University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

The phenomenal body: abstraction, alienation, and affinity in translation

(USC Thesis Other)

The phenomenal body: abstraction, alienation, and affinity in translation

PDF

Download a page range

Download transcript

Copy asset link

Request this asset

Transcript (if available)

Content THE PHENOMENAL BODY:
ABSTRACTION, ALIENATION, AND AFFINITY IN TRANSLATION
by
Cord-Heinrich Richard Karl Plinke
A Dissertation Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
(COMPARATIVE LITERATURE)
May 2023
Copyright 2023 Cord-Heinrich Richard Karl Plinke
Table of Contents
List of Figures .................................................................................................................................iv
Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v
Introduction ......................................................................................................................................1
Chapter One: Translating Aesthetic Intelligibility .........................................................................16
1.1 On Minor Literature .....................................................................................................21
1.2 Polysemy in Translation ...............................................................................................33
1.2.1 The Metamorphosis / The Metaphor .............................................................38
1.2.2 Translating Ambiguity ..................................................................................41
1.3 Affinity: Ekphrasis and Untranslatability ....................................................................50
1.4 Sentence Length ...........................................................................................................64
Conclusion Chapter 1 .........................................................................................................68
Chapter Two: The Phenomenal Body ............................................................................................73
2.1 Gregor Samsa’s Sensorium ..........................................................................................78
2.1.1 Gestalt / Schreckgestalt .................................................................................83
2.1.2 Anti-Ekphrasis: Abuse and Exploitation .......................................................86
2.1.3 Non-Verbal Recognition ...............................................................................89
2.2 The Embodied Self ......................................................................................................97
2.2.1 Illusion / Delusion .......................................................................................112
2.2.2 Pathic Projection: Monstrosity and Entomology ........................................117
Conclusion Chapter 2 .......................................................................................................124
Chapter Three: Plastic, Chimeric, Domestic ................................................................................128
3.1 On Alienation .............................................................................................................131
3.1.1 Social Reproduction and Namelessness ......................................................137
3.1.2 Family and Discipline .................................................................................141
3.2 The Chimeric Text: Impossible Objects .....................................................................147
3.2.2 Open and Uncanny: Rebel Animality .........................................................153
3.3 Power, Norm, Camp ...................................................................................................159
3.4 Monstrous Domesticity ..............................................................................................166
Conclusion Chapter 3 ...........................................................................................171
Chapter Four: The Plastic Body ...................................................................................................174
4.1 Becoming Plastic, or: Gender-Affirming Slop ..........................................................180
4.1.1 Subjection, Recognition ..............................................................................191
4.1.2 Escape .........................................................................................................199
4.2 Queer Plasticity ..........................................................................................................204
4.3 Poetics of Disobedience .............................................................................................210
Conclusion Chapter 4 .......................................................................................................218
ii
Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................222
References ....................................................................................................................................235
Addendum: Franz Kafka, DIE VERWANDLUNG .....................................................................241
PART I ..............................................................................................................................241
PART II ............................................................................................................................261
PART III ...........................................................................................................................281
iii
List of Figures
Figure 1: Franz Kafka: Die Verwandlung. First German-language publication. Leipzig: Kurt
Wolff Verlag, 1916. ........................................................................................................................59
Figure 2: The Metamorphosis, translated by Susan Bernofsky. W.W. Norton, 2014. ...................60
Figure 3: The Metamorphosis, translated by David Willye. Self-published, 2021. .......................61
Figure 4: The Metamorphosis, translated by Tony Darnell. 12th Media Services. .......................62
Figure 5: Franz Kafka: Die Verwandlung. Zurich, CH: Diogenes, 2006. .....................................63
Figure 6: Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung ......................................................................................66
Figure 7: Translation Cord-Heinrich Plinke, 2022 ........................................................................66
Figure 8: Translation Susan Bernofsky, 2014 ................................................................................67
Figure 9: Translation Stanley Corngold, 1996 ...............................................................................67
Figure 10: Penrose Triangle (Penrose and Penrose, 31). .............................................................152
Figure 11: “Manwich” product cans in a grocery store (photo taken by author, 2022). ..............189
Figure 12: Marilyn Monroe, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1953). Video Screenshot/Warner Records ..................................................................................190
Figure 13: Madonna, “Material Girl” Music Video (1984). Video Screenshot/Warner Records 190
iv
Abstract
Using the German original of Kafka’s Die Verwandlung, this dissertation argues that existing
Anglophone translations use over-determined language to present the transformation of
protagonist Gregor Samsa into an insect form. With a retranslation of the German text into
English, included in the project, this dissertation shows that the body of protagonist Gregor does
not come into existence in the text in any coherent, physical way. This produces a split between
the objective-physical and the sensorial-phenomenal body. With this, the dissertation surfaces a
dimension of the original text that English readers did previously not have access to.
Building atop this, the project argues that Kafka’s text precludes a subject-object split between
reader and protagonist Gregor Samsa. Kafka plays with visuality, continuously evoking partial
images of Gregor’s body, while at the same time prohibiting the leap from the abstract register of
language to the image-based imaginary. Since Gregor does not come into existence as a Gestalt,
the novella is open to a wide variety of readings, none of which exhaust the text.
From this, the concept of queer plasticity is developed, asking about the material reality of
human bodies, including their dietary and sartorial choices. Presenting the song “Immaterial” by
late hyperpop artist SOPHIE, the dissertation argues for queer subcultural spaces and the force of
music to produce collective embodiment, kinship and recognition.
v
Introduction
“Mommy don’t know daddy’s getting hot / At the body shop / doing something unholy.” Thus
begins the song “Unholy” by Sam Smith and Kim Petras, No. 1 on the Billboard charts in the
United States, Canada, and the UK, in the Fall of 2022, and winner of the 2023 Grammy Award
in the category “Best Pop Duo/Group Performance.” But what is “daddy” doing at this “body
shop”, what is so unholy about this, an why should we care? What does it matter that “mommy”
does not know about this, and who even are these two people? Whose mother and father are they,
why are they not referred to with personal pronouns? Even more deeply, why are these two
people referred to with their social roles, not their names? And what is the function of social
control in this framework, what investment do Smith & Petras, a non-binary person and a trans
woman, have in the woes of what appears to be a heteronormative family unit? Might they even
derive joy from gossiping about these marriage troubles?
Encapsulated within this contemporary pop song are a majority of the themes that this
dissertation project addresses: These include the question of the social role for one, and the
apparent loss of personal identity when entering into one such, socially pre-produced, role. The
moral judgement that the individual is subjected to when acting outside of social norms, such as
“daddy” within the Smith & Petras song, about whom, as the song goes on, “everyone is talkin’
on the scene,” as they whisper about the places that he has been. The space of the night club,
where said immoral, or “unholy” acts happen, where deviant subjects mingle, but “mommy”
does not; the role of said “mommy” and the relegation of this female subject to the domestic
sphere. Further, this begs the question what it us that is so “unholy” about this scenario; more
1
specifically, what religious framework is being drawn upon to make this judgement about
unholiness, and where and how might we expect things to happen that are holy?
Lastly, and most importantly, the song centers on questions of the body: The sex parlor
1
that is aptly named “the body shop” in the Smith & Petras song, the place for which the man
“leaves his kids at home / so he can get that,” hints at the entanglement between the physical and
the sensual, wherein the male subject leaves the domestic realm for the public, only to engage in
immoral acts that involve both physicality and sensuality of the body. Interesting here is not only
the question whose bodies enter this location as their clients (as “daddy” apparently does), but
also whose bodies labor at that place. But what is being sold at this “body shop,” which aspects
of which bodies? Does the fact that these bodies engage in “doing something unholy” render
them monstrous, and does this monstrosity become a part of their bodies, not just a part of their
wage labor?
These questions present an opening into my discussion of Franz Kafka’s 1915 novella
Die Verwandlung, commonly known under the title The Metamorphosis in English. Any reader
of Kafka knows that in The Castle, there is no castle, or in The Trial, those expecting to read
about a trial will only be disappointed. And yet, the novella known under the title The
Metamorphosis in English, certainly, a story at the heart of which one finds protagonist Gregor
Samsa and the transformation that he has undergone, is commonly understood as featuring a
giant insect. This dissertation, and the retranslation of Die Verwandlung that accompanies it,
In the accompanying music video, this is presented as a venue filled with burlesque dancers of
1
various gender presentations, accessible through a car mechanic shop, presumably a play on the
term “body shop.” A condom wrapper printed with the words “The Body Shop” further suggests
that this is a place of sex work.
2
argues that this very creature, insect, or bug, is merely the result of overdetermined readings by
previous Anglophone translators. Instead, Gregor’s body sits center stage of the text, while at the
same time being shrouded in aesthetic unintelligibility. It is non-visible to the reader,
unimaginable, and unable to be understood logically. Therefore, I refer to this body as
phenomenal: As I will lay out over the course of four chapters, Die Verwandlung brings
phenomenology to a halt: Sensoria are experienced by the reader, filtered through the body of
protagonist Gregor Samsa, but cannot be grasped or rationalized.
The human body, as the title already suggests, marks the center of gravity of this project:
In each of the four main chapters, I focus first and foremost on the body, how it is represented in
different forms of media, but also and especially how the different cultural objects that I study
for this project speak to this human body. How do they appeal to bodily parts, how do they make
themselves felt, and how do they embody different sensoria? Hence the term “phenomenal” in
the title, with which I try to convey both the focus on phenomenology, which I discuss especially
in the second chapter, as well as the importance and value of the human body for my analysis
throughout the project. As I will argue, while the individual media consumer may try to imagine
themselves as a disembodied free-floating reader, the body, both in its material reality and in its
sensorial impressions, is always very much present, and will make itself felt to the reader. This, I
will argue, is a sensual, not a rational engagement. The central question from which I depart in
this project is the following: How is the human body conveyed in cultural texts? How is it
brought into the realm of consciousness of the reader of these cultural texts? In other words, how
is it experienced by the reader; not in terms of surface or boundary, and not with rationality or
3
logical ways that might be able to make sense of this body. Rather, in terms of sensuality,
sensoria, and emotion.
These questions seek to focus not on the question of difference between bodies, their
abilities or identities, bur rather on the question of experience. That is why I explore writing
whose abstract language does not produce a visual referent and, as I will argue, disrupts the
reader’s ability to visualize. This, as the entirety of this dissertation explores, produces an
engagement with phenomena and sensoria, rather than the body as a whole, or its supposed
singularity and separateness from its surroundings.
After years of talking to Anglophone readers of Kafka, it seems safe to say that when an
English-speaker thinks of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, they are likely to think of a large
insect, one that the protagonist Gregor Samsa finds himself turned into when he wakes up one
morning, at the outset of the story. This project starts from the bold claim that there is no insect;
readers have been led to imagine one, and that is precisely the problem, the issue into which this
project sets out to intervene. I claim that existing Anglophone translations of the Kafka text are
over-determined, and that the text needs to be wrestled out of the interpretations imposed upon it
by its translators. This is the point of departure for my inquiry, and which I tackle in the first two
chapters. This dissertation project begins by looking at readerly practices involving texts that go
beyond, or that do without, representation, and culminates in the concept of queer plasticity as a
utopian mode.
My retranslation of Die Verwandlung plays a crucial part for this entire dissertation
project and is therefore included in this document, following the main body of text. Before
launching into an in-depth discussion about this translation, some general remarks about my
4
translation work: I have kept the paragraph structure of the German original, but have otherwise
formatted the text according to MLA format. This is to be in line with U.S. academic
conventions, and because page breaks or other formatting aspects of the German original
novella, such as page breaks or the typography used, did not appear of crucial importance to me.
For the project at hand, I have used Susan Bernofsky’s 2014 English translation of Die
Verwandlung, titled The Metamorphosis to compare and contrast my own work to. This is not for
a particular reason other than Bernofsky’s power, since she is associate professor at Columbia
University, and has won numerous awards for her translations of German literature into English.
I have compared various English translations of Die Verwandlung and have not found there to be
remarkable differences between them.
As for the organization of this project, my reading of Kafka forms the core of the main
argument for the entire dissertation. I refer to the text continuously to illustrate and underline
points that I am making. The text is also my source for key terms such as ambiguity, abstraction,
anti-Ekphrasis/chimeric writing, or the split between the objective-physical and the sensorial-
phenomenal body. While the third and fourth chapters center on different cultural objects, they
are still informed by, under the sway of, and illuminated by the first two chapters, meaning that
much as I may try, I will not move away from Kafka in any of the following chapters.
Translating Aesthetic Intelligibility
In the first chapter, I engage in what I will refer to as a translative approach: I begin my
assessment with a comparison between passages of the German original of Die Verwandlung on
the one hand, and contemporary English renderings of this text on the other. For this, I draw on
5
Susan Bernofsky and Stanley Corngold. This approach, with Kafka’s German on one end of the
(metaphorical) operating table and the translations by Bernofsky and Corngold on the other, will
allow me to consider the differences, gaps, and untranslatabilities between these cultural objects.
Out of this emerges my own translation of Kafka’s text, which is included with this
dissertation project as an addendum. Emerging out of my translative analysis, I will discuss my
translation through a close-reading of several key passages from the text. My approach here is
led by my critique of existing English translations of Kafka’s text; as I will argue, these impose
readings by their translators onto the text, thus erasing some of the finer details of the original,
and thereby changing drastically the resulting text. With my discussion of translation in this first
chapter, my goal is to wrestle the Kafka text out of these imposed interpretations, and to show
that Kafka engages in propositional modes of thought, which are, due to their in-concreteness,
too diffuse to grasp and therefore difficult to translate.
Further, my first chapter will contemplate the translation of Minor Literature specifically,
and ask whether it poses a special task to translators: To go about, I first provide a brief
discussion of Minor Literature and its specificities, in order to subsequently argue that the vast
number of what I consider to be overdetermined English translations of Die Verwandlung shape
how this text is read by Anglophone audiences, and the scholarship that has been subsequently
produced about the text. In my discussion in this first chapter, I have argued that in order to
create a translation of Minor Literature that is able to reflect the political aspects of the original,
conveyed for instance via the texts’s ambiguity, it is beneficial for the translator to undertake
amounts of research into the specific milieu of an author, and special attention paid to the
potential multiplicity of meanings used by that author. To make my case here, I have presented
6
brief definitions of the terms ambiguity and translation, so as to demonstrate the special
complexity posed by the translation of ambiguity within a literary text.
I provide an in-depth discussion of the infamous opening sentence of Die Verwandlung,
with which I will show that from the outset, translators overdetermine Gregor Samsa’s physical
form, thus removing the aesthetic intelligibility of the original. I explain what I mean by the term
aesthetic intelligibility and point out instances in the text where my translation restores this
intelligibility, which, as I show, has gotten lost in existing English translations of Kafka’s text. I
argue that especially in the exchange between Gregor and the Bedienerin, the servant whom the
Samsa family takes on as the story progresses and the family’s financial situation worsens, the
author employs ambiguous, Yiddish terminology. As my analysis will reveal, it is precisely
through the character of the Bedienerin, whose physical features the text does elaborate on, that
Gregor is not only recognized, but also identified, albeit in terms that are rendered opaque. With
my analysis of this exchange, I will make my case for the reading Die Verwandlung as a tale
about Jewishness and anti-Semitism.
However, I will not argue that the above-stated reading of anti-Semitism is the only
possible one; on the contrary: With my close-readings throughout this first chapter, and my
retranslation especially, I argue that due to its abstract qualities and usage of polysemous
verbiage, the text invites a wide range of interpretations, which are open, and, despite the
racialized connotations that the figure of the insect carries, able to coexist within the same text.
As my analysis in this first chapter will show, the paths that Die Verwandlung takes the reader on
are a lot more winding, and not as clearly visible as they may seem in existing translations,
which, due to their lack of ambiguity and abstraction, impose limits on the reader’s imagination.
7
While any existing English translations of Die Verwandlung describe Gregor as an
animal, a vermin, or an insect, I will argue that in order to accurately represent the author’s
polysemous, abstract original text, a translator needs stay away from this image, and instead
ponder the text’s openness. In contrast to this, I argue that since the readers are locked inside of
Gregor’s body, they do not get an outside perspective on this body in any way. Rather, the reader
is presented with Gregor’s reactions not to his body itself, but to the way that the people around
him react to this very body. This distinction is crucial and will be the foundation of my claim in
the following, second chapter.
In my discussion of Ekphrasis and Un_Translatability, I will further touch upon market
logics and the medium of the book itself, by taking on the question of cover art. With several
examples of book covers, and drawing on the letter exchange between Franz Kafka and his
editor, I will reveal that the image of a large insect, which the author himself had asked not to be
used, has become so commonplace in publications of this novella that it is often used to identify
the entire text, and placed on book covers. Pondering the question of visuality, I will make the
point that while the written text itself may be an abstract medium, allowing the reader to try to
imagine what may be otherwise unimaginable, the form of the printed book still carries with it
aspects of visuality, which will inform how a reader approaches the text before ever having read
