The Soul in Kafka’s »Metamorphosis«

Abstract

The treatise begins by analysing the beginning of Kafka’s narrative. Kafka’s first sentence presents metamorphosis as something that has already taken place and become visible on the protagonist’s body – visible both to the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, and to all the other characters. As an accomplished fact, the cause of which is never given even in the subsequent narrative, it foreshadows Gregor’s imminent death. »The Metamorphosis« may thus be perceived as a narrative about dying, about what happens to Gregor’s soul when his body has been transformed. – Seeking to track down the soul, which is not given a voice of its own, let alone a thematic emphasis in the narrative, the treatise draws on Aristotle’s division of the soul according to its capabilities as vegetative, animal, or human. Yet a close reading of the narrative always runs into indeterminability: rather than mere man or mere animal, Gregor is both, a mananimal. – The conclusion highlights Kafka’s authorial gesture: Kafka intended to publish »The Metamorphosis« together with two other narratives under a shared title, Strafen (Punishments). This cover title suggests that the metamorphosis is a punishment and, indeed, that it might be explained in the sense of Jewish mysticism: as metempsychosis, the transmigration of the human soul into an animal body, where it does penance for the sins of its former life. Yet this tempting possibility is rejected. Rather than explained through eisegesis from the tradition, Kafka should be understood against its background.