Vasishta

And they lived happily after. Or at least, that’s what we are lead to believe. Gregor Samsa turns into a big bug after being the families sole income and focus his whole life. His family slowly starts to resent him in his new buggy form. Then once it feels like his entire family is falling apart, he dies. His family heals; they go on to live wonderful lives. The ending confused me at first. Why the fuck would they be happy their son died? Well I started to ponder. Gregor (the son) caused nothing but trouble for the family. He was a financial liability, dirty, and scared people away. Before he was a bug he had a decent job (which we find out he wasn’t doing well in) to pay off his fathers debts. So I came to two conclusions. Ether Gregor was a metaphor for the burdens we feel under capitalism or a metaphor for how we can turn into bugs under capitalism, maybe both. Of course bugs here mean less than human just beings that consume and do not do anything other than burden the communities we live in (even though bugs are wonderful!). I haven’t looked up what the meaning of the story is because that is lame. I probably haven’t noticed even all the things, but one thing is clear; money is at the core. Gregor ruins his life to be a slave at a company that hates him his entire adult life because of the need for money. Then once he has his metamorphosis, he is burden on the family because he doesn’t make money and forces the family to work to make up for lost money. Actually, this sentence just let me understand the meaning of the story. Gregor no longer can work, so therefor he is useless to the capitalist machine (his family). Thus, they let him die. Then once he does die the family can move on to other business ventures, the sister, and look to extract her for wealth via a suitable husband. Now this may all sound a little loonie and very stream of conscious, that’s because it is. I am live tweeting my thoughts as you will. This conclusion makes sense because Kafka really focuses on the sisters marketability as a wife at the end. Whereas, Gregor wants nothing more to send his sister to school to let her continue to learn the violin. This is where we see the class of ideals. Doing something for education and becoming more human vs being a cog in the money machine of capitalism. Gregor is actually a representation of all of us. He is what we will all become under capitalism if we are not careful. If we believe that there is only one way to live and only one thing to live for, we stay the same. But, if for a moment, we decide that our lives have meaning and that we have goals, we transform. We turn into the ugly bug that capitalism hates so much. Our own family, our peers, coworkers, will turn their backs on us and leave us to die if it serves their best interests of gaining more capital. However, Kafka leaves us with this: if we all have a metamorphosis, then we don’t need what capitalism says we need. We return to nature like bugs.