its first page.
Lastly, I use digital technology to make another case for my interpretation over those by
other translators: By using a piece of code that I have written, I will illustrate that the translations
by both Corngold and Bernofsky diverge from Kafka’s original in terms of sentence length. This
may seem ironic, given my constant rambling against visuality throughout this chapter; yet, this
8
data visualization serves to drive home my point: I present in bar graphs how long Kafka’s
sentences in the original German of this text are, and demonstrate that the translations by
Corngold and Bernofsky differ from this in important ways.
The Phenomenal Body
In the second chapter, I remain with Die Verwandlung and turn towards Gregor’s sensoria,
arguing that the text is an exercise in readerly disorientation: In employing ambiguity and
abstraction as technique, I demonstrate here that author Kafka employs Anti-Ekphrasis, the
impossibility to visualize on the part of the reader, while at the same time engaging in a highly
visual writing style. Through close-readings from several passages of the Kafka text, I argue that
the text is highly visual, while at the same time impossible to visualize. As I will show, the text
establishes imaginary impressions, before then turning away, thus leaving the reader with an
incoherent, unclear impression of what may be going on within the book.
I will argue that by foreclosing the possibility to visualize, the text distorts readerly
perception. This results in a split between physical and phenomenal body of the protagonist
Gregor Samsa, and the subsequent notion that the reader can never be certain whether or not the
described observations within the text are (un-)reliable, thus leaving the reader with enigmatic
observations. With what I will discuss as a blurring of the lines between illusion and delusion, I
illustrate the text’s effect of creating fractured references to embodiment, which, as I will present
in depth, leads to a breakdown of protagonist Gregor Samsa’s Gestalt, the affective experience of
which this text invites. This breakdown of Gregor’s Gestalt, who never comes into being as an
9
embodied Other for the reader, but rather as a Schreckgestalt, a frightening figure, one that exists
in the reader’s imagination, but that cannot be grasped visually, since it lacks a coherent body.
The concept of Schreckgestalt marks one of my central insights in this second chapter: In
my discussion of readerly affects, I argue that by precluding a subject-object split, Die
Verwandlung locks readers inside Gregor’s body while it undergoes sensorial unrest. In doing so,
author Kafka moves readers towards pondering incoherent bodily sensations, which are
presented as the experience of sensorial chaos. I draw on several moments within the text to
argue that Gregor relies on those around him to make sense of himself, and can only understand
himself by monitoring other characters’ reactions to himself. I return to the exchange between
Gregor and the Bedienerin, which I have already used in the first chapter, to illustrate the rapid
change within Gregor’s understanding of himself in the one moment when another character
does not shy away from looking at him.
As I will demonstrate through my return to the above-described scene, Gregor’s ability to
comprehend his bodily sensoria has gotten lost, and he is no longer able to make sense of
himself. Due to this absence of a logos, I argue that phenomenology thus comes to a halt in this
text. This discussion, the phenomenal chaos of Gregor’s sensorial impressions, is where I derive
the title for this chapter, and one of the key insights of this entire dissertation project. Gregor
Samsa’s body, my central insight, is to be understood as phenomenal: The reader is placed in the
center of its phenomenal impressions, while at the same time lacking the logos, the capacity to
make any coherent sense of these impressions. This chaos is evoked through a steady tension,
since readers’ attention is continually drawn towards Gregor’s body where it, due to the
ambiguity and abstraction of descriptions, never finds a concrete object to direct itself at.
10
Drawing on my arguments about translation and polysemy from the first chapter, I will make the
point that in cultivating such sensorial chaos, Kafka creates disorganized affects that float
around, both the Samsa family apartment and the text of the novella itself, paralleling the
fractured body parts of the protagonist, who is experienced sensually, not rationally, by the
reader. From this, the free-floating affects and the impossibility to visualize, I will develop my
concept of the chimeric in this second chapter.
Lastly, I assess Gregor’s reliance on his surroundings, so as to make sense of himself, to
contemplate his family’s treatment of him. Building upon the aforementioned exchange between
Gregor and the Bedienerin, I discuss the concept of pathic projection, wherein I make the point
that it is precisely due to their own insecurities that the Samsas avoid looking at Gregor, with
whom they share a familial bond, as well as being looked at by him. With my discussion of
bourgeoise respectability at the end of this chapter, I make room for my third chapter: Here, I
will remain with phenomenology and at the same time, drawing on Umberto Eco, pose that Die
Verwandlung is a radically open text, wherein semantic resolution is withheld by the author.
Plastic, Chimeric, Domestic
The third chapter marks a move away from the abstract realm of literature, and a turn towards
visuality proper: At the center of my analysis in this chapter sits the 1994 John Waters film Serial
Mom. The reader should not expect to get a break from Kafka, however, as I will still going back
to Die Verwandlung to compare and contrast my findings in this chapter. I focus here primarily
on Waters’ film to broaden my analysis of the body in media, and will discuss two main points in
this chapter: The notion of camp and kitsch on the one hand, and hardened, ossified social norms
11
on the other. But of course, I also discuss here the leap from the abstract realm of literature and
the image-based medium of the motion picture, the moving image.
My main goal in this chapter is to move from the individual body of the first two chapters
to the question of the social body: I tackle the corpus of the family unit and its relation to
bourgeoise respectability and normative social norms. Drawing on the Smith & Petras song, the
question in this chapter is not what it is that daddy does, but rather why these activities are
unholy. Who declares them as such, under whose legitimization and with which power? And if
daddy’s activity at the body shop is unholy, then what would a holy act look like? With this, I
draw on my earlier findings about the Samsa household in Die Verwandlung and present, in
Waters, a queer response to the pressures and maladies experienced by the Samsas. Drawing on
the experience of Gregor’s phenomenal body, I ask here how the social body can be experienced,
and what Waters’ film tells audiences about its affects. One of the aims of this chapter is to show
that deciding what does (and what does not) count as unholy, and enforcing this division, is in
itself monstrous.
I focus especially on the role of the matriarch in the latter part of this chapter. Having
spent much of my time on Gregor and his agonies up to this point, I focus here on the
impositions placed on women through social roles. In discussing Beverly Sutphin, the
protagonist of the film Serial Mom who murders those violating social norms, I demonstrate the
particular pressures placed upon women within heteronormative frameworks. In other words, to
go back to Smith & Petras, I ask here what mommy might be up to while daddy is at the body
shop. Perhaps she, too, is doing something unholy, something monstrous?
12
I my discussion of the John Waters film, I thus move beyond the Kafka family layout
with its powerful (-seeming) father figure, powerless (-acting) women, and the sturdy female
servant, and towards more contemporary questions of femininity, gender binarism, and
-conformity. In my discussion, I contemplate the private and public spheres, and the links
between normative feminine gender roles and the façade of the family home, and ponder the
relationship between monstrosity and domesticity. My assessment of domesticity and its
discontents in this chapter will allow me to once again link back to questions of privacy and the
uncanny in Kafka, and thus allow me to broaden my argument about the monstrosity of social
norms.
The Plastic Body
In the fourth and final chapter, I then tackle the question of queer plasticity. Employing insights
from earlier chapters, I engage here with the 2017 song “Immaterial” by the late avant-garde
electronic music artist SOPHIE. Through a close-reading of this song, as well as anecdotal
evidence and queer critique, I discuss the ways in which the artist engages with social subjection,
identificatory regimes, and the location of desire. Here, too, my analysis circles around the
human body. Building atop my earlier claims about the phenomenal body, I consider the body
here as plastic, in several senses of the word. I present the plastic body as malleable on the one
hand, and as recalcitrant, disobedient, and impossible to be gotten rid of, on the other.
Importantly, the body that I focus on in this fourth chapter is a queer one, one that resists
normative legibility. This is a body that, in the realm of Smith & Petras, one may find at the
“Body Shop,” relegated to a space that is deemed unholy.
13
More specifically, I claim in this chapter that SOPHIE plays with concepts of
consumerism and dialectic materialism, and thereby opens the door for fluid, viscous, and plastic
relations to subjectivity. As my engagement with the song lyrics of “Immaterial” argues, the
artist references social pressures to subject individuals into historically and socially pre-
determined, and importantly linguistically fixed categories. I draw upon Catherine Malabou’s
concept of plasticity as a stepping stone towards Hegel’s Plastizität des Geistes (plasticity of
spirit) for my theoretical discussion in this chapter. As these names suggest, I go down the road
of theory once again, engaging with Malabou and Hegel. With this, my end goal is to turn
dialectical materialism back on its head, and turn towards José Muñoz’ notion of queerness for
my readings. With this, I land on the question whether queer plasticity is in fact a tautology, or
whether there are differences between the two concepts.
Drawing on my thoughts on social bodies and the very concreteness or social norms, my
work queerness, plasticity, and the body in this chapter dive further into materialism. For
instance, I turn to what I refer to as “gender-affirming slop” to illustrate that the individual
human body is shaped by the materials that surround it, from clothing to foodstuff. With this, I
illustrate once again the dependence between the subject and its milieu.
Further, I tackle the question of escape in this chapter: Drawing on Deleuze to trace
SOPHIE’s ideas backwards to critiques already present in Kafka, with themes such as
environments of enclosure and the Schreckgestalt of social control, I propose what I will refer to
as Poetics of Disobedience. With this, I propose a positive, utopian outlook, thus differing greatly
from Franz Kafka’s works and Gregor Samsa’s demise. I show here that escape, resistance, and
disobedience are possible within the space of queerness: Drawing queer disability artist Lorenza
14
Böttner and Paul Preciado into my discussion, I pose the question of what happens when subjects
refuse the identarian terms deployed by the (neo)liberal multicultural national project of being
hegemonically legible and recognized. Especially in the notion of queer monstrosity, which I link
back once more to the unholy monstrosity Gregor Samsa and my proposed concept of
Schreckgestalt from the third chapter, I bring a discussion of queerness and dis_ability into my
analysis to further add to my work on embodiment and subjectivity.
In this final chapter, I also return to the question of readerly affects once again: Through a
discussion of uncomfortable and discomforting affects, I make the point that the SOPHIE song
acts as a manifesto for a queer, collective recognition. Moving towards a conclusion that points
towards utopia, I therefore culminate in an argument for a shift from subjection to projection, and
argue that SOPHIE gestures towards an elsewhere, in which freedom and fluidity are possible,
moving beyond materialism and material reality. I argue in closing that the song “Immaterial,”
just as Die Verwandlung a century earlier, makes a case for understanding subjectivity as plural.
Queerness, monstrosity, and the figure of the chimera thus emerge as lines of flight for
reorientation towards possible escapes.
15
Chapter One: Translating Aesthetic Intelligibility
In what is perhaps one of the best-known first sentences in literature, Die Verwandlung begins as
follows: “Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er sich in
seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt” (69). In Susan Bernofsky’s 2014
translation of Die Verwandlung, that sentence is rendered into English as follows: “When Gregor
Samsa woke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his
bed into some sort of monstrous insect.” Various other English translations exist, but each one
appears to take a similar approach in referring to the corporeal form in which Gregor Samsa
finds himself when he wakes up. Among these translations are opening sentences such as “One
morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his
bed into a horrible vermin” (Wyllie), or “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from
unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Corngold).
While I will mainly focus on Bernofsky’s translation of Die Verwandlung, I present three
different examples here to show that while some differences exist between these three versions,
they are in fact similar in their basic approach of describing the transformation that protagonist
Gregor Samsa has undergone, using the nouns “vermin” (Wyllie), “insect” (Bernofsky), or,
again, “vermin” (Corngold). All of these translations share what I consider to be a codification of
meaning: In using nouns such as “bug” or “insect,” which have a direct referent in the real, they
evoke an image of what this human, Gregor, now looks like. Apparently, a consensus exists
amongst English translators that the change that Gregor Samsa undergoes is in fact that into an
animal.
16
This consensus is exactly what this dissertation calls into question, and where it
intervenes: My main point, which I will pursue over the course of this first chapter, is to make an
intervention in how Die Verwandlung is understood in the Anglophone realm. Having studied the
German original of Kafka’s text, I am not at all convinced that an actual transformation into an
insect takes place. Rather, I think it is just as much possible to interpret this supposed
transformation of Gregor Samsa as a metaphor for him being visibly Jewish, and thus a danger to
his assimilated, petty-bourgeois family. Additionally, the narrator within the text informs us that
this is not the first time that Gregor has woken up in a state of paranoia, thus making possible
that no physical transformation has taken place here, but that this is all merely a hysterical
fantasy of his. This interpretation, however, is only enabled by reading between the lines, and
taking into account the potentially poetic aspects of language, and their creation of ambiguous
meaning.
Even if the text of Die Verwandlung stated that Gregor turns into a cockroach in this
story, this should still give us pause: As for instance Zygmunt Bauman writes, the English far-
right political commentator Katie Hopkins referred to migrants who come to Europe by that
same word (87), as did the attackers in the Rwandan genocide to refer to their victims (ibid). The
point then is that the word Ungeziefer, no matter whether it is translated as vermin or as
cockroach, carries within it a multiplicity of meanings, and has a history of being used for racial
hatred. That is why I suggest we think of it as a signifier rather than mere vocabulary, which, I
argue, adds further layers of complexity to the task of the translator. On the one hand, of course,
it could be argued that evoking the image of an insect or a cockroach always already implies
racialization, in light of the examples that I have just mentioned. On the other hand, however, I
17
think that the verbiage in Kafka’s original German is much more ambiguous, much more
particular, than to merely present the reader with the image of an insect. Further, I should point
out that all of these points are not to say that the reading of Die Verwandlung as a parable about
anti-Semitism is in any way superior or more advanced than any other interpretation.
Thinking further about the complexity of this ambiguous language, and the fact that it
seems impossible to read into existing English versions of this text, due to their use of visual
language, I am hung up on the two words “Ungeheures Ungeziefer”, translated to “some sort of
monstrous insect” in Bernofsky. While there is no insect, or bug, present in the German original,
it suddenly appears in Bernofsky’s English (as it does in the translations by Wyllie and Corngold
respectively). What all of these approaches neglect, in their shift from ambiguous signifier to
ekphrastic noun, is that the term Ungeziefer, as a matter of fact, has a history as an anti-Semitic
slur: The term has been used to refer to Jews in disrespectful ways, linking them to rats, insects,
or other unclean animals and thereby declaring them detrimental to society. Hannah Arendt for
instance writes in the “The Jew as Pariah” that it was the fact that Jewish prisoners in
concentration camps were considered Ungeziefer [vermin] that made it possible for the German
population to accept their extermination, and that there was no point in reeducating or redeeming
them. While Die Verwandlung was written before the ascent of the Third Reich, the link between
Kafka’s use of the term Ungeziefer and the word’s use as a dehumanizing, anti-Semitic slur
should still not be ignored.
For a thorough translation, a look at the etymology of the words Ungeheuer and
Ungeziefer becomes important, and this is where it shows that in order to be a good translator, it
is important to also be a researcher: Looking more closely at Ungeheuer and Ungeziefer, we first
18
note that both carry the prefix Un-, which in German, much like it does in English, turns what
follows into its opposite: Geheuer, as an adjective, means that something is soft, pleasant,
familiar, or non-threatening (Duden). Ungeheuer, in turn, is when something is unpleasant or
monstrous, and the word can furthermore mean something that is suspicious, or enormous (ibid).
It will thus come as no surprise that Ungeheuer can also be used as a noun in German, and
translates as a monster or ogre.
Similarly, a closer look at the term Ungeziefer reveals: The term Geziefer, it is most
interesting that this word introduces a hierarchy of animals: Geziefer are those animals that are
deemed fit for Christian sacrifice, for instance goats or sheep (Duden), and Ungeziefer is thus
“the unclean animal not suited for sacrifice” (Corngold 87). While the sacrifice of certain
animals is of course practiced in other religions as well, such as Judaism or Islam, the Germanic
term Geziefer speaks explicitly about a Christian context (ibid). The animals referred to as
Geziefer are thus, by virtue of being fit for religious sacrifice, positioned in greater proximity to
the divine than are animals to whom this label is not applied, such as for instance dogs or cats.
Ungeziefer then is the opposite of this logic, meaning that animals classified as such are further
removed from the divine than are other animals. Due to its connection to farming and cultivation,
I believe the term invites readings that attribute a direct opposition to that which is cultured or
cultivated . Unlike other animals which may have been domesticated and/or been attributed
2
value for human life, the class of animals that is denoted as Ungeziefer, such as cockroaches,
Notable in this context well is the “Fleischergeselle” (journeyman-butcher) (Kafka 2017, 130) who
2
appears, albeit briefly, towards the very end of the story. He walks up the staircase of the apartment
building in which the Samsa family lives, just as the lodgers walk down the stairs after they have been
ordered to leave the apartment by Mr. Samsa.
19
fruit flies, or rats, is considered a subset of animals that is detrimental to (civilized, clean, couth)
human life.
After a close reading of these two words then, I hope it becomes clear why this first
sentence is the foundation of my interpretation that Die Verwandlung is in fact not a story about a
man who becomes an insect, but instead appears to as a lot more ambiguous, with possible
interpretations about Christianity, cultivation, civilization, and anti-Semitism emerging. That is
why in my own translation, I make room for the notions of the unbelievable, the unpleasant, and
the un-sacred : In my rendition, the opening sentence of this novella reads as follows: “When
3
Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from restless dreams he found himself in his bed,
transformed into an unholy monstrosity.” The goal with this word choice is to make room for the
things just discussed, such as the possible Christian framework, and the possible anti-Semitism.
To do so, I propose “unholy monstrosity” to translate the terms Ungeheuer and Ungeziefer. In
Bernofsky’s English translation, the passage containing ungeheuer and Ungeziefer has been
translated as “monstrous, verminous bug,” which, as I hope to have shown with the above
discussion, leaves out many of the potential connotations that the ambiguous words used in the
German original carry.
My point here is that English translations of Kafka’s text, such as the 2014 rendition by
Bernofsky, resort to unambiguous signifiers to illustrate the transformation of the protagonist,
and thus state that he becomes some sort of insect. Instead, I argue that this work –in its German
From a stylistic point of view, a translation such as “unbelievably un-sacred” is appealing here,
3
as it reproduces the two subsequent prefixes “un-” from the German original. I ultimately
decided on “unholy monstrosity” for several reasons, among them being the need for a noun in
that sentence, but also a larger corpus of associations of monstrosity.
20
original– defies visualization and locks readers inside of the body of its main character, so that he
never becomes visible to readers as an embodied Other. It is this abstract sense of alienation,
paranoia and the urge for social respectability that make the fear of falling victim to anti-
Semitism, and becoming a social outcast (as Hannah Arendt writes: a Pariah) felt for readers
across racial identity categories, especially keeping in mind that these themselves are mere social
products and do not hold up to post-structural critique. By prohibiting the possibility to visualize,
I argue further, author Franz Kafka precludes the subject-object split for readers, thereby making
racial fears of the protagonist and his family both more tangible and more pressing to readers.
1.1 On Minor Literature
Now, why would the potential for a religious framework of Die Verwandlung be important for
interpretations of this novella? The most obvious answer might come from Deleuze and Guattari,
for whom Franz Kafka, is, as is well known, the prime example of literature mineure, or minor
literature. The two authors define minor literature as follows: “[M]inor literatures–– the Jewish
