the way his legs wish to function, in a sense embracing his queerness, if only briefly. Upon landing
“with a small cry upon his many little legs… he felt a sense of physical well-being for the first time that morning; his little legs had solid ground under them; he was delighted to discover they obeyed him perfectly; they even seemed eager to carry him off in whatever direction he chose; and now he felt sure that the end to all his suffering was at hand” (Kafka 273).
Gregor here experiences the liberating feeling of having revealed his true self, and being able to act upon his desires without needing to hide. For a single moment, his future is boundless — he is able to go in “whatever direction.” But of course, this joyful moment is immediately interrupted by his mother’s cry of distress and his father’s violent insistence that Gregor remove himself from their sight; Mr. Samsa attempts to turn back time by shoving Gregor back into his room — back into the closet. Gregor’s actions and desires are, to his parents, a point of terror and disgust. One of Gregor’s legs is injured from Gregor’s forceful re-entry into “the closet” (Kafka 275). His movement is hindered — he is a little less free after such a terrible coming out. This moment is the start of his trauma. Gregor cannot truly return to the closet — his family knows now. This pivotal moment of the story sets the tone for the rest of the narrative going forward and will largely determine the remainder of Gregor’s journey and life.
When the families of queer people make no attempt at understanding them, if they can no longer recognize that person as one of their own, or even as a person worthy of their compassion and respect, any chance for love and connection becomes increasingly impossible. As they gain confidence in their identity, queerphobic families will distance themselves from them as they become less and less recognizable as the person they knew.
To explore the breakdown of communication between Gregor and his family, we must follow the evolution of his voice. The first time that Gregor speaks after the transformation, he hears what “was unmistakably his old familiar voice, but mixed with it could be heard an irrepressible undertone of painful squeaking, which left the words clear for only a moment, immediately distorting their sound do that you didn’t know if you had really heard them right” (Kafka 264). While Gregor is estranged from his own voice, his mother — the person to whom he was speaking — “was reassured with his announcement and shuffled off” (Kafka 264). The same goes for the rest of his family. This marks the last time Gregor’s words are ever understood by anyone. This is because all of the other Samsas believe that they are addressing the Gregor that they know, a human Gregor. However, once Gregor comes into his own — the moment Gregor can understand himself perfectly, he family cannot understand a word he is saying; he speculates that “perhaps his ears were getting adjusted to the sound,” but his family refuses to meet him halfway, and cannot comprehend him in the slightest, for he is officially not the man they knew (Kafka 270). Gregor explains that “since the others couldn’t understand him, no one thought that he could understand them”(Kafka 278).
This complete and total breakdown of communication begins a process of estrangement which each family member handles differently, by virtue of their willingness to grant their family member some degree of compassion. Grete, Gregor’s sister, is the one with the most sympathy for Gregor in his new form, tasking herself with his feeding and the cleaning of his room. However, Grete’s affections for Gregor eventually deteriorate, as the mental adjustments she is forced to make to believe that a creature such as Gregor could really still be her brother are too much for her to bear. Grete’s estrangement from Gregor culminates in her advocating for his removal from their home, saying: “‘He’s got to go… You must just try to stop thinking that this is Gregor. The fact that we’ve believed it for so long is actually our true misfortune… [if he were to go] then we wouldn’t have a brother, but we could go on living and honor his memory. But instead this creature persecutes us’” (Kafka 297). Alternatively, Gregor’s father negotiates his estrangement from Gregor by avoiding Gregor’s room entirely; and upon seeing Gregor in all his queerness, Mr. Samsa lashes out with violence, nearly killing his son. His mother, for her part, deludes herself into believing the Gregor she knew will return, not wanting to remove Gregor’s furniture from his room so that “‘when Gregor comes back to [them] again, everything will be unchanged and it can be easier to forget what happened in the meantime” (Kafka 283). Eventually, no one in Gregor’s family can reconcile the vermin before them with their idea of their son and brother. Gregor is made utterly other, any faint sense that there is anything human about him erased in his family’s minds. Gregor’s home life following his “coming out” is disturbingly close to the experiences of queer people in unsupporrtive family environments; through his perspective, the backlash of queerphobic family members can be seen through the eyes of the victim of the abuse — the narrative can become centered around their plight.
When a queer person is surrounded by contempt for their true self, it is almost inevitable that they internalize that anxiety and fear; such a negative self-concept often leads to a deep depression and a deterioration of self-worth. The aforementioned study by Shoshana Rosenberg described this internalization as “a process wherein external sources of discrimination, stigmatization, and victimization are taken on by the person experiencing them, thereby negatively impacting their sense of self” (1799). Even the strongest individuals can be brought low by family and societal stigma.
There is no clearer physical manifestation of this decline than the worsening state of the carapace along Gregor’s back. At the start of the novella, his back is “more resilient than Gregor had thought,” but in the violent encounter Gregor has with his father at the end of Chapter 2, an apple “penetrate[s] into Gregor’s back,” causing him “surprising and unbelievable pain” (Kafka 267, 288). This wound remains with Gregor for the rest of his life, and is mentioned in his last moments (Kafka 298). This injury not only cripples Gregor but is a representation of the trauma Gregor endures at the hands of his father and his family as a whole. All of the physical hindrances that are placed upon only drive him deeper into the pit of depression.
Rosenberg additonally cites research which “found that queer people who received negative parental responses to their sexuality were significantly more likely to develop avoidant attachment styles, anxiety, and a low level of self-acceptance” (1792). Gregor’s compulsion to remain unseen and under the couch whenever his sister enters his room, and his increasingly negative self-talk are evident examples of this behavior. Gregor has deeply internalized the contempt which the other Samsas possess for his new form; someone can only be viewed as inhuman for so long before they begin to believe it themself. The depression this self-hatred has brought on is most visible in Gregor’s profound loss of appetite and the loss of energy which may be the result or the cause of the former, if not both. By the last moments of his life, Gregor’s “little legs buckled” and he “couldn’t move at all,” such that “it seemed unnatural to him that until now he had actually been able to get around on those thin little legs” (Kafka 298, my emphasis). Gregor has so internalized his sense of his own otherness that an action that gave him such great joy the morning of his transformation now seems alien and wrong. His family wants him gone, but “his conviction that he must disappear was, if possible, even stronger than his sisters.” (Kafka 298). Gregor’s emotional and physical injury at the hands of his family and his internalization of their hatred prompted a severe dwindling of his sense of well-being and self-worth; these events articulate the inherent trauma of an unaccepting family that many queer people are forced to endure.
By performing a queer reading of “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor Samsa becomes a window into the trauma and pain of living as a queer person in an uncaring and unaccepting society. Now, my intention with this essay is not to override all other readings of the text, but to provide an alternative framework to understand Gregor’s plight and the resonance of his experiences with those of a diverse marginalized group that has been ignored, feared, and despised for centuries upon centuries. As Britta Kallin expresses in her 2020 article “From the Body in Pain to the Body Transformed: Feminist and Trans Readings of Franz Kafka”: “It is impossible to interpret Kafka’s works with only one approach, and new audiences find the multitude of meanings in his works and our postmodern times extremely appealing and fascinating” (53). If we are to consider literature like a 2011 article by Walter H. Sokel, which discusses a neo-Marxist view of what Sokel terms Gregor’s “self-alienation,” alongside the above queer reading, interesting nuances and contradictions reveal themselves. In rough terms, Sokel views Gregor’s metamorphosis as a signifier of his dehumanization under a capitalist society (218). However, though a queer perspective, this othering does not happen to Gregor as much as others do it to him as they are unable to cope with the change, and Gregor internalizes his otherness more and more as the story progresses. Sokel still centers the idea that Gregor’s new form is aberrant, rather than a symbolic representation of the social conception of Gregor’s newly-discovered otherness (215).
Yet beyond the realm of literary debate, recent scholarship around the actual sexuality of Kafka himself opens the grounds for possibly speculating on authorial intent, whether conscious or unconscious (Friedländer 77-81, 83-88). Scholarship of this sort first reached true prominence with Saul Fridländer’s 2013 book Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt; while Friedländer admits “it is highly improbable that Kafka ever considered the possibility of homosexual relations,” the homoeroticism of various parts his non-fiction and his fiction raises the strong possibility that he was, in some way (in the modern parlance), queer (87). Taking the coming out narrative metaphor seriously, the message of “The Metamorphosis” becomes a sharp warning: this is what happens when you fully acknowledge your otherness — your queerness — and make the mistake of showing it to the world. Understanding the text as a possible concretization of Kafka’s fears and anxieties about anyone learning of his queerness gives even greater credence to the reading of Gregor’s story as a manifestation of queer trauma. The potential for trauma is especially apparent given the divided yet equally abhorrent attitudes around homosexuality in particular at the turn of the twentieth century, that “if you were born a congenitally defective person, nothing could make you normal; if your environment made you defective, the shrinks supposedly could cure you” (Morrison 317). This was the debate in which Kafka lived and wrote; if he was queer, it would be no wonder that the concept of exposure would terrify him. But Kafka’s nebulous sexuality notwithstanding, a queer reading of “The Metamorphosis” has genuine value. By transforming the story of Gregor into an object lesson about the repercussions of an othering society which dehumanizes difference, perhaps some perspective and empathy can be gained for those queer individuals in the world who suffer in silence, unable to be understood.
Works Cited
Brumbaugh-Johnson, Stacey M., and Kathleen E. Hull. “Coming Out as Transgender:
Navigating the Social Implications of a Transgender Identity.” Journal of Homosexuality, vol. 66, no. 8, Aug. 2019, pp. 1148–1177. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00918369.2018.1493253.
Erol, Ali, and Lisa Cuklanz. “Queer Theory and Feminist Methods: A Review.” Investigaciones
Feministas, vol. 11, no. 2, July 2020, pp. 211–220. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5209/infe.66476.
Fenaughty, John. “Developing Resources to Address Homophobic and Transphobic Bullying: A
Framework Incorporating Co-Design, Critical Pedagogies, and Bullying Research.” Sex Education, vol. 19, no. 6, Nov. 2019, pp. 627–643. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/14681811.2019.1579707.
Friedländer, Saul. Franz Kafka: The Poet of Shame and Guilt, Yale University Press, 2013.
