Ewa Nowak

Advancing the Human Self


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(««non-human, traumatic experience).

      • “(…) he [Gregor’s father] lifted his feet uncommonly high, and Gregor was dumbfounded at the enormous size of his shoe soles (…) An apple thrown without much force grazed Gregor’s back and glanced off harmlessly (…) The serious injury done to Gregor” (««human experience, conscious suffering and persecution).

      • “ ‘We must try to get rid of it,’ (…) ‘He must go,’ cried Gregor’s sister, ‘that’s the only solution, Father’ … True, his whole body was aching, but it seemed that the pain was gradually growing less and would finally pass away.” “ ‘And what now?’ said Gregor to himself, looking round in the darkness’ ” (««experience of being out of place in the human world).

      • “Then his head sank to the floor of its own accord and from his nostrils came the last faint flicker of his breath” (««non-human existential experience, agony).

      • “(…) the charwoman arrived early in the morning (…) She thought he was lying motionless on purpose (…) her eyes widened (…) ‘Just look at this, it’s dead; it’s lying here dead and done for!’ (…) ‘Dead?’ said Mr. Samsa (…) Indeed, Gregor’s body was completely flat and dry (…) ‘I should say so,’ said the charwoman, proving her words by pushing Gregor’s corpse a long way to one side with her broomstick” (««human consciousness of being perceived and treated as a thing; Freudian impersonal “Es;” reification; annihilation to the brute matter).

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      In contrast, Samsa’s metamorphosis implies a brutal degradation and collapse of his identity. A gradual decline of an “ego” trapped in a body, which in no way resembles Samsa’s original body nor human body. Samsa’s entire identity is inserted into another, primitive living organism, imprisoned and suppressed. ←42 | 43→The new body prevents his previous identity from any kind of manifestation and ability to function in the human world. Living and functioning in a primitive organized bodily microcosmos was a very devastating experience for human beings, Kafka’s message suggests.