literature of Warsaw or Prague, for example. A minor literature is not the literature of a minor
language but the literature a minority makes in a major language” (16). Looking at Kafka, it
becomes immediately obvious why he is considered a part of minor literature, and Deleuze and
Guattari’s prime example for this very genre. Most importantly, and I quote again from Deleuze
and Guattari:
The second characteristic of minor literatures is that everything in them is political. In
“great” literatures, on the contrary, the question of the individual (familial, conjugal, etc.)
tends to be connected to other, no less individual questions, and the social milieu serves
21
as environment and background. None of these Oedipal matters is particularly
indispensible, absolutely necessary, but all “form a unit” in a wide space. […] Minor
literature is completely different: because it exists in a narrow space, every individual
matter is immediately plugged into the political. Thus the question of the individual
becomes even more necessary, indispensible, magnified microscopically, because an
entirely different story stirs within it. It is in this sense that the family triangle is
connected to other commercial, economic, bureaucratic, and judicial triangles which
determine its value (ibid f).
For Deleuze and Guattari, Kafka is the prime example for minor literature because he was part of
the German-speaking minority of Prague, today the capital of the Czech Republic, and also a
Jew, a religious minority in any European state; in this example, the special research task of the
translator becomes visible; instead of translating according to personal interpretation, particular
attention needs to be paid to potential ambiguities in the author’s original writing. By doing so,
as I hope my own re-translation of Die Verwandlung will show, anglophone readers will be able
to read this story […]
With my first translation example, wherein I have laid out the ambiguity of the opening
sentence from Die Verwandlung, I have pointed to the impossibility of a subject-object split in
readerly affects towards this text. The question of the subject is taken up in Deleuze and
Guattari’s notion of Minor Literature as well. With the example of Kafka’s later works, they
write that “[t]here isn’t a subject; there are only collective assemblages of enunciation” (1986,
18), as everything in these texts takes on political significance, because the minor writer always
expresses collective matters. It would only be “in connection to a subject that something
22
individual would be separable from the collective and would lead its own life” (ibid), they go on;
but, as they argue, the subject does not exist in Kafka. I point this out here because the
connection between embodiment, subjectivity, and phenomena will become crucial for my
discussion in the second and third chapters.
Important to note at this early point in the dissertation is that for Frederic Jameson,
“Deleuze’s Kafka is certainly a postmodern Kafka, a Kafka of ethnicity and microgroups, very
much a Third World and dialect minority Kafka in tune with postmodern politics and the ‘new
social movements’” (303). This question of identity categories, such as ethnicity, is interesting,
as it leads to important questions about the relationship between abstraction and universalism. I
will go into further analysis of this complex in the third chapter, in my subchapter on abstraction
and realization. For now, my argument is that the very idea of Race and racialization is one that
lingers between the lines of the Kafka text, and is never made explicit. Therefore, my claim at
this point in the dissertation is that translation needs to operate with enough care so as not to
erase the ambiguity that allows for interpretations about anti-Semitism from this text.
On the political nature of minor literature, it should also be noted that I have also tried to
make what I as a reader personally perceive as Kafka’s class consciousness as clearly visible as
possible in my translation: I have kept the term German “Lumpen,” with which Gregor describes
his coworkers in an internal monologue, because I see in this a direct allusion to Marx’ and
Engels’ Communist Manifesto. In doing so, I think the text becomes more closely situated with
the time and place of its first release, in German-speaking parts of Central Europe in 1915. Die
Verwandlung thus becomes not only a story about racial alienation, but about alienation from
one’s labor just as much. While obviously not only Jews were affected by class exploitation in
23
early-twentieth-century Europe, it was my impression that bringing out the Marxist undertones
of Kafka’s writing here plays right into Arendt’s concept of Pariah and Parvenu: As she states,
European Jews had the option of either being playing the parvenu (100), or as pariah, “excluded
from formal society and with no desire to be embraced within it” (105). For Gregor Samsa, his
profession as a traveling salesman allows him to earn money for his family, thus allowing them
to become respectable (the second and third part of the novella contain more detailed
descriptions of how the entire family fears being talked about by stranger), but at the same time
this profession also exerts great pressure onto him, for instance from the chief clerk and his boss,
and his work deems him an itinerant figure, which I think posits Gregor at the edge of being a
Pariah.
I have thus looked closely at Gregor being a traveling salesman: I had debated translating
this instead to “itinerant trader,” but feared that this might be an over-translation with which I
would too strongly impose my personal interpretation of this story being about respectability and
Jewish assimilation. While the link between Jews as an itinerant, stateless people seems fitting to
me here, I think that Kafka’s depiction of Gregor as somebody who always travels and worries
about what is said about him during his absence is a more subtle hint at this. This leaves it up to
the reader to interpret whether Gregor’s travels in any way signal a nomadic existence that might
be read as an allusion to his Jewishness. That is also why I ultimately decided to not include a
footnote about this in my translation. While I used footnotes in few other places throughout my
translation, I decided here that the inclusion of a footnote already would potentially muddle the
subtlety of Kafka’s writing.
24
Lastly, I think that here is also where a link to the concept of homo sacer, as discussed by
Agamben, becomes clear: The split between bios, political life, and zoē, bare life , is most
4
interesting in Kafka’s story, because Gregor’s potential loss of a human form and transformation
into an Ungeziefer, an animal that cannot be sacrificed, fits neatly into this concept. It is with this
in mind that I believe questions about which kind of insect specifically, or which animal at all,
Gregor turns into in this story is rendered obsolete, which is what I am hoping my translation
manages to convey. What I think matters most is the very fact that Gregor understands himself,
as well as the reactions of his environment towards him, as signs for the fact that his subjectivity
as a person is now about to be lost for good. A link between human subjectivity and my reading
of this story as being linked to Jewish identity sits in Kafka’s use of the word Mensch, for
instance in describing Gregor’s “Menschenzimmer” (1). While Mensch is the German word for
human being, it should be noted that it comes from the Hebrew שטנעמ and Yiddish mensh,
according to Merriam Webster a “person of integrity and honor.” Keeping the word Mensch for
the English translation, however, felt like an over-translation to me that would have put too much
of an emphasis on the Jewishness of this story. I have thus translated Kafka’s German Mensch
into person in English, with which I hope to convey the special emphasis on personhood and
human subjectivity in Kafka. “Menschenzimmer” thus becomes Gregor’s “personal room.”
Gregor’s personhood, of course, had always been on the cusp of being lost due to him
being a traveling salesman and thus an itinerant figure, which puts his status as a Mensch,
somebody with integrity and honor, into question. As the third part of the novella, a translation of
I could not fit a complete summary of Agamben’s full argument into this chapter. Most important for me
4
here is his distinction between zoē and bios and his notion that zoē is included in the polis via exclusion
(p. 7), because it the bare life of homo sacer, he who “may be killed and yet not sacrificed” (8), that
reveals the power of the state.
25
which would have far exceeded this project, makes clear, Gregor’s family tries to avoid having to
face him, while at the same time keeping him contained within his room so that outsiders cannot
judge the entire Samsa family based on Gregor’s appearance.
As the events of Die Verwandlung unfold, in the third and final part of the story, the
Samsa family has to let go of their maid and take on a different servant, a woman who is
described as follows:
Who, in this tired and overworked family, would have had time to give more attention to
Gregor than was absolutely necessary? The household budget became even smaller; so
now the maid was dismissed; an enormous, thick-boned charwoman with white hair that
5
flapped around her head came every morning and evening to do the heaviest work;
everything else was looked after by Gregor's mother on top of the large amount of sewing
work she did. […] This elderly widow, with a robust bone structure that made her able to
withstand the hardest of things in her long life, wasn't really repelled by Gregor.
(Bernofsky).
The relationship between Gregor and this servant (or charwoman) is notable, for she is the only
character in Die Verwandlung who does not seem to be disgusted by the sight of him. She enters
his room, cleans up after him, and is also the one who discards of Gregor’s body after his death,
while the Samsa family does not seem to want to deal with this fact, let alone look at him.
We may debate Bernofsk’s use of the term “charwoman” to refer to this character; according to
5
the OED, said term comes from 16th century Britain, and I think it might not be the ideal word to
use here. I would rather translate her role into English as “servant,” which is closer to the
German word “Bedienerin” (49), used in the original.
26
Consider for instance the emotional responses to Gregor Samsa’s transformation within this
passage, and the ways in which this passage, haunted by sensory responses and partial
observations, stands as an example for how the look of the animal challenges social categories
and identity formation. We should note also the descriptions of this woman’s physicality: I
suggest that her being tall, having sturdy bones and thick, apparently untamable hair (113), are
all ambiguous markers that can be understood as stereotypical, racializing descriptors of Jewish
women.
In light of Deleuze and Guattari’s writing on Kafka as Minor Literature, and the fact that
in minor literature everything is political, I think that a proper translation of Die Verwandlung
needs to make room for the possibility that this character of the servant might actually be a
Jewish woman. While there is no explicit indication that she, or any member of the Samsa
family, is Jewish, this still appears as one possible interpretation to me, yet it is one that I found
impossible to arrive at with the existing English translations of this novella. Important to
underline here is that, since I will make the case later in this project that not everything in Die
Verwandlung is to be taken literally, the main concern for me in this scene is not the Jewishness
of the characters. Rather, I am focused here on Gregor’s humanity, in the face of the ostracism
that he experiences from his family. Importantly, in the servant, another character not only
recognizes, bus also acknowledges Gregor’s humanity.
Recall my earlier descriptions of how a visual economy circulates within the Samsa
family home, but also, and especially, outside of it, amongst society writ large: All other
characters, including Gregor himself, avoid looking at his body at all costs, hence leading to
what I have described as anti-Ekphrasis due to this text’s partial observations, while this servant
27
has no problem doing so. For one, the family’s reluctance to face Gregor’s body is notable
because of course this body undeniably and inescapably shares space with the other family
members. As much as they try to evade him, Gregor’s sister and his parents cannot escape his
embodiment, and the the family home thereby becomes a shared corpus within which all family
members dwell. Is this servant, while not directly related to the Samsa family, but still a part of
their household, perhaps not repelled by Gregor because as an Ungeziefer, he has become visibly
Jewish, and she is not repelled by knowing that there is a Jew in the house? A notable passage
that leads me to this interpretation, and I quote here again from Bernofsky’s translation, is the
following:
Ever since, she never failed to open the door a crack for a moment every morning and
evening to look in on him. At the beginning she would call him over to her, saying things
that were probably intended to sound friendly, like “Hey, over here, you old dung beetle!”
or “Just look at the old dung beetle!” Thus addressed, Gregor gave no reply but instead
remained where he was, immobile, as if the door had never been opened (94)
Note here Bernofsky’s use of the word “dung beetle,” translated from the German word
“Mistkäfer” (116) used by Kafka. While I focus here once more on Bernofsky’s translation, it
should pointed out that Willye and Corngold alike translate “Mistkäfer” as “dung beetle,” just
like Bernofsky does, hinting at another apparent consensus amongst translators that a
transformation from human into insect has taken place in this story. This most likely rests on
these translator’s ekphrastic approach, wherein they seem to come to the text imagining after the
first sentence, discussed above, that there is an actual insect-shaped being in the Kafka
household. The word “imagine” is used deliberately here, meaning that with the ekphrastic
28
approach, an image of this insect is conjured up and assumed to exist. I, on the other hand, argue
that in this passage, we are once again presented with the question whether Gregor undergoes an
actual, physical transformation into an insect, or whether something different happens, which is
shrouded in mystery, ambiguity, and perhaps ironic exaggeration by the author.
Much like my earlier discussion, this example, too, underlines the importance of the
translator as researcher and/or having a personal affinity for Minor-German expressions: As
personal experience has taught me, the German word Mistkäfer, much like Mistkröte (literally
dung toad), can be used colloquially to address a person. This can have negative connotations,
for instance when referring to a child when they have behaved like a brat, but it can also be used
as a term of endearment. Anecdotally, I have heard this word used as a term of endearment
frequently during my time in Berlin, and my own grandmother, who came from a family of
Jewish musicians in Breslau (today Wroclaw, Poland), routinely used this term to refer to her
grandchildren. Especially important in this context is that this passage is followed by Gregor
being annoyed with the servant and her “Redensarten” (idioms), which greatly underlines the
special significance of this expression when we consider it a marker of Jewishness.
Important to note here, however, is that I do not seek to make a claim for the identity of a
Jewish translator as being crucial here, meaning that only a German-Jewish person would be able
to properly translate here, or that this passage has to be understood necessarily as being about
Jewishness. Rather, I would like to use this example to point back once again to my earlier
thoughts on affinity and ambiguity: As the above example shows, I have a personal affinity to
read the servant as a Jewish character who has a special moment of recognition with Gregor
because of a personal history. In other words, I have an inclination to read this passage a certain
29
way, I learn into a specific direction; yet I am not fixed to this position. There is no hierarchy
between these readings, they all coexist thanks to the ambiguity, meaning the multiplicity of
meaning, of the text.
Yet I do not see this ambiguity of the term Mistkäfer reflected in any of the translations
that use “dung beetle.” Thus I propose translating Mistkäfer as “critter” rather than “dung
beetle,” so as to bring back as much ambiguity of the original as possible. My choice here is
impacted to a large degree by Donna Haraway’s writing on the term, wherein she makes an
explicit case for the multitude of meaning housed within the term “critter,” much of which I see
paralleled in the word Mistkäfer, whose ambiguity I have laid out above. Haraway writes:
Critters is an American everyday idiom for varmints of all sorts. Scientists talk of their
‘critters’ all the time; and so do ordinary people all over the U.S., but perhaps especially
in the South. The taint of ‘creatures’ and ‘creation’ does not stick to ‘critters’; if you see
such a semiotic barnacle, scrape it off. In this book, ‘critters’ refers promiscuously to
microbes, plants, animals, humans and nonhumans, and sometimes even to machines
(Haraway 2016, 69n1).
A thorough translation from German into English needs to ensure that Anglophone readers are
not limited to thinking of Gregor as a bug, a cockroach, or an actual dung beetle, but also as
somebody who is addressed with a term of endearment by the (potentially Jewish) servant. With
the choice of the term critter, I hope to convey this ambiguity, drawing on the above Haraway
quote; therein, importantly, she also raises the term varmint, another term that refers to wild
animals, yet at the same time can be used to refer to a human child who is behaving in unkempt
ways. With my use this term of endearment, rather than any figurative translation of Mistkäfer,
30
Anglophone readers might still very well interpret Die Verwandlung as a text about a human
waking up one day in the shape of an insect; but I also want to allow readers to be confronted
with more ambiguity, and to be able to ask themselves the same kinds of questions I am asking
myself, whether this story may be a veiled tale about fears of a Jewish, minority family of being
found out by an anti-Semitic society.
Interestingly, Stanley Corngold, who, as I have laid out above, produces an ekphrastic
translation as well, reads this scene from an opposite direction: Corngold, in whose translation
the Bedienerin that appears as “charwoman” in Bernofsky has been rendered into English as
“cleaning woman,” writes: “The cleaning woman does not know that a metamorphosis has
occurred, that within this insect shape there is a human consciousness […]” (86). For Corngold,
the address of Gregor as Mistkäfer is therefore read literally. He claims that the Bedienerin does
not know that a metamorphosis has taken place, and that the creature in Gregor’s room not only
is an insect, but that it always has been an insect. Corngold concludes that “the alien cleaning
woman gives Gregor Samsa the factual, entomological identity of a ‘dung beetle’ […] (ibid),
meaning that he, too, neglects the possibility of there being any polysemy of the term Mistkäfer.
From this passage derives also my contemplation to change the English title of this text to
simply Die Verwandlung: The word metamorphosis, used as the title in every English translation
of this Kafka story that I have been able to find, sounds rather clinical and stilted to me. It points
too much at the notion of Gregor actually becoming an insect. Instead, I was tempted to go back
to the German word Verwandlung, which indicates a shift of physical form, while at the same
time evoking an aura of something mythical or magical, perhaps an act of sorcery, something
that cannot be grasped rationally and lies in the supernatural. I have also played with the idea of
31
renaming the story into The Disfiguration or The Transformation, since these terms have
meaningful prefixes. The translation of the German prefix [Ver-], however, invokes the notion of
being disfigured, and thus carries with it more of a connotation of someone or something having
lost in aesthetic value, with the German word Verwandlung does not. The prefix [Trans-], on the
other hand, evokes a transfer, from one form or location to another. This is unfitting for this text
since there is no end point to Gregor’s body; on the contrary. As I will argue in the second
chapter, his body stops to make any sense. It dissolves, drifts apart, and is experienced
incoherently and chaotically by the reader, as well as Gregor himself.
Of course, there is also the term “Wand” (wall) in the word Verwandlung. Whether or not
an intentional pun on the part of the author, this certainly invites readings of the novella also a
story about domesticity. As I will argue later in this project, Gregor’s body can understood to
represent the family household, and it is his body that enters the private abodes of others in his
profession as a traveling salesman. Drawing on Freud’s notion of the uncanny, one might
therefore consider “Unheimlich” as a title for this text. However, it appears to me that the
foremost facet of this text is the notion of what lies behind language, the chain between signifier
and signified, or, drawing on Benjamin, the difference between das Gemeinte (what is meant)
and die Art des Meinens (the manner of meaning it). Therefore, one might also be tempted to
swap the title The Metamorphosis simply for The Metaphor. Or, rather, as I have ultimately
decided for this project, remain with The Metamorphosis, since this title is well established in the
Anglophone realm, as well as being in proximity to the term metaphor.
32
1.2 Polysemy in Translation
What is reduction in literature, and what are its critical potentials? Remaining with Franz Kafka’s
Die Verwandlung, I engage here more deeply with the process of my own act of translating from
German into English. This means that from the outset, I look at several versions of this text: The
German original, contemporary English translations, to start with. Also, and especially, I bring in
my own translation of this text, from German into English, for analysis and discussion,
beginning in the second subchapter, after I have sketched the theoretical framework and
introduced some of the key terms for my analysis. Over the course of this first chapter, my re-
translation of Die Verwandlung, included with the dissertation project in its entirety as an
addendum, serves as a touchpoint for me to return to time and time again.
With this approach, I focus from the start on the differences, gaps, and ambiguities that
become visible when comparative different versions of what is supposed to be the same story. I
spotlight the subtleties and nuances of the original text and show what gets lost if these are not
conveyed in translation. I choose to begin the dissertation this way because the entire project is
one that is located in translation: Moving between German and English everyday, traversing the
city of Los Angeles with its multitude of other linguistic realities, oftentimes kept apart by the
spatially, socially, racially divided layout of its metro area, and having moved from Germany to
the United States for graduate school, only to end up working on Franz Kafka; all of these
productive gaps, between language, between time, between lifeworlds, are considered
contributors to the end product that is this dissertation.
As will become apparent in my analysis, this translative approach is needed for my
question about the reduction of language, and concepts such as abstraction or ambiguity as they
33
appear within the cultural text that I use as the basis of my discussion. A departing question, for
the analysis in this dissertation as much as for the re-translation that marks its foundation, is
whether a translator might work according to their personal interpretation of a source text, or
whether they should rather attempt to abide by objectivity, however this term may be understood.
Subsequently, the question emerges whether it is possible to translate ambiguous texts, those that
invite multiple meanings, texts that require readers to “read between the lines.” To discuss these
points, I discuss my re-translation of Die Verwandlung in comparison and contrast to other
translations of that same text; my focus here is especially on the translation of minor literature,
from Kafka’s Prague-German into contemporary U.S.-English.
While not being able to provide an answer to this question, I also use this first chapter to
begin asking the question what a literature might look like that does without representation,
perhaps a literature that allows a glimpse behind it. With this gesture, I seek to move beyond
mere discourse analysis and look for narratives that do not merely represent, but that contain
ethical and/or political impulses with which they may compel readers. How might literary fiction
do this, pushing readers into interrogation rather than providing them with representations, so as
to potentially make them aware of ideological constructs that they themselves are caught within?
I suggest that one way to do so lies in abstract and ambiguous literature, which, as I will argue
with the example of Die Verwandlung, can function as Critical Theory, coined by Max
Horkheimer as the “intellectual side of the historical process of proletarian emancipation” (215).
With this, I contemplate author Kafka’s class consciousness; I trace the seeds of this back to the
book cover of Die Verwandlung, but also to the often-discussed question of alienation under
capitalism that this novella is commonly understood to represent.
34
To sketch out my main argument, I first look at Kafka, and then behind him: I provide a
close reading of several passages from Die Verwandlung, both in their German original and in
existing English translations, to build my case for the power that lies in abstraction, ambiguity,
and affinity ––I define these terms before diving into my analysis–– and their particular coming
together in the Kafka text; Die Verwandlung is a novella told in three parts. In this chapter, I will
discuss primarily my re-translation of the first of these three, while of course the translation of
the entirety of the Kafka text is included as an addendum to this document, following the main
body of text of the dissertation . Subsequently, I discuss a selection of biographical details of the
6
author’s life and other writing, so as to advocate for a new mode of translation, one that is at
once ethical and political, and one which, as my discussion of the Kafka text will reveal, puts a
special research task onto the translator: The power of this text, I argue, is its breaking of the
boundaries between embodiment and abstraction, by which it forces its readers to sit with
fragmentation and contemplate meaning rather than be given clear-cut representation. Rather
than presenting a direct representational correspondence between signifier and signified, which
codifies meaning and interpretation, I argue that this text forces readers to ponder its openness
(cf. Eco 1989). I ask whether interaction with media has to be rich, detailed, and specific, or
whether the evocation of affect may work especially well via a text’s anti-ekphrastic, anti-visual
style, which I refer to as abstraction.
A general comment on the format of my translation: I have kept the paragraph structure of the German
6
original, but have otherwise formatted the text according to MLA format. This is to be in line with U.S.
academic convention, since the text is here presented as part of a dissertation project, and because page
breaks or other formatting aspects of the German original novella, such as page breaks or the typography
used, did not appear of crucial importance to me.
35
With his use of abstraction here, I argue, Kafka here problematizes the distinction
between image and imagination: As readers, we cannot be sure whether we are reading
metaphors, metonymies, analogies, symbols, or concrete descriptions. With this, I think Kafka
can be understood in a vein similar to Heinrich von Kleist, who, as Katrin Pahl illustrates, had
great impact on Kafka, and in whose writing metaphors “push the literal and the concrete to the
point that they fabulously blur with the figurative and the abstract” (Pahl 2019: 139). I take these
notions, of the figurative, the abstract, the ambiguous, and use them throughout this chapter to
discuss the ways in which they work to disorient readerly affects, and complicate senses of
embodiment with regards to Gregor Samsa, the unlucky protagonist of the Kafka text.
With this first chapter, I follow in the footsteps of Nina Pelikan Straus (1996), who writes
about the Kafka text that she refers to under the title The Metamorphosis that “[n]o single
7
interpretation invalidates or finally delivers the story’s significance. Its quality of multivalence
[Vieldeutigkeit] keeps us talking to teach other…” (126). Similarly, Günther Anders argues that
the multiplicity of possible interpretations emerging from Kafka’s texts are rooted in the
“Vieldeutigkeit des Objekts selber” (46) (multivalence of the object itself), with “objects” here
referring to Kafka’s texts. To go about, I begin with the polysemy of the term Vieldeutigkeit used
in Straus or Anders: the German verb deuten that sits within this compound term means to
interpret, to explain, and to point out. What Straus refers to as multivalence of the text, then, can
also be taken as that which points us into many different directions, opening up questions of
It is of course common knowledge that Die Verwandlung is titled The Metamorphosis in its English
7
translations. While I find the English title misleading and use a different title for my own translation, I
still use both titles throughout this document.
36
orientation, direction, and the road that respective interpretations may go down once they have
started on a certain path.
My goal here is to discuss the task of the translator in grappling with the aforementioned
multivalence, and to ponder how to carry it from source- into target language. I therefore propose
an approach to translation that focuses more closely on Minor-German language-specificity, one
that considers both the polysemy of individual words as well as tone and style of the text, allows
Anglophone readers of this text to experience the abstract sense of alienation and paranoia from
the original. With this, the English-speaking realm will be enabled to extract further layers of
meaning from the text.
Interspersed in my discussion throughout this chapter, I will also touch upon questions of
form and style: For instance, while the Bernofsky translation uses contractions (such as “he
didn’t” instead of “he did not”), I have chosen to remove them altogether from my English
version of the Kafka text. In my discussion, I will argue that removing the contractions makes
the dialogue feel more stilted and more impersonal, which I think fits very well with the eerie
mood of the story, and more accurately reflects the German original. This is especially
pronounced in the scenes when Gregor’s parents speak with him through his closed door, and I
think underlines their trying to perform according to the petty bourgeoise milieu that I think the
family tries to situate itself within. I had debated using contractions for Gregor’s internal
monologue, but decided to remove it there, too, so as to underline Gregor’s alienation from
himself, which I understand to be at the heart of this entire story. My comments regarding
Kafka’s form culminate in the subchapter on sentence length, where I present a digital analysis of
37
the amount of words in the original German text of Die Verwandlung, and compare and contrast
this to other English translations.
The main goal for my translation, as I will illustrate in what follows, was to retain as
much of the ambivalence of Kafka’s original, much of which I felt had gotten lost in English
versions of this German text, such as the ones by Bernofsky or Corngold. In doing so, my
translation aims to be more appropriate for minor literature, which I consider Die Verwandlung
to be a part of, as I will elaborate on. I illuminate the ambiguous meanings of the words used in
the original, and show how their respective translation can shape the trajectory of the entire text.
Resulting from this analysis, I arrive at questions such as: Should a translator work according to
their personal interpretation of a source text, or should they attempt to abide by objectivity,
however this term may be understood? And is it possible to translate ambiguous texts, those that
invite multiple meanings, texts that require us to ponder poetic opacity (which Derrida discusses
as the “metaphysics of presence”), that is to read between the lines, and that break the
structuralist boundary between signifier and signified?
1.2.1 The Metamorphosis / The Metaphor
In the canonical The Death of the Author, Roland Barthes writes that texts should be interpreted
without their authors or the author’s identity in mind; rather, Barthes writes, one should not “give
a text an Author” (1967, ), but should interpret the text itself and allow for a wider variety of
meanings. Barthes writes: “We know that a text is not a line of words releasing a single
‘theological’ meaning (the ‘message’ of the Author-God), but a multidimensional space with a
variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash” (Barthes 1977, 146). With this,
38
Barthes advocates for the importance of the cultural object itself, independent of the time, place,
or socio-historical identity of the person who has fashioned this cultural object. While at first
hand Barthes point may appear obvious, that focusing on a text’s author and their identity
markers, narrows the possible effects and interpretations of a text for readers. We might for
instance think here of viewing Franz Kafka’s works only and exclusively through the lens of his
Jewishness, and then resort to interpreting them only and exclusively as Jewish literature, thus
interpreting everything that happens within his texts as representative of Jewishness. This is most
certainly not the intention of this dissertation. On the other hand, however I think, and I will
illustrate with the following subchapters, not giving a text an author, trying to read and interpret
a text completely independent of its author and the respective circumstances that have shaped
their lives, similarly limits the possible interpretations there may be to a text.
Here, this is of course read through the lens of a translator, who reads and interprets the
text themselves, before setting out on the task of translating this text into a target language,
where it will then be received, read, interpreted by other readers. With regards to Barthes’ notion
of the importance of the text, independent of its author, I therefore locate my entry point within
language: As I will show, it is in the usage of polysemous vocabulary and abstract writing by the
author that the multiplicity of Die Verwandlung emerges. The author Kafka is therefore not, as
Barthes would have it, dead, but rather alive and recalcitrant in countless textual elements and, as
I will discuss, keeping readers from bending the interpretation of the text too far into a respective
direction.
Translation, as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak reminds us, is “the most intimate form of
reading,” (2000, 398), an assessment that this project shares. Any translator then acts as a reader,
39
but also as an author; from this, a fascinating task arises for the translator, moving them into a
space between ascribing new meaning, so as to make a text understandable for readers in a
different linguistic and/or cultural context than the original author, and not ascribing new
meaning, so as to not give the text an author, to use Barthes words, and close the text to potential
readings and interpretations. My point for what follows is to move with Barthes, while at the
same time pushing back against him: Certainly, Die Verwandlung should not be interpreted
solely in the basis of Kafka’s position as a Jewish, German-speaking writer in Prague.
Interpreting this text only from this perspective would be limiting, and go against everything that
I argue for in my discussion of ambiguity. At the same time, however, I think it is crucially
important to be aware of this fact, so as not to overlook it, as I argue existing translations of Die
Verwandlung have done.
With this, I move into a different direction from Stanley Corngold (1970), who argues
that the Kafka text “takes metaphors at their word” and renders literal the metaphor of the human
that acts as a nasty bug (93). While much has been said about the the metaphor of the
metamorphosis and the metamorphosis of the metaphor alike, the transformation of Gregor
Samsa from human into insect seems to be taken literally by Anglophone scholars of Die
Verwandlung, such as Stanley Corngold; rather than contemplating the question about the insect-
ness of the protagonist here, his physicality or his actions, I am mainly interested in the way that
Gregor’s surroundings react to him. In other words, this chapter challenges debates around
insects and their meanings, and opens the door to assessments of this text as a tale about the
protagonist’s psychic break, calling into question his physical transformation altogether.
40
1.2.2 Translating Ambiguity
How, then, might a translator go about in translating a text whose original is ambiguous, or
perhaps opaque in its language, and in the subsequent meaning(s) that it produces? To begin my
rumination on this point, I shall first sketch what I mean with the word ambiguity: The Oxford
English Dictionary (OED) defines this term as the fact of something having more than one
meaning, thereby possibly causing confusion. The notion of confusion here is important, since
with this, we already move towards the reception of language: Is this confusion accidental or
deliberate, is it something that the author does to achieve a specific effect with the text? And
secondly, of course, how can a translator grapple with this confusion? Are they able to bring that
same sense of confusion over from source language into target language, so that the translated
text can be equally confusing to readers? That is why I choose the term ambiguity here rather
than polysemy, which connotes one word that has several meanings. For now, my most important
claim is that with regards to a literary text, ambiguity means that a piece of writing has multiple
meanings, can be interpreted in a variety of ways, and is therefore open to diverse readings. And,
of course, the text can be confusing, may not lend itself to any straightforward interpretation.
My main concern is then, how a translator might possible account for this ambiguity
when they bring their own cultural backgrounds, biases, personal interpretation to a text. My
starting point here is the fear that translators might engage in disambiguation, meaning that they
choose one word, deriving from one interpretation, over another word. To illustrate, Borges for
instance describes in “The Translators of the Thousand and One Nights” that every translator of
this work has had their own interpretation, their own cultural biases, and sometimes their own
agenda influence the way that they translated the text. Borges even speculates that a translation
41
of the Thousand and One Nights into German by Franz Kafka might bring German
Unheimlichkeit (47) into the text. With this in mind, the question becomes whether it is
appropriate to let the translators’ personal reading color their translation, at the risk of the work
in a target language losing even just some of the ambiguity of the original. Or, posed the other
way around, is it even possible for a translator not to do this?
As an illustration for why ambiguity is an important factor to keep in mind for an
accurate translation of Die Verwandlung, take for instance references to religion within the text:
Throughout the first part of the novella, there are four instances in which a character refers to a
deity: The first two are uttered by Gregor, “Ach Gott” (70) and “Himmlischer Vater” (71), the
other two by his mother, who says “Um Gottes Willen” (80) and “Hilfe, um Gottes Willen
Hilfe!” (86), a figure of speech referring to a god’s will. Since I have proposed above that we
situate this text in a Jewish milieu that is fearful of its non-Jewish surroundings, I am particularly
wary of how to translate these exclamations into English; perhaps these are instances of
heightened paranoid by the Samsa family, with fears of being exposed as Jewish. At the same
time, however, a careful translation should not over-determine this reading, so as not to force the
interpretation that this may be understood as a story about anti-Semitism onto text, but instead
retain the ambiguity of Kafka’s German original. I therefore propose that we should understand
all four of the aforementioned instances as mere figures of speech where “god” is neither
specifically Christian or Jewish, thus presenting us here with an ambiguous situation where
religious identity may or may not play a role in the story.
Of course there exists the possibility of avoiding the question of religion altogether in
translating this passage, where one might be tempted to remove the word “god” altogether, and
42
to instead translate these exclamations as “oh my” instead; yet I caution, again, not to overly
adjust the text here, but rather to respect the author’s word choice and embrace the ambiguity
that it brings to these passages. Doing so, retaining the allusion to a monotheistic deity, both
reflects the common figure of speech that lies in the proclamation “for god’s sake,” which I do
not think necessarily implies a call for a Christian conception of God, and also reflects the
possible interpretation of the Samsa family’s urge to be well-respected by their surroundings and
conform to common expressions in a predominantly Christian society, wherein somebody would
very much utter a cry towards god in a time of crisis. Therefore, I propose not to capitalize the
word “god” (the German original here is of course no help, as German capitalizes all nouns) as a
way of retaining the ambiguity in these passages. The author’s personal identity, well-
documented in countless works that have tried to grapple with Franz Kafka’s life and works (e.g.
Corngold 1996), as a German-speaking Jew within a non-German-speaking, non-Jewish society
of Prague, is thus present, but not overdetermining for my reading of these passages. Rather, it is
the milieu that shines through passages such as the one above, its norms such as the nuclear
family, gendered divisions of labor, and allusions to a single deity that is called upon for help by
literary characters when faced with a crisis.
Now why would the potential for a religious framework of Die Verwandlung, coming
from the author’s identity, be important for interpretations of this novella in the first place? For
one, we see in this example the monotheistic worldview that this text appears to be a product of,
thus closing off the possibility to interpret the text without making assumptions about its author.
Consider that Kafka is the prime example of literature mineure, or minor literature, in Deleuze
and Guattari, which they define as follows: “[M]inor literatures–– the Jewish literature of
43
Warsaw or Prague, for example. A minor literature is not the literature of a minor language but
the literature a minority makes in a major language” (16). Looking at my above discussion of
Kafka, one can see easily why he is considered a part of minor literature, and Deleuze and
Guattari’s prime example for this category of writing. For the two authors, Kafka is the prime
example for minor literature because he was part of the German-speaking minority of Prague,
and also a Jew, a religious minority in any European state. Given the above quotation, and
looking back onto existing English translations of Die Verwandlung, I am immediately struck by
the fact that this text is not discussed widely as being about Jewishness and fears of anti-
Semitism. This is where I think the special research task of the translator becomes visible;
instead of translating according to personal readings, interpretations, or affinities, particular
attention needs to be paid to potential ambiguities in the author’s original writing.
This passage is thus also an excellent example for what I mean when I refer to a reader’s
affinity: As my above elaboration shows, there is certainly evidence that supports reading this
story as being about Jewishness and anti-Semitism. But rather than pointing to the author’s
ethno-racial category as a German-speaking Jew in early-20th century Prague and basing
readings exclusively on this identity, which would once again make for a structuralist
understanding of this text, I think that it is particularly the ambiguity of Kafka’s writing that
allows different readers to gain different readings from Die Verwandlung. The main feature of
this text, and also the main challenge for translators, lies in this very ambiguity, which I argue is
brought about due to the abstract writing style, which, as I have mentioned above, defies
visualization. The power of ambiguity here, in other words, lies not in presenting readers with an
either/or binary wherein the text can be understood only in one way or another, but instead in the
44
coexistence of meaning. This, as I will lay out in the following, is achieved by the author’s anti-
ekphrastic writing style, which brings to the fore inessential aspects of language.
On Translation
In “The Task of the Translator,” Walter Benjamin distinguishes between that which is meant, Das
Gemeinte, and the manner meaning it, Die Art des Meinens, within a piece of writing (18).
Benjamin writes that Das Gemeinte is limited by language, and what the author puts into
language is actually a lot more: The “what” of what the author can put into language, being die
Art des Meinens, the manner of meaning something (ibid). For Benjamin, language thus always
obscures to some degree, since it is never pure, and what the author means is never expressed
directly, but instead is always coded in the language that is available to the author dependent
upon time, location, and cultural context of their respective life (20). How, then, might a
translator, located in a different time, location, and cultural context from the author go about
translating the original text in a way that is both appropriate to the original context within which
the original was written, and understandable to, for instance, a contemporary anglophone
audience? Antoine Berman discusses this question, whether a translation should be domesticating
or foreignizing, and writes against “ethnocentric, annexationist translations” (286), which are at
the same time difficult not do fall into, because of the “ethnocentric structure of every culture,
every language” (ibid).
Considering the question how to make a text from a distant time and/or place
understandable for a contemporary audience by means of translation, perhaps we might then
understand translation as transfer from one cultural context to another, taking into consideration
45
not just Das Gemeinte, but also Die Art des Meinens, meaning that the translator has to strip
away language and get to the “intended effect” (19) of the original. What does this mean for the
