The Concept of Alienation in Franz Kafka’s

THE METAMORPHOSIS and A HUNGER ARTIST

Back. Further back into the recesses of the human brain, beyond the neo-cortex and the limbic
system. Beyond the ancestral reptilian brain there lies yet undiscovered by scientists the primaeval
foundation of our fears: the Megalithic insect; it is no coincidence that modern puppeteers have
chosen insect forms and deformations for their science fiction horror creatures (from spine chilling
Alien to tummy tickling MIBs).

Kafka knew about this and unleashed the horror in his watershed classic THE METAMORPHOSIS, a
clear forerunner of Sterling’s Twilight Zone. Unearthing the terrors that lie hidden in all of us, K
(and it is amazing how an author has managed to monopolize a letter, for not even Shakespeare has
asserted possession of the S! – Shaw would have impeached it anyway...) decided to turn his “hero”
into an insect, leaving it to us to decide which, and though not many details are given, we somehow
tend to follow our fears, and believe that Gregor became a cockroach of sorts and not a ladybird.

Perhaps the most stirring factor to be found in the tale is the “normality” with which Gregor Samsa
greets his change as though he were expecting it to happen, as though it had happened before, as
though it could all be dreamt away. This, in a way, helps us share his “welt-und-shang” for who
hasn’t dispelled life’s shortcomings, waving them aside as restraining cobwebs of the flimsiest
gossamer? “What about sleeping a little longer and forgetting all this nonsense, he thought 1”.
Whilst there are many disturbing elements in the story, and many surprises await the unsuspecting
reader, perhaps one of the most shocking ~ and most difficult to assimilate ~ is the fact that Gregor
seems to accept this new condition of his quite easily, apparently not aware of the true nature of his
predicament, “Gregor felt really quite well, apart from a drowsiness that was utterly superfluous
after such a long sleep... ...Gregor had a shock as he heard his own voice answering hers,
unmistakably his own voice, it was true, but with a persistent horrible twittering squeak behind it...
”. Thus Gregor has alienated himself, cut himself off from the only tether that could still bind him
2

to reality: the reader, who, powerless, cannot reach out to him, and is reduced to the position of an
ineffectual witness of Gregor’s impending self-destruction.

1
Franz Kafka “THE COMPLETE STORIES” translated by Wilda and Edwin Muir, edited by Nahum S.
Glatzer, Shocken Books, New York, 1971, page 89.
2
Ibid. page 91
Gregor makes his room his world and one wonders if he has been caged in or if he has caged the
world out. True we have his father and sister slamming the door behind him and locking him up
for “...even the keys were on the side of the doors 3”, but there is this pervading feeling of
contentment throughout, referring to it as “his warm room 4”. The parallelism between his plight
and that of the Hunger Artist rises here with the question: why are they victims of their society?
Have they both perhaps unconsciously cocooned themselves off to avoid coming in contact with a
human society that is totally alien to them with a set of values they both find incomprehensible?
The Hunger Artist revels in his Spartan cage: “What comfort could he possibly need? What more
could he possibly wish for?5”. Society does not deal gently with non-conformists, and whilst both
strive to be accepted, Gregor pleading for the chief clerk’s sympathy and understanding, and the
Hunger Artist ruefully accepting to end his fasting after forty days being “...cheated of the fame he
would get for fasting longer...6”, they fail dismally and must pay for it with their lives.

Both Gregor Samsa and the Hunger Artist are not understood by the society they are immersed in;
the former’s case being far worse as he has to listen to his family deciding to get rid of him “he must
go... ...that’s the only solution7”, the disabled member of the family must be disposed of. One
cannot but agree with Albert Camus once said that “the whole of Kafka’s art consists in compelling the
reader to re-read him”, and one wonders if Die Verwandlung, which saw print in Leipzig in 1915, may
have inspired some of the brutal cleansing that was to sweep Germany two decades later.

Gregor progressively loses touch with reality. He relives past moments “...there appeared in his
thoughts the figures of the chief and the chief clerk, the commercial travellers and the apprentices,
the porter...8”, and is prone to day dreaming, thus “He was often haunted by the idea that the next
time the door opened he would take the family’s affairs in hand again just as he used to do; 9”. But
beyond this, he physically starts drifting into his inner maelstrom “For in reality day by day things
that were even a little away off were growing dimmer to his sight... ...if he had not known that he
lived on Charlotte Street,... ...he might have believed that his window gave on a desert waste where
gray sky and gray land blended indistinguishably into each other. 10” Similarly the Hunger Artist
thaws imperceptibly day by day just as “The fine placards grew dirty and illegible, they were torn

3
Ibid. page 106
4
Ibid. page 116
5
Ibid. page 272
6
Ibid. page 271
7
Ibid. page 134
8
Ibid. page 125
9
Ibid. page 125
10
Ibid. pages 112 - 113

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down...11”, and the reader is gradually weaned from him, no longer being able to hear him think, no
longer being able to see him, like a camera gently zooming out as the picture focuses out into a blur.

