Kafka: The Metamorphosis

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You will disappoint somebody at some point because everybody has different expectations of you. For most people, this starts with your parents. Then later, it means your friends, your work, and your community. You will be pulled five different ways and expected to be three different people at once, and so you will fall short eventually.

It's this feeling which gets to the heart of one of the most famous novels in #literature , #Kafka The #Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis is about an unexceptional 9-to-5 salesman named Gregor, who has a family to feed and a mortgage to pay, and one day Gregor wakes up as an #insect . As you can expect, everyone is repulsed by Insect Gregor, as I suspect all of us would be. If your spouse or parents suddenly grew salivating mandibles and four extra legs, how far do you think you could continue to be around them?

Kafka's novel is undeniably weird, but it's meant to be. It's jarring, awkward, and absurd because it's about being alienated from everything you've ever grown up with. It's about disappointing others’ expectations—and your own. It’s any moment in life when you may find yourself vilified and despised for choosing a path which is unacceptable.

Kafka's novel ends darkly because Gregor cannot find his space in the world. He is just as revolted by himself as others are by him. He cannot exist as he is.
The world today is perhaps not so bleak. It's much easier to find your niche, not least on the internet. But Kafka's novel does raise an interesting question: how far do we actually accept someone's metamorphosis?

#book #philosophy #existentialism #acceptance