translation of abstract or obscure texts, texts that can play with readers’ expectations and
interpretations, that are ambiguous and have multiple ways of being understood? To approach
this question, I quote Benjamin at length:
For what does a literary work “say”? What does it communicate? It “tells” very little to
those who understand it. Its essential quality is not statement or the imparting of
information - hence, something inessential. This is the hallmark of bad translations. But
do we not generally regard as the essential substance of a literary work what it contains in
addition to information, […] the unfathomable, the mysterious, the “poetic,” something
that a translator can reproduce only if he is also a poet? This, actually, is the cause of
another characteristic of inferior translation, which consequently we may define as the
inaccurate transmission of an inessential content. This will be true whenever a translation
undertakes to serve the reader. However, if it were intended for the reader, the same
would have to apply to the original. If the original does not exist for the reader’s sake,
how could the translation be understood on the basis of this premise? (Benjamin 15f).
I am here most interested in what Benjamin here refers to as “inessential content,” which, at least
the way I personally understand it, we might take to mean that which can be read between the
lines; additional information that contributes to the richness of a text, from which may derive its
ambiguity, the multiplicity of potential interpretations. In a story such as Die Verwandlung, what
Benjamin calls here “the unfathomable, the mysterious, the poetic” is of course present
throughout, given how obscure and how other-worldly this novella, like much of Kafka’s other
46
writing as well (see Deleuze and Guattari 1986). I suggest thinking of this as the question of
aesthetic intelligibility, the ways in which an abstract, written text may seek to let the reader
imagine what cannot be grasped visually, what is therefore unimaginable.
Subsequently, this brings up the question whether enigmatic writing may perhaps have
the capacity to point readers towards the limits of language, and to contemplate meanings,
realities, and possibilities that lie outside of what is currently linguistically graspable for them.
Subsequently, this leads me to ask: Is what is imaginable then, too, tied to what a writer is able to
put into words? I will return to these points later, using Lacan’s concepts of the mental registers
of the real, the abstract, and the imaginary. For now, I approach this notion via Roman
Jakobson’s notion of intersemiotic translation: Jakobson distinguishes between three kinds of
translation.
1. Intralingual translation or rewording is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of
other signs of the same language.
2. Interlingual translation or translation proper is an interpretation of verbal signs by
means of some other language.
3. Intersemiotic translation or transmutation is an interpretation of verbal signs by
means of signs of nonverbal sign systems (114, italics in original).
I find this division fascinating, as I believe Die Verwandlung blurs the lines between these three
kinds of translation. While moving the text from German into English certainly conforms to
Jakobson’s notion of the interlingual translation, I believe that it requires intersemiotic
translation at the same time: The text complicates the division into semiotic realms, such as
writing or visuality, as it, while being presented in the form of text, at the same time presents the
47
reader with an aesthetic intelligibility, as it stokes the imagination, yet remains utterly
unimaginable. I dive deeper into the question of the unimaginable in the second chapter,
To better understand why a thorough (perhaps achieved through ardent research, based, if
possible, not only on a translator’s affinities) translation of inessential content might be needed to
do justice to the author’s writing, and to produce a translation for a contemporary Anglophone
readership that (for lack of a better term) feels like a Kafka text in German does, it becomes
important to consider the context within which the author wrote Die Verwandlung: As laid out by
Koelb, Franz Kafka was born in 1883 and was a part of the German-speaking population
minority of Prague, then capital of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and from 1918 on capital of
Czechoslovakia. Without spending too much time on such biographic details, it is important to
note that Kafka came from a family of Ashkenazi Jews (Koelb), and was thus part of several
minority groups: As a German-speaker and a Jew in Prague, as a Jew within the German-
speaking world, and as a person living in Prague for the rest of the German-speaking population,
and was thus part of several minority groups: As a German-speaker and a Jew in Prague, as a
Jew within the German-speaking world, and as a person living in Prague for the rest of the
German-speaking population. In the second chapter of this paper, I will go into further detail
about the political aspects of this identity position, which is the basis for Deleuze and Guattari’s
concept of minor literature.
For now, my main concern as a translator is in how far biographical context such as the
aforementioned aspects about Kafka’s life are important for a translation, so as more accurately
transmit what Benjamin refers to as “inessential content” to allow for ambiguous readings in a
translated text, such as my English translation of Die Verwandlung. This poses central questions
48
for the task of the translator and the question whether their personal interpretation should color
their translation, or whether they should attempt for objectivity, even if this may not be
achievable in a complete form. We might, for instance, read Die Verwandlung as a piece of
comedy, with the protagonist being melodramatic throughout, and the ensuing conflicts over the
course of the story taking on amusing dimensions. We might, on the other hand, read the story as
sad and dramatic, or as a tale of paranoia and anxiety. The central question emerging for me from
these potential different readings is whether each one should spawn its own translation, or
whether it may be possible to bring this multiplicity of possible interpretations, the ambiguity of
the original text, over into another language.
In my understanding of it, however, there is nothing funny about Die Verwandlung. As I
understand the main storyline, Gregor’s physical change that renders him an Ungeziefer is of
course notable, but perhaps meant as ironic exaggeration, because the entire Samsa family keeps
trying so hard to conform, and to be respectable in front of the rest of the population. This leads
to the question whether Gregor becomes an actual insect, or whether this is ironic exaggeration,
playing with anti-semitic tropes to make a point about conformity and assimilation, as I will
explain in a little bit. Yet my goal here is not to let this personal interpretation color the translated
work that I produce in English; with this, I arrive at the first example of what I mean with the
word ambiguity in Kafka’s Die Verwandlung. Some readers may understand this story as that of
a man who one day wakes up and has become a bug. I read this story as being about an
assimilated Jewish family in a petty-bourgeoise milieu, and their fears of being exposed as Jews
49
by those around them. The question is how to let these two interpretations coexist, and how to
8
translate the (Prague-)German original into an English that allows for both such interpretations,
and perhaps various other ones besides them.
1.3 Affinity: Ekphrasis and Untranslatability
Pursuing further the idea of this text presents the reader not with an actual insect that is
imaginable, but rather with a human protagonist who thinks that he may have turned into one, I
suggest that Die Verwandlung is an exemplar for the breaking down of the boundaries between
human and non-human animal, and that the story illuminates important instances of the social
creation of human exceptionalism and the question of social respectability. This happens largely
through descriptions of family dynamics in a petty-bourgeoise setting: As I have discussed at the
beginning of this project, when the story of Die Verwandlung opens, we are of course told that
Gregor, a young man and the eldest of two siblings in the Samsa family, wakes up as an
“ungeheures Ungeziefer” (“monstrous vermin,” [Corngold translation], “some sort of monstrous
insect” [Bernofsky translation]) one morning. Throughout the rest of this text, as is well known,
Gregor’s milieu tries to wrestle with this fact, and it is through their struggles to confront the
metamorphosis that has occurred within the family space that we are given insights into the still-
human insecurities and sensibilities of Gregor Samsa.
It must be noted that in the translation from German into English, problems regarding the
specificity of language occur, opening up questions about the relationship between signifier and
I will expand on this point later in this project; while the focus is here on the coexistence of two
8
interpretations, I argue later for the radical openness of the text, allowing for countless readings to
coexist.
50
signified, or perhaps rather between concrete physical object (the protagonist’s body) and
abstract, literary descriptions thereof.
I start here by focusing on the Greek word “Ekphrasis.” The Poetry Foundation describes
this literary term as follows:
A vivid, often dramatic, verbal description of a visual work of art, either real or imagined.
An ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art.
Through the imaginative act of narrating and reflecting on the “action” of a painting or
sculpture, the poet may amplify and expand its meaning.
As stated, this term thus describes the rendering of visual elements in language and is often used
to describe works of visual art, such as paintings, in vivid language. This use of language to
describe visuality, I argue with the example of Die Verwandlung, is actually an impossible feat.
While the novella is full of descriptions about looks and looking, trying to visually represent the
actual Ungeziefer that Gregor Samsa turns into, my main claim here, is not actually possible.
This is important to take note of since I believe that it points us towards difference instances of
the un_translatability of The Metamorphosis. Further, this speaks to the complications of
translating the novella itself from German into other languages, but also, and especially, to the
friction points that we encounter when trying to translate this story from written word into visual
representation. While I will ponder these two points with more detail in the next subchapter, let
us here take note of Ekphrasis in both the marketing and dominant interpretations of the text.
This use of language to describe visuality is put on its head in Die Verwandlung,
rendering the text not just non-ekphrastic, but anti-ekphrastic, in the sense that it prohibits any
attempt at visualizing the body of its protagonist, while at the same time centering around his
51
embodiment and his unwillingness to confront it, thus inviting the reader to contemplate the
question of Gregor’s embodiment, only to frustrate them by letting any attempts to coherently do
so fall flat. While the text is full of descriptions about looks and looking, trying to visually
represent the actual Ungeziefer, the creature that Gregor Samsa turns into, is not possible,
because the text only ever provides fragments of visual descriptions, often in indeterminate,
ambiguous, and abstract language. This, too, fits in with the often-cited letter (cf. Corngold 1996,
95) that Franz Kafka wrote to his editor before the first publication of Die Verwandlung, in
which he had urged his editor not to depict an insect of any sort on the front cover of the book.
While not the main focus of this part of the dissertation, it is nevertheless important to
take note of the fact that the author’s request was initially honored, and the cover image of the
first edition of Die Verwandlung did not depict an animal of any sort. Franz Kafka asked in a
letter to his editor, after having heard that the caricaturist Ottomar Starke had been tasked with
illustrating the book jacket for the German first edition of Die Verwandlung, that the insect not
be depicted, writing the following:
Dear Sir, you recently wrote that Ottomar Starke is going to do an illustration for the title
page of the Verwandlung. Now I have had a slight […] though probably wholly
unnecessary shock. Since Starke is an illustrator, it occurred to me that he might want to
draw the insect itself. Not that, please, not that! I do not want to restrict his authority, but
only to make this request from my own naturally better knowledge of the story. The
insect itself cannot be drawn. It cannot even be shown at a distance. Should such an
intention not exist and my request thus become ridiculous — all the better. […] If I could
myself make suggestions for the illustration, I chose scenes such as: the parents and the
52
assistant manager outside the closed door or even better the parents and the sister in the
illuminated room, with the open door to the entirely dark adjoining room (“Franz Kafka
9
an den Kurt Wolff Verlag”).
I take this letter as a starting point to contemplate the significance of the author specifically
requesting the absence of visual representation of the creature that they have written. What can
be made of the fact that various publishers did and do not obey Kafka’s request from 1915? And
subsequently, and especially, is the above letter also a request to translators regarding the use of
ekphrastic descriptions? I believe, and will work out in the remainder of this chapter, that this
points us towards the links between image and imagination, since translation happens not only
between languages (in the example chosen for this paper between German and English), but also
between the literal, the visual, and the imagined. As the book cover of the first German edition of
Die Verwandlung (Fig. 1) shows, some of Kafka’s suggestions, such as the light and the dark
rooms or the door that stands ajar, have been taken up by the illustrator.
With regards to Kafka’s call against visualizing the animal that Gregor Samsa becomes,
we may then ask ourselves: Do images preclude imagination? How big of a role does the image
play in imagination? And is it necessary for readers to be guided in visualizing the creature that
Gregor Samsa becomes? As contemporary editions of Kafka’s novella furthermore illustrate (Fig.
2, 3, 4) the vast majority of publishers choose to depict the animal on the cover of their editions
of Die Verwandlung, and each of the English renditions of the text translates its title as The
Metamorphosis. What to make of the fact that publishers, translators, and interpreters of this text
apparently want to constantly depict the animal, either linguistically within the text, or visually
Universität Wien. German source, my English translation.
9
53
on the book cover, while the Ungeziefer that is the central character in this story appears to us as
being literally un_imaginable, and located solely in the symbolic register of abstract language?
Notably, the German-language original reprint of the Kafka text has contemporary publications
that do without an illustration of an insect on the cover, such as the 2006 imprint by Swiss
publisher Diogenes (Fig. 5).
1011
With this in mind, I suggest with my reading of this text, and the coming-together of
ambiguity and abstraction that results in what I refer to at this point in the dissertation with the
term anti-Ekphrasis, as I will lay out below, that this text invites us to contemplate narrative
beyond representation. A comparison to abstract art makes sense to think about here: Abstract
paintings do not depict things per se, meaning what can be seen on the canvas has no direct
referent in the real. Instead of showing one unambiguous, clearly outlined scene, a piece of
abstract art can rather contain shapes, forms, and colors that may evoke associations to the real,
but whose interpretation may also be different for every respective spectator who looks at it. As
my below discussion will reveal, Die Verwandlung shows that literature can act similarly,
rendering futile the question about one singular meaning of the text. But this, of course, poses
great questions to the task of the translator, who still has to perform a certain degree of
interpretation in order to make meaning of sentences as they translate. Perhaps, this is best
thought of as a sort of negative representation: Throughout Die Verwandlung, visuality plays a
Notably, this last publication uses a sketch drawn by Kafka himself for the cover. Recent
10
publications, such as Kafka: Die Zeichnungen (2021) by Andreas Kilcher, bring attention to
Kafka’s non-literary expression.
This sketch, along with two others, is also used on the book cover of Judith Butler’s Giving an
11
Account of Oneself (Fordham University Press, 2005). For Butler’s commentary on Kafka’s
illustrations, see Kilcher.
54
clearly important role; yet is it by no means clear, meaning that the reader is not once enabled to
form a concrete, unambiguous image of the body of protagonist Gregor Samsa. Rather, the text
continually teases the reader’s eye by pointing out that a body, full of sensations and obviously
distressing to the person who inhabits it, is very much present within the story; however, the
narration withdraws time and time again before any certainty about the state of this body can be
gained on the part of the reader, thereby leaving them to sit with –and inside of– an assemblage
of incoherent observations.
As O’Neill states further, “Kafka’s texts, whether encountered in the original or in
translation, are invariably characterized by their unrelenting challenge to the reader to make them
make sense: it is clear that that challenge begins no later than their title” (157). Along with the
focus on the novella’s title and it’s potential untranslatability, I suggest here that the first and
biggest challenge to the reader happens already on the book cover, due to the challenge of
representing a sort of animal that Gregor becomes. This demonstrates my point that translation
(and the challenges that go along with it) occurs not only between languages, but also between
language and image.
Moreover, it should also be noted that the title The Metamorphosis itself is already a
debatable translation of the German Die Verwandlung; after all, the German title chosen by
Kafka himself was not Die Metamorphose, the German word for metamorphosis, which would
have been a possibility as well. As I would argue and as any German-English dictionary will
confirm, the noun “Verwandlung,” which Kafka chose instead as the title, could have been
translated into a variety of English terms besides “metamorphosis,” such as “transformation,”
“conversion,” “change,” or “transmutation.” While the choice made by the first translators of this
55
Kafka novella into English in the 1930s is perhaps not entirely unfitting, I believe, going along
with the above-cited O’Neill, that indeed the title alone already illustrates to us, before we have
even cracked open the book, the untranslatability of the remainder of the Kafka text.
However, I would like to use the above O’Neill quote not to discuss the title of this Kafka
story in too much detail. Rather, I want to use it to point towards the fact that important
interpretations of Kafka’s work reflect what I consider to be a desire, if not an obsession with
making sense of the stories which may seem so absurd, or so complex that any attempt at
definition or meaning-making is bound to fail. One example provided in O’Neill is that of
Vladimir Nabokov, who gave elaborate lectures on Die Verwandlung, in which he included
drawings of the insect, and elaborated on the importance of Gregor Samsa turning a beetle, and
not a cockroach, as other, previous interpretations had claimed. But what does this need to define
the kind of animal that Gregor turns into signify? Paralleling Gregor’s monomania, his obsession
with his wage labor at the expense of his bodily well-being and coherence, many interpretations
—and I count any translation as an interpretation— of the Kafka text seem in fact shaped by an
obsession with this bodily coherence, and subsequent ekphrasis.
Against the monomania of these interpretations, I suggest that, as Kafka had expressed
with his push against visual representation, the insect that Gregor becomes may not actually have
a real-world equivalent. The question whether Kafka’s literal descriptions translate into the visual
representation of a beetle, a roach, or an altogether different kind of animal should, perhaps, not
be significant at all. Instead it appears that this is another instance of translation, from language
into image, which does not have an exact match between origin and target, much like the
translation of the title, from Die Verwandlung to The Metamorphosis, is not an exact match.
56
What does it do that non-German speaking readers have no understanding of the word
Ungeziefer, does that show a reliance on language to visualize? Are images needed to imagine,
and what happens when visualization is impossible.I suggest that Die Verwandlung makes visible
instances of literary pareidolia, the latter term describing “the tendency for perception to impose
a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object,
pattern, or meaning where there is none.” It is my suggestion here that much like a Rorschach- or
inkblot test, common examples of visual pareidolia, in which a subject is presented with an
abstract image and asked to describe their thinking process and their interpretation for what they
see, the text Die Verwandlung, due to abstraction in style and ambiguity of chosen words,
functions similarly. With this assessment, I mean that the text itself is so open (cf. Eco) that it
does not provide a direction, and does not propose one correct way of being interpreted. Instead,
my point is that the text depends on what I term readerly affinity, allowing a wide range of
different interpretations to coexist alongside one another. This raises the question whether the
text, its title and key terms such as Ungeziefer, might be better understood through the concept of
Untranslatability:
In the words of Emily Apter, an untranslatable is “as a term that is left untranslated as it is
transferred from language to language (as in the examples of polis, Begriff, praxis, Aufheben,
mimesis, ‘feeling,’ lieu commun, logos, ‘matter of fact’), or that is typically subject to
mistranslation and retranslation” (2014, vii). Terms such as the ones listed in her examples, she
explains further in her foreword to the English edition of the Dictionary of Untranslatables, or
Dictionnaire des intraduisibles, ed. Barbara Cassin (2004), in its French original, are discussed
57
under the concept of the Untranslatable because they are considered standing terms, and are not
replaced by a different expressions in another language when used in another language.
I end here on the words such as Ungeheures Ungeziefer or Mistkäfer, I hope to have
presented over the course of this chapter, might then be understood as Untranslatables as well. As
I have illustrated, these terms carry such polysemy, such a wide array of meanings that are all
able to co-exist alongside one another within the same text, that they pose a great challenge to
the role, capacity, and authority of the translator: Does the translator have to choose one meaning
over another if a word in the source language is ambiguous, i.e. carries several meanings, or are
they able to find a word in the target language that houses a similar ambiguity?
58

Figure 1: Franz Kafka: Die Verwandlung. First German-language publication. Leipzig: Kurt
Wolff Verlag, 1916.
59

Figure 2: The Metamorphosis, translated by Susan Bernofsky. W.W. Norton, 2014.
60

Figure 3: The Metamorphosis, translated by David Willye. Self-published, 2021.
61

Figure 4: The Metamorphosis, translated by Tony Darnell. 12th Media Services.
62

Figure 5: Franz Kafka: Die Verwandlung. Zurich, CH: Diogenes, 2006.
63
1.4 Sentence Length
Claim: Intentional or not, the long, winding sentences by author Kafka add to the sense of
orientation of the text. He writes unusually long sentences, often fused with commas or
semicolons. The text builds pressure in moments when Gregor is anxious, feels pressure from the
outside. Existing English translations clean up the sentence structure, often breaking long
sentences into shorter ones. This makes the text easier to translate and easier to read, but loses
the above-stated effect.
Argument: While some variation exists between German and English sentence structure, the
more a translation corresponds to the original in terms of number of sentences and number of
words per sentence, the better. The translations by Corngold and Bernofsky differ from the
original more strongly than my own translation does.
Method:
Using a piece of code that I wrote, a Python library TextBlob, to process the text: https://
textblob.readthedocs.io/en/dev/, I analyze the amount of words per sentence, and the amount of
sentences in the entire text.
Data:
Fig. 6: Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung, German original text, 1915.
X-axis: Number of sentences. In German original: 656
Y-Axis: Number of words per respective sentence
64
Average number of words per sentence in the German version: 29.7515243902439
Fig. 7: My Translation
X-axis: Number of sentences. In my English translation: 670
Y-Axis: Number of words per respective sentence
Average number of words per sentence in my English translation: 32.3910447761194
Fig. 8: Bernofsky Translation, 2014
Fig. 9: Corngold Translation, 1979
65
Figure 6: Franz Kafka, Die Verwandlung

Figure 7: Translation Cord-Heinrich Plinke, 2022
66

Figure 8: Translation Susan Bernofsky, 2014
:(
Figure 9: Translation Stanley Corngold, 1996
67
Conclusion Chapter 1
With this first chapter, I have undertaken what I have referred to as a translative approach to Die
Verwandlung and several English renderings of this text: This comparative analysis, with Kafka’s
German on one end of the (metaphorical) operating table and the translations by Bernofsky and
Corngold on the other, has allowed me to consider the differences, gaps, and untranslatabilities
between these different textual objects. I have led with the assertion that existing English
translations of this text impose readings by their translators into the text, erasing some of the
finer details of the original, and thereby changing drastically the resulting text. With my
discussion of translation in this first chapter, my goal was to wrestle this text out of the imposed
interpretations, and to show that Kafka engages in propositional modes of thought, which are,
due to their in-concreteness, too diffuse to grasp and therefore difficult to translate. I have, of
course, also talked about the operation of translating this text myself in the process, so as to let
the reader become witness to the emergence of an Anglophone Kafka text that reflects the traits
of the original more faithfully than the existing translations do.
As I have illustrated with this process, and with the completed re-translation of Die
Verwandlung that is included with this dissertation project as an addendum, the translation of
Minor Literature poses a special task for a translator: I began with a standard discussion of Minor
Literature and its specificities, and have argued that the vast number of what I consider to be
sloppy, overdetermined English translations of this text shape how this text is read by
Anglophone audiences, and the scholarship that has been produced about Die Verwandlung
subsequently. In my discussion in this first chapter, I have argued that in order to create a
translation of Minor Literature that is able to reflect the political aspects of the original,
68
conveyed for instance via the texts’s ambiguity, it is beneficial for the translator to undertake
amounts of research into the specific milieu of an author, and special attention paid to the
potential multiplicity of meanings used by that author. To make my case here, I have presented
brief definitions of the terms ambiguity and translation, so as to demonstrate the special
complexity posed by the translation of ambiguity within a literary text.
Further, I have presented an elaborate discussion of the infamous opening sentence of Die
Verwandlung, wherein I have argued that by translating the words “ungeheures Ungeziefer” from
the opening sentence into “unholy monstrosity,” I have shown that by diverging from existing
English translations of the novella, so as to approximate the significance of Ungeziefer as not
only a word for “vermin,” but also as the animal that is not fit for sacrifice, as is the old-German
definition of the word (Duden). To make my case, I have presented close-readings of several
passages from both the original German Kafka text and my own translation. I have shown that
especially in the exchange between Gregor and the servant, whom the Samsa family takes on as
the story progresses, the author employs ambiguous, Yiddish terms. It has been my assessment
that, when using words such as “Mistkäfer” to refer to Gregor, this servant by no means
addresses him as an insect. As I have shown, it is precisely through this character, whose
physical features are described to the reader in detail by the text, that Gregor is not only
recognized, but also identified, albeit in terms that are rendered opaque. With this, I have argued
for the possibility of reading Die Verwandlung as a tale about Jewishness and anti-Semitism, and
the aforementioned exchange between Gregor and the servant as a moment of Jewish
recognition.
69
With my close-readings throughout this first chapter, and my re-translation especially, I
have thus made room for a wider range of Anglophone interpretations, which are open, and
which allow readers to consider this story, among other things, as being about racial paranoia,
more specifically anti-Semitism, in a petty-bourgeoise milieu that the Samsa family has ascended
into. As my analysis in this first chapter has revealed, the paths that Die Verwandlung takes the
reader on are a lot more winding, and not as clearly visible as they may seem in existing
translations, which, due to their lack of ambiguity and abstraction, impose limits on the reader’s
imagination. My analysis has revealed that English translations of this text, conjuring up a
mental image that is not present in the German original, close the door on much of what Straus
discusses as Vieldeutigkeit.
While any existing English translations of Die Verwandlung describe Gregor as an
animal, a vermin, or an insect, I have argued in this chapter that in order to accurately represent
the author’s polysemous, abstract original text, a translator needs stay away from this image, and
instead ponder the text’s openness. I can only assume that the English texts that employ
Ekphrasis in order to conjure up the image of an animal within the Samsa household are based
on overdetermined interpretations of the text, which these translators, unable to grasp the
aesthetic unintelligibility presented by Kafka, then force upon their readers, who are no longer
presented with abstract, ambiguous language with regards to Gregor’s transformation. In contrast
to this, I have argued in this chapter that since the reader is locked inside of Gregor’s body, they
do not get an outside perspective on his body in any way. Rather, the reader is presented with
Gregor’s reactions not to his body itself, but to the way that the people around him react to this
body. This distinction is crucial and will be the foundation of my claim in the following chapter.
70
Given the text’s fantastical aspects, I have argued further, I would not want to make any definite
claims as to whether Gregor undergoes an actual, physical, bodily transformation, or whether this
is a psychic episode , in which he merely thinks that he does.
12
In my discussion of Ekphrasis and Un_Translatability, I have further touched upon
market logics and the medium of the book itself, by taking on the question of cover art. With
several examples of book covers, and drawing on the letter exchange between Franz Kafka and
his editor, I have shown that the image of the large insect, which the author himself had asked
not to be used, has become so commonplace in publications of this novella that it is often used to
identify the entire text, and placed on book covers. This will, of course, shape how a reader
approaches the text before they have even read the first sentence. With this, I have shown that
while the written text itself may be an abstract medium, allowing the reader to try to imagine
what may be otherwise unimaginable, the form of the printed book still carries with it aspects of
visuality.
Finally, I have used digital technology to make another case for my interpretation over
those by other translators: In the final part of this first chapter, I have argued that the sentence
length of Kafka’s text contributes to how it builds pressure, and conveys a sense of feeling
cornered and overwhelmed. Through a piece of code that I wrote and then discussed here, I have
shown that the translations by both Corngold and Bernofsky diverge from Kafka’s original in
terms of sentence length. While generally critical of visuality, I have illustrated in bar graphs
how long many of Kafka’s sentences in the original are, and that my translation attempts to
This psychic break and the question of embodiment is discussed in detail in the second chapter of this
12
project, which focuses on the split between phenomenal and physical body.
71
reproduce this as closely as possible, while other translators have broken up many of the author’s
long sentences, littered with subclauses, into shorter ones.
In conclusion for this first chapter, I should also mention formal aspects of Kafka’s
writing which I think further contribute to what I have referred to as ambiguity in this chapter:
An important change for me from the previous translations was also the return to Kafka’s lengthy
sentence structure; I have argued in this chapter that this formal aspect of Kafka’s writing adds to
the effect of the text. In various sequences throughout the novella, Kafka fuses two or more
sentences together with a comma; while this most certainly made the translation all the more
challenging, I have mirrored this structure from the German as closely as possible. These lengthy
sentences frequently describe a sequence of actions, and in retaining these long, often convoluted
sentences I have tried to bring back the sense of chaos that I saw in the original.
72
Chapter Two: The Phenomenal Body
In this second chapter, the focus of my analysis remains on Die Verwandlung. Having introduced
my translative approach and the foundational claims as to how I argue that this text should be
understood, my main objective in this second chapter is to analyze what I will refer to as a split
between the objective-physical and the phenomenal body within this text; my thoughts in this
chapter, and my turn towards phenomenology to begin with, are very much influenced by Gayle
Salamon’s Assuming a Body, wherein she explains her use of phenomenology to make sense of
transgender bodily experience because of “its insistence that the body is crucial for
understanding subjectivity, rather than incidental to or a distraction from it” (44). I therefore
focus here on the question of how the reader experiences Gregor’s body, without reliance on
prior theories about his subject position.
To go about, I remain with Kafka for the duration of this chapter. I closely analyze
various passages from the German original of Die Verwandlung and, at times, bring in once
again Susan Bernofsky’s contemporary English translation, in order to compare and contrast. My
central argument in this chapter, in continuation of the previous chapter, is that while
Anglophone readers may commonly assume the Kafka text to be a fable about the transformation
of protagonist Gregor Samsa from human into non-human, the German original is in fact
enigmatic on this point, as it defies visualization, with what I have referred to in the first chapter
as anti-Ekphrasis; his body, then, is experienced by the reader via Gregor’s sensorium. With my
analysis of phenomenology, and what I will refer to as phenomenal chaos, I add to the central
argument from my first chapter, so as to broaden the scope and assess not merely the changes to
73
Gregor and the way that he relates to his own body, but to also include the changes in Gregor’s
milieu.
While in the first chapter, my focus has been on translation and its ties to visuality, my
thoughts are now centered on the question of embodiment, its specifics, but especially its
boundaries and its surroundings, and their textual representation, with what I have described
earlier as abstract, ambiguous language. To go about, I return to scenes that I have discussed in
the first chapter, and revisit them for close-readings and further analysis that builds upon my
initial findings.
As I will argue in this chapter, author Kafka builds tension by continuously pointing the
reader’s attention to the body of the protagonist, but then withholding a clear depiction thereof,
thus underscoring repeatedly towards the lack of coherence and comprehension. This lack is
located initially within Gregor, who cannot (or perhaps does not want to) make sense of himself.
But, I will show in this chapter, this lack also transfers to the reader, who is equally unable to
understand Gregor’s embodiment. Without a clearly demarcated body, I wonder in this chapter
whether Gregor Samsa comes into existence as a bodily subject; and, it he does not, does this
mean that there is no subject-object split between him and the readers of the text? I explore this
through a close-reading with a focus on the coming-together of abstraction and ambiguity, the
definitions of which I have worked out in the previous chapter. As I point out here, these have the
effect of fractured descriptions of embodiment, resulting in a breakdown of the protagonist’s
Gestalt, which complicates the aforementioned subject-object split for readers. With a discussion
of the physical vis-à-vis the phenomenal body, I therefore set out to illuminate the text’s
disorienting mode, with which the author unsettles readerly affects, and, my argument, thereby
74
precludes sentimentality on the part of the reader. On the note of attention, we must note also the
absolute presentism of Die Verwandlung: The story does not in any way ponder the causes of
Gregor’s transformation, neither temporally nor causally.
Throughout this second chapter, my focus will thus be on Erlebnis, the experience, both
of reading the text, confronting the body that is (or, rather, is not) described at the center of the
Samsa household, and on the Erlebnisse within the text, how protagonist Gregor experiences his
surroundings and himself, how those around him experience him. I use the term Erlebnis here to
think about it as an Untranslatable, and to ponder its language specificity. The respective entry in
the Dictionary of Untranslatables, written by Natalie Depraz, lists the English words “to live, to
experience, lived experience” as possible English translations, “vivre, faire l’experience, faire
l’épreuve, le vécu” as possible French translations, and “biônai [βιῶναι], zôê [ζωή], bios [βίος]”
for the Greek translation (279). Especially the latter two terms, zôê and bios, will immediately
stand out to readers, and I will turn to a discussion of them, alongside Agamben’s notion of bare
life, later on in this chapter. For the discussion at hand, about Gregor Samsa’s phenomenal body,
I quote at length from Depraz’ dictionary entry about Erleben:
The first, remarkably precocious, definition of Erlebnis is found in the third edition of
Krug’s Enzyklopädisches Lexikon of 1838: “Erlebnis means everything one has oneself
lived [erlebt]: felt, seen, thought, wanted, done, or allowed to happen. Such experiences
are by consequence the foundation of internal experience [eigene Erfahrung].” Following
him, Lotze tends to use Erlebnis in his 1841 work Metaphysik as a synonym for
“interiority,” whereas Dilthey, in the framework of a veritable “theory of Erlebnis” makes
it equivalent to “psychic” [Einleitung]. (279)
75
Phenomenology makes this psychic and internal life its central theme: Erlebnis is
understood as a subjective immanent experience that nevertheless, in order to be known
and thus communicated, must be linked to the world through the axis of intentionality,
which gives sense and reference to objects. An Erlebnis without intentional reference
cannot be treated as an object, that is, it cannot be known. Nor is Erleben an isolated
experience of the subject, but rather is part of the intentional and temporal dynamics of
consciousness, which links one Erlebnis to the next (ibid).
As I have discussed in the first chapter, Anglophone translations of Die Verwandlung assume that
a physical transformation of protagonist Gregor Samsa has taken place, and thus treat the text
accordingly, employing ekphrastic language to describe Gregor’s new bodily form. My approach
to the text here is shaped by the belief that the reader experiences Gregor’s body through its
sensoria; in other words, rather than forming an outside perspective on this body, the reader is
brought into the realm of Erlebnis of this body, aligned with Gregor’s consciousness and entering
into his interiority. To explore this, I return here once more to that same opening passage,
because it is in this same first sentence of the text that the dissolution of protagonist Gregor’s
bodily coherence finds its beginning: “Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen
erwachte, fand er sich in seinem Bett zu einem ungeheueren Ungeziefer verwandelt” (69). Recall
that in Bernofsky, this sentence is rendered into English as follows: “When Gregor Samsa woke
one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed right there in his bed into
some sort of monstrous insect” (1).
With the Kafka text being a century old, various English translations have been produced
over the years, from various locations of the Anglophone realm. While there exist nuances and
76
differences between these translations, they all seem to have in common their approach in
contemplating the corporeal form of Gregor Samsa, how he finds himself when he wakes up.
These translations, like the above-cited by Bernofsky, describe an objective, physical body, that
of the protagonist, as having changed into the form of an insect. With the use of nouns such as
“bug” or “insect,” which have a direct referent in the real, translators evoke a visual image of
what this body, formerly human, looks like now after its supposed physical transformation into
an animal.
Having studied the German original of this text, as I have already worked out in the first
chapter, I call into question this physical transformation on the part of Gregor Samsa. Instead, it
is my argument that we in fact witness a phenomenal transformation in Die Verwandlung:
Crucially, the narrator within the text informs us that this, the morning with which the story
begins, is not the first time that Gregor has woken up in a state of “Einbildung” (69)
(imagination) about what his senses report back to him. I take this as a starting point for
assuming that the transformation in this text may not in fact be a physical one. Rather, I read this
as a transformation of the protagonist’s perception, wherein he increasingly loses his sense of
self, the coherence between his mind and the physical reality of his body. I suggest that this
speaks to an interruption of the physio-logical, meaning that is the way that the physicality of
Gregor’s body makes sense (logos) to him. This physiology, the biological processes that inform
our anatomy, is experienced phenomenologically (cf. Ahmed 2006), meaning that our
consciousness and our sensoria are appealed to when we literally feel our selves. In Die
Verwandlung, my main argument here, the coherence between the physical and the phenomenal
gets interrupted, primarily by confronting the reader with descriptions of free-floating body parts
77
of Gregor’s. These body parts, observed but not understood by the protagonist, seem to have a
mind of their own, as they do not respond to the Gregor’s intentions, and he does not feel them to
be a part of himself.
2.1 Gregor Samsa’s Sensorium
On the note of intentionality and agency, we should note that it is right after waking up from
restless dreams, “Als Gregor Samsa eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte […]” (69),
that the change in Gregor’s embodiment occurs. I talk about embodiment here because while I
call into question that a physical transformation occurs within the text, it is nonetheless a change
in Gregor’s relation to his own body. To sleep, of course, is to surrender intentions that one might
have and to experience things that are irrational, so as to let the brain rest, restore, and process,
while rendering passive, even unconscious, the human to whom this brain belongs. In other
words, by beginning this text with a sentence that refers to sleep and to restless dreams, author
Kafka sets us up with questions about the limitations of human agency with regards to the body
right from the outset. During his restless dreams, I suggest here, Gregor has been ruled by his
mind, and yet has had no control over his experiences.
With the insecurities about Gregor’s embodiment in mind, we should consider that, rather
than having grown an outer shell (“er lag auf seinem panzerartigen harten Rücken” [69]) and
countless thin legs, (“seine vielen, im Vergleich zu seinem sonstigen Umfang kläglich dünnen
Beine” [ibid]), these are fantastical imaginations of the protagonist, for whom his own body has
stopped to make logical sense. “Er erinnerte sich, schon öfters im Bett irgendeinen vielleicht
durch ungeschicktes Liegen erzeugten, leichten Schmerz empfunden zu haben, der sich dann
78
beim Aufstehen als reine Einbildung herausstellte, und er war gespannt, wie sich die heutigen
V orstellungen allmählich auflösen würden” (73). Of course any reader knows that these
imaginations (Einbildungen) do not dissipate, and remain with Gregor until his demise.
What I see in these instances is that for Gregor, the ways in which his consciousness
interprets what his senses report back to him bas come undone. Since “all consciousness is
consciousness of something” (2013, 5), or at least so for Merleau-Ponty, I suggest we consider
this undoing of Gregor’s senses as an exploration of phenomenology: Gregor’s observations
about his own body parts, as well as to the actions of the people around him, have become
unreliable, and yet they are the focal point for us as readers. Crucially, this break in bodily
coherence is experienced not only by the protagonist himself, but also by the reader, since we
perceive the world in Die Verwandlung through Gregor’s sensorium. In other words, we can
sense that his body has stopped making sense, but we can never get out of this confusion. With
Gregor thus now only a phenomenal body, having lost the logos to make sense of these
phenomena, I pose that readers therefore experience the breakdown of his Lebenswelt (cf.
Husserl 1973).
Secondly, Gregor exhibits not only a dependence on the observations and judgements
from others, but in fact a desire for a lack of agency: After Gregor has not shown up to work on
time, the Prokurist (assistant manager) is sent by his employer into the Samsa home to check up
on him ––visually–– even though the firm has already contacted the Samsa family by telephone
earlier that day (Kafka 2017: 78). To begin with, I think this scene emphasizes how scopophilia
circulates within this text, wherein looks and looking hold great importance for the characters. It
is therefore only through a visual confirmation of Gregor’s state that the people around him fully
79
believe that something has changed about him, and that this change renders him unable to
perform his labor: Despite his voice being altered, the interactions through the wooden door to
his room, as they are non-visual, do not lead to an awareness of what has happened to him. But
while great emphasis is put on visuality, this is at the same time never clarified for readers,
whereby the author builds and maintains tension throughout the text. While our attention is
continually drawn towards his embodiment, we as readers are never provided with a coherent,
unambiguous description of how Gregor actually looks. Instead, we are limited to Gregor’s
observations of other characters’ reactions to him.
When his firm’s Prokurist and the rest of the Samsa family stand outside Gregor’s door
waiting for him to open it, he figures the following: “Würden sie erschrecken, dann hatte Gregor
keine Verantwortung mehr und konnte ruhig sein. Würden sie aber alles ruhig hinnehmen, dann
hatte auch er keinen Grund sich aufzuregen” (80) (Were they to be startled, then Gregor would
cease to have responsibility and could quietly be . Were they, however, to accept everything
13
quietly, then he, too, would have no more reason to be agitated). With this moment in particular, I
gather that Gregor has lost agency over his own body: Not only can he no longer control the
individual body parts, he also has lost the ability to judge whether or not he is able to perform his
labor. He has thus lost grasp of both his mind and the matter of his body; at the same time, this
underscores the split between mind and matter, wherein Gregor's body is fundamentally alienated
from his intellect
The German “er konnte ruhig sein” here can be translated either as “he could be quiet” or as
13
“he could quietly be.” Another example of untranslatable ambiguity, though not the central focus
of my discussion here.
80
Subsequently, Gregor depends on visual confirmation from others, needing to witness
their reaction to himself, to make sense of what is happening to him. This latter part in particular
invites thoughts about the power of the psychosomatic, meaning the effects of the mind on the
body, for we cannot be certain which part of Gregor’s body has authority over other parts, or
whether any hierarchy exists between them at all. For Gregor, his phenomenal body, meaning the
way in which he experiences his embodiment sensorially, is so strong —and at the same time so
strongly divorced from his physical body— that he depends upon other people to make sense of
himself. Importantly, his family members are repelled by him, making conscious efforts not to
have to see him, nor be seen by him, marking himself to himself, due to his constant introjection,
the adoption of ideas and attitudes about himself from others, as especially revulsive.
While Gregor appears to clearly feel that something is wrong with him, he casts his gaze
away from his body in these scenes, as he neither confronts the physicality of his body, nor does
he want to contemplate it: “[…] aber dieser untere Teil, den er übrigens noch nicht gesehen hatte
und von dem er sich auch keine rechte V orstellung machen konnte, erwies sich als zu schwer
beweglich” (73) (but this lower part, which, by the way, he had not yet seen and which he also
could not quite imagine, proved to be too difficult to move). His attention is only forced back
onto his physicality due to a sensory response: “der brennende Schmerz, den er empfand,
belehrte ihn, daß gerade der untere Teil seines Körpers augenblicklich vielleicht der
empfindlichste war” (ibid f) (the burning pain that he felt taught him that especially the lower
part of his body was presently perhaps the most sensitive). This passage illustrates the split
between mind and matter in Die Verwandlung, and the loss of coherence on the part of Gregor,
which, I will argue further, the author seeks to make felt for readers as an experience in
81
nonsense: For Deleuze (1969), nonsense is that which has no sense, but at the same time is full of
sense. As I will lay out, we are at once unable to logically comprehend what is happening to
Gregor, and at the same time immersed in his sensory responses .
14
While readings of Die Verwandlung have continuously interpreted this novella as being a
fable about capitalism and the alienation of workers that it produces, I think more needs to be
said on this point: Importantly, I suggest that Gregor operates as a prosopopoeia, the
personification of an otherwise abstract thing: He is personified Capital, penetrating the private
homes of other people when he carries out the profession that he does not enjoy, and that he has
only taken up to provide for his family. Crucial is here once again the focus on embodiment:
Gregor is, of course, made a symbol for Capital itself because of how he is able to deploy his
body when he moves it across physical space: His labor is not carried out at the factory, he does
not produce commodities himself. Instead, Gregor’s profession as a “Reisender” (69) (traveling
salesman) is to sell these commodities, “eine […] Musterkollektion von Tuchwaren” (a sample
collection of cloth goods) (ibid). As a traveling salesman, it is Gregor’s profession to enter the
homes of other people, where their respective social reproduction happens, meaning that it is his
physical body that is used as an agent to forge commodity exchange, and his success is measured
by how many commodities he sells to others.
The opening passage of the text also already states how taxing this labor is for Gregor,
with his thoughts drifting to the resentful relationship he has with his superior, the exhaustion
This invites readings of Gregor as a Schizophrenic and a Body Without Organs, both in the
14
sense of Deleuze and Guattari. I have decided against including these readings here because they
seem too obvious, and because I do not intend to move explicitly towards psychoanalysis with
this project.
82
and dehumanization he feels from his constant travels, the lack of sleep, the improper food, and
the poor social interactions: “… und außerdem ist mir noch diese Plage des Reisens auferlegt, die
Sorgen um die Zuganschlüsse, das unregelmäßige, schlechte Essen, ein immer wechselnder, nie
andauernder, nie herzlich werdender menschlicher Verkehr. Der Teufel soll das alles holen!”
(70). Notably, these thoughts on Gregor’s part occur after he has just woken up, upon feeling his
bodily form to have changed. Importantly, this alienation from his body image occurs before
Gregor even confronts his own physicality, which he might do, for instance, by looking in the
mirror; this, of course, he will continue to avoid throughout the entire text. Instead of facing his
potentially changed physical form, Gregor’s attention turns inward, towards his past experiences,
and his feelings towards those experiences.
2.1.1 Gestalt / Schreckgestalt
I propose reading the opening passage of Die Verwandlung as the starting point for a dissolving
of Gregor’s body, with his mind and the matter of his body moving into different directions. That
is not to say that I mean this literally; I do not mean to claim that Gregor’s body parts actually
come loose and move about the room. Rather, it is his perception of these that loses its
coherence, and he no longer has control over the individual parts that make up the whole of his
body. This means that, my claim here, from the very first sentence onward, after waking up from
troubled dreams to find himself, in his bed, Gregor ceases to be a Gestalt, as he ceases to exist or
act as an organized, coherent whole. No longer a Gestalt, Gregor then becomes a
“Schreckgestalt” (121), (frightening figure), meaning that his relationship to his own body is
83
fractured, with emotionally unsettling effects, both for himself and for the family members who
become witness to the disorganization of his embodiment.
I lift the term Schreckgestalt from Kafka, which shows up towards the end of the story to
refer to Gregor, to use it as a conceptual tool for my analysis here. After all it is the dissolution of
his Gestalt that causes Gregor Schrecken, horror, which frightens and disorients him; in other
words, it is his own subjectivity, his status as an individual vis-a-vis his coworkers, his boss, the
assistant manager, and his family, that sits at the root of his misery. While this is grounded in the
fact that his body is but a tool for the generation of income, Gregor’s further development and
bodily descent take on increasingly strange forms.
We see this dissolving of Gregor’s intentions and the actions of his body for instance in a
moment when he tries to get up out of his bed, but cannot get his legs to cooperate: “und gelang
es ihm endlich, mit diesem Bein das auszuführen, was er wollte, so arbeiteten inzwischen alle
anderen, wie freigelassen, in höchster, schmerzlicher Aufregung” (73) (and while he finally
managed to perform with this leg what he intended, all the others meanwhile worked, as if set
free, in highest, painful agitation). The body parts, his legs, have apparently stopped responding
to Gregor’s intentions, and act as though having a mind of their own. While this still means that
his body has ceased to be useful as a tool, I propose that as the story progresses, Gregor’s
alienation from his own body exceeds that of a a worker under capitalism.
To further deepen my reasoning for the breakdown of the Gestalt in this text, and to make
my case for translations of Die Verwandlung in English that go beyond assuming that a physical
transformation of the protagonist has taken place, we need to return to the very first sentence of
84
the text and more closely assess the words Ungeheures and Ungeziefer , translated to “some sort
15
of monstrous insect” (1) in Bernofsky. I have already argued in the first chapter of this project
that while there is no insect or bug present in the German original, it suddenly appears in the
English translation. It should have become clear from my first chapter, and the translation of the
opening sentence from Die Verwandlung that I have presented there, why this first sentence is the
foundation of my interpretation that Die Verwandlung is in fact not a story about a man who
becomes an insect, but instead appears to as a lot more ambiguous, and in my reading presents a
breakdown in the link between signifier and signified. Gregor’s subjectivity is broken up, the
signifiers no longer add up, no longer work together to form a unified whole, allowing for
several possible interpretations emerging, due to the text’s use of ambiguous language.
It is subsequently also this ambiguity that for me justifies the question whether Gregor’s
transformation is a physical or a mental one, whether it encompasses both or neither. With
regards to the just-cited passage wherein Gregor’s legs do not cooperate with his intentions, for
example, this raises the question whether he really has more than two legs, perhaps because he
has undergone a physical transformation, or whether he still only has two, human legs, over
which he has lost his rational control and which he therefore perceives in ways that do not
correspond to the actual physical form that they have. To make room for this ambiguity, I have
proposed the following translation of this opening sentence in the first chapter of this project:
Important to note is the history of Ungeziefer as an anti-Semitic slur: The term has been used
15
to refer to Jews in derogatory ways, linking them to rats, insects, or other unclean animals and
thereby declaring them detrimental to society. Hannah Arendt writes in the “The Jew as Pariah”
that it was the fact that Jewish prisoners in concentration camps were considered Ungeziefer
(vermin) that made it possible for the German population to accept their extermination, and to
assume that there was no point in reeducating or redeeming Jews.
85
“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from restless dreams he found himself in his bed,
transformed into an unholy monstrosity.”
As I have discussed earlier, English translations such as Bernofsky’s resort to
unambiguous signifiers to illustrate the Gregor Samsa’s transformation, and thus evoke the
image of an insect for readers. But looking at the descriptive and visual, yet incomplete language
of Die Verwandlung, we are in fact able to interrogate the concept of visual representation in
literature more deeply: In my assessment of this text, the author locks readers inside the body of
his protagonist, never allowing for an outside perspective on the physical form of his body, and
thereby impels us to contemplate questions about physicality, phenomenology, and agency. Thus,
Gregor’s Gestalt is removed in the text. The reader does not get an impression of his body in its
entirety, but only of its individual parts, especially as they cease to respond to his intentions.
2.1.2 Anti-Ekphrasis: Abuse and Exploitation
In the first chapter, I have used the term Ekphrasis and described its employment in Die
Verwandlung as a means to create the ambiguous, eccentric style of the text. Contemplating the
question of embodiment and phenomenology, I return to this concept here once again, since it is
precisely the dependency on the eyes of Others that marks Gregor’s relationship to his own
physicality. Once more, the use of language to describe visuality, I argue, is put on its head by
Kafka: While the text is full of descriptions about looks and looking, trying to visually represent
the actual Ungeziefer, the creature that Gregor turns into, is not possible, because the text only
ever provides fragments of visual descriptions, often in indeterminate, ambiguous, and abstract
language.
86
For Deleuze and Guattari, the works of Franz Kafka are the exemplar for what they call
Minor Literature in which, as they argue further, everything carries political valence. With this in
mind, I ask readers to consider in how far the interpersonal moments within the Kafka text are
forms of individual exchange, or whether they are eclipsed by social norms and the question of
respectability. This question, of course, is once again focalized through the body of Gregor
Samsa, and the way it is experienced by other characters within the book. This latter aspect
comes to the fore especially when pressed by Capital from the outside, when more bodies enter
the Samsa home due to the family’s financial constraints, such as the new servant the family
takes on, or the three lodgers who move in later in the story, because the family is in need of
money. In other words, I ask here whether the exchange of looks within Die Verwandlung is ever
not socially co-created, especially drawing on the opening passage in which, as I have discussed
above, Gregor seeks outside judgement to make sense of the relationship to his own body.
Thus the question emerges in how far we should consider political aspects of the
phenomenal body, given the text’s emphasis on social pressures and the importance of
respectability. We should note that Gregor’s disdain for his profession, and the fracture of his
embodiment that this creates notwithstanding, the sale of his labor power has allowed the Samsa
family to ascend to a petty-bourgeoisie milieu, with enough money to employ a maid, i.e. a
woman who is paid to perform care-work within the family home. This gendered division of
labor is in line with the fact that the domestic labor is carried out by Gregor’s sister Grete and
their mother, meaning that any labor used for Gregor’s social reproduction (i.e. caring for his
body, both physically and spiritually) for each new day of wage labor is carried out inside the
confines of the family home, performed by women. Due to the interruption in Gregor’s
87
professional life caused by the breakdown of his body, the family’s social standing is threatened
and the feminized domestic labor takes on a new form.
Importantly, Gregor has become the sole breadwinner of the family because of his bodily
ability, or at least so the description within the text: While contemplating his profession as a
traveling salesman, he concludes that none of his other family members could engage in wage
labor, all because of their bodies (97f). His father, while healthy, is old and fat due to his long
inactivity after his business had gone bankrupt five years ago; his mother has asthma and is
exhausted from merely wandering about the apartment; and Grete, interestingly enough, is
considered unable to work because of her young age (she is seventeen years old), her preference
to sleep in, and her being used to dressing nicely. These descriptions of the family members and
their respective inabilities to engage in wage labor, all except Gregor, are soon followed with
mentions of the household staff that includes a cook and a maid (102).
As for the gendered division of labor, the description of sister Grete especially begs the
question about sincerity. For example, while Grete is assumed too young to work with her age of
seventeen, we learn shortly thereafter that the maid employed by the family is “etwa
sechzehnjährig” (102) (about sixteen years old). To me, this passage reads more like a sendup
than a sincere description. To beg in with, the family does not seem to know for certain the age
of the girl who works for them, which suggests a cold, superficial relationship to their household
staff. Secondly, Grete is obviously perfectly capable of engaging in wage labor, given that she is
older than the maid who works for the family, and rather the Samsas seem to have decided that
Grete does not need to do so, possibly because until Gregor’s transformation, there has been no
need, as he always brought home enough money to sustain the entire family.
88
This especially begs the question into the psycho-social dynamics within the Samsa
family home, whether the father, the mother, and Grete might in fact be abusing Gregor,
exploiting his alienation from his own needs, and his willingness to work so they do not have to.
To me, this passage begs the question about the factuality of these inabilities on the parts of
Gregor's family members; as I have mentioned earlier, the entire story is presented to the reader
through the eyes of Gregor, who in turn is shown to be an unreliable observer of social situations.
In the above passage, I see solid proof for my assessment that Gregor is being abused by his
family members, and that he extracts his judgements of situations and his relation to what is real
based on his skewed readings of their actions. If we take this to be the case, however, then we
need to be critical of Gregor’s assessment of his embodiment, and be open to the idea that a
bodily transformation has not occurred in this text, and that instead some other transformation is
happening to Gregor, a transformation that renders him alien and intimidating towards his family
members. I will deepen this point a bit later in this subchapter. In either case, Gregor’s
transformation invokes readings of disability, wherein Gregor now, unable to engage in wage
labor, is dependent upon outside care.