One cannot escape remembering the old adage “We are what we eat” and this holds true for both our
anti-heroes, be it garbage “...the fresh food, on the other hand, had no charms for him... 12”, or
nothing at all. Quite remarkable indeed is how K appropriates detailed descriptions of Gregor
alimentary habits, as in the passage where his sister (who very rarely is mentioned by name, only
close to the end of the story do we get to know that she is called Grete) lays out a tasting sampler to
find out what to feed her brother 13. K meticulously elaborates on Gregor disgressions of these
matters, his likes and dislikes, and how he feels attracted to putrefying food and rejects his beloved
milk (symbol of purity). Plenty of space is given to food: from the description of the lodgers’ meal
to the fact that the only moment when Gregor loses his head and is ready to do harm to his family
his idea is to “take the food that was after all his due, even if he were not hungry. 14”. Food is
obviously central to the plot of A Hunger Artist, and very much like Gregor rejects fresh
comestibles, we find that the Hunger Artist justifies his art in his rejection of all kinds of food. In a
society that invented the Oktoberfest and which boasts the largest variety of bread, a refusal to
partake of meals was a particularly obnoxious social vice leading the offender to become ostracised.

We are afforded more information on Gregor than on the Hunger Artist; the metamorphosis that
alters both is slower and more elaborately accomplished in the former’s case, the process starting
rather than ending with his becoming an overgrown insect. Where the Hunger Artist just withers
away before drying up to be buried “straw and all” to be replaced by a young panther, emblematic
of nature hungry for life; (the new lodger of the cage is welcomed by the narrator, “The panther
was all right15”), Gregor is given time to become a dream of dirt, of rot, a vision with the apple stuck
in his back deserving no sympathy from his creator in “...his present unfortunate and repulsive
shape16”, to ponder about his future “ “And what now?” said Gregor to himself... 17”, and to finally
relinquish his grip on life “The decision that he must disappear was one that he held to even more
strongly than his sister...18”.

11
Ibid. page 276
12
Ibid. page 108
13
Ibid. page 107
14
Ibid. page 125
15
Ibid. page 277
16
Ibid. page 122
17
Ibid. page 135
18
Ibid. page 135

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The question of the ascetic who rises above his brethren from the pits of self-alienation is here
powerfully evoked indeed, as we hear both ramble about their plight: the same notes struck at
different keys: Gregor righteously mantains his position of generous purveyor for his family,
inasmuch as the Hunger Artist joyfully feeds his watchers, “But his happiest moment was when the
morning came and an enormous breakfast was brought them, at his expense... 19”. Gregor who is
throughout this modern parable blissfully unaware of what has befallen him ends his days
priorising his family over himself: “he thought of his family with tenderness and love... ...In this
state of vacant and peaceful meditation he remained until the tower clock struck three in the
morning.20”. The demise of the Hunger Artist is preceded by his last courtesy as he apologises to
the overseer who checks his efficiency for a few moments to allow him to expire.

Both are one-of-a-kind, both blissfully unaware of this dismal fact that entwines their kismets.
Gregor cannot understand the reactions his presence brings about, be it when he faces the chief
clerk or his family, though later he compromises by using a sheet to cover himself to arrest Grete’s
revulsion. Both want to leash out onto the world for their lack of understanding; thus the Hunger
Artist “...reacted with an outburst of fury and to the general alarm began to shake the bars of his
cage like a wild animal21”, whilst Gregor ruminates “Well, just let her try it! He clung to his picture
and would not give it up. He would rather fly in Grete’s face. 22”, or “At other times he would not
be in the mood to bother about his family, he was only filled with rage at the way they were
neglecting him...23”

Paradoxical as it may sound, Kafka tells us of the Hunger Artist that “He had not, however,
actually lost his sense of the real situation...24”, though we can see hid demise as the unavoidable
culmination of the process of self-destruction he has engaged himself in. Gregor finds himself
deprived of everything in stages: from his human shape (that’s where we meet him) to his
humanity when his sister is used as the spokesperson to seal his fate. His room (a macrocosm of
sorts) mirrors the decay that afflicts him, being turned into a garbage depot, Gregor being the
keeper.

Similar in life, alike in death: empty dry shells: “Well, clear this out now! 25” is the efficient call of the
overseer as he gets rid of the Hunger Artist remains “straw and all”, whilst Gregor “burial” is thus

19
Ibid. page 269
20
Ibid. page 135
21
Ibid. page 272
22
Ibid. page 119
23
Ibid. page 125
24
Ibid. page 274
25
Ibid. page 277

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brought to our attention: “ “Oh,” said the charwoman, giggling so amiably that she could not at
once continue, “just this, you don’t need to bother about how to get rid of the thing next door. It’s
been seen to already26” ” . Deprived of all human comfort, not considered human by their brethren
but mere freaks: one fit for the freak show, the other better entombed in his room, a cage of sorts,
thus enslaving the whole family, enfettering them in growing chains of resentment. Both finally
meet the fate met by the gods who, like wantom children, kill us for their sport.

26
Ibid. page 1138