Multicellular structures
A functioning human body depends on tens of trillions of cells in hundreds of types, all working together to make us human. They could never reorganise to turn us into something else, could they? Franz Kafka imagined this possibility in his novella The Metamorphosis (1915). From its opening sentence to its final lines, he defies us to disbelieve the incredible story of the Samsa household …
Gregor, the travelling salesman and main earner for the household, henceforth experiences an existential struggle to normalise himself to his dreadful situation. A slowly dawning tolerance from his beloved sister Grete, who finds out which stale food he likes best, and from his ever-grudging parents, risks souring at any moment into abhorrence of this ghastly animal. Within a month, Mr Samsa has grievously injured Gregor in a fit of impotent anger at finding him outside the confines of his bedroom. The arrival of lodgers, who will help to pay the bills, proves the final spur for a change of heart.
“We must try to get rid of it,” his sister now said explicitly to her father, since her mother was coughing too much to hear a word, “it will be the death of both of you, I can see that coming. When one has to work as hard as we do, all of us, one can’t stand this continual torment at home on top of it. At least I can’t stand it any longer.”
The fault lies with the creature. Grete reasons:
“If this were Gregor, he would have realised long ago that human beings can’t live with such a creature, and he’d have gone away on his own accord.”
It is persecuting them, frightening their lodgers, obviously wanting the whole place to itself. Locked in his room, Gregor’s last strength gives out.
He thought of his family with tenderness and love. The decision that he must disappear was one that he held to even more strongly than his sister, if that were possible.
There he takes his final breath, to be found and duly disposed of the next morning by the charwoman. That very same day, Mr and Mrs Samsa and Grete take a tram out to the country. They discuss moving to a smaller house than the one they have, which had been Gregor’s choice. Grete’s parents conclude that their daughter should soon be found a good husband.
And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and excellent intentions that at the end of their journey their daughter sprang to her feet first and stretched her young body.
Gregor the exoskeletoned insect has catalysed Grete’s transformation, from caring younger sister to sulking adolescent, flowering at the last. Kafka asks us to suspend our disbelief that Grete will not always remain the little sister, and that Mr and Mrs Samsa will not forever be Gregor’s parents.