2.1.3 Non-Verbal Recognition
To further think about Gregor’s exploitation, I turn once more to the example that I have already
touched upon in the first chapter, involving the exchanges between Gregor and the servant: To
recollect, as the events of the story unfold, the Samsa family has to let go of their maid because
they can no longer afford to purchase her labor power to maintain their household. Subsequently,
more of the domestic labor is taken up by Gregor’s sister Grete and the mother, but the family
89
also takes on a part-time servant. “Der Haushalt wurde immer mehr eingeschränkt; das
Dienstmädchen wurde nun doch entlassen; eine riesige knochige Bedienerin mit weißem, den
Kopf umflatterndem Haar kam des Morgens und des Abends, um die schwerste Arbeit zu leisten”
(113) (The household was further and further reduced; the maid was now let go after all; a giant,
bony servant with white hair, flapping about her head, came by in the mornings and evenings to
take care of the toughest work). While this signals a step-down for the Samsa family, it still
means that with the Bedienerin, another body enters the intimacy of the family home, selling her
labor power to the Samsas and in return becoming an observer to the domestic realm.
Importantly, this servant is described as follows: “Diese alte Witwe, die in ihrem langen Leben
mit Hilfe ihres starken Knochenbaues das Ärgste überstanden haben mochte, hatte keinen
eigentlichen Abscheu vor Gregor” (116) (This old widow, who in her long life might have seen
and survived the worst due to her her sturdy bones, felt no particular repugnance toward Gregor).
These descriptions of the woman’s physicality stand out to me, because they mark her
difference from the Samsa family: While the text refrains from giving physical descriptions of
either Grete, or her and Gregor’s mother, this servant is introduced as being tall, having sturdy
bones, and thick, apparently untamable hair . While the reader does not know whether the
16
Samsas are tall or short, what their hair looks like (or whether they even have hair), the servant’s
body is described as an object, from an outside perspective. The relationship between Gregor and
this servant, about whose body the reader learns more than about that of any other character,
I have suggested elsewhere to read these traits as ambiguous markers for stereotypical,
16
racializing descriptors of Jewish women. This invites readings of racialized recognition that
suggest an interpretation of Die Verwandlung as a tale about an assimilated Jewish family anti-
Semitism. I have another publication in which I focus solely on the ethno-racial undercurrent of
this text.
90
deserves further analysis, for she is the only character in Die Verwandlung who does not seem to
be disgusted by the sight of Gregor, or his body: While his family members are hesitant to do so,
she enters Gregor’s room, cleans up after him, and she is also the one who discards of Gregor’s
body after his death, when the rest of the Samsa family does not seem to want to deal with this
and instead choose to leave the apartment for a trip to the outside of town.
Recall my earlier descriptions of how a visual economy circulates within the Samsa
family home: As I have argued, all members of the Samsa family, including Gregor himself,
avoid looking at his body as best as they can, hence leading to what I have described as anti-
Ekphrasis due to limitations to only partial, oftentimes abstract observations of him. This refusal
to confront the sight of Gregor is so strong that even though Gregor observes at the beginning of
the text that the Samsa family lives right across the street from a “Krankenhaus” (83) (hospital),
the option of taking him there for assessment, help, or treatment is not once brought up, neither
by Gregor nor by any family member. Curiously, nobody in the Samsa family displays an interest
in finding out more about what has happened to Gregor. Instead, he is confined to his room, a
perfunctory treatment without any inquiry into either cause or cure of his condition, nor the
question whether this might spread to other members of the household. This superficial
engagement with Gregor’s condition on the part of his family of course also means that the
reader is not given a medical perspective on what might be happening to Gregor, be it mentally
or physically, and remains left with his body as an enigma, experienced only via the partial
observations that Gregor makes about himself.
And yet at the same time, Gregor’s body is undeniably present. While the family
members try their hardest to avoid this very fact, the material reality of the body, its presence and
91
its aliveness, within the center of the household; we know from the opening scene of the novella
that Gregor’s room has four walls, one window, and at least three doors: One by the head of his
bed, and two side doors (Kafka 2017, 72). On the first morning of the story, after Gregor has first
woken up and found himself in his bed, transformed, each of his family members knock on one
of the doors to inquire why Gregor has not yet gotten up and left for work. On the one hand, this
means that Gregor is surrounded by his family members; on the other hand, however, this also
means that his room must be located in or near the center of the apartment, thus making it hard
for his family members to ignore his presence within the family’s apartment.
The Bedienerin, on the other hand, apparently has no problem looking at Gregor, and is
even excited by the sight of him. Of course we can only speculate about her motivations, as the
text merely provides Gregor’s observations of her actions, and no insight into her own interiority.
While we can thus only hypothesize why this Bedienerin is not repelled by the sight of
Ungeziefer Gregor, what stands out to me is their exchange in moments such as the following:
Ohne irgendwie neugierig zu sein, hatte sie zufällig einmal die Tür von Gregors Zimmer
aufgemacht und war im Anblick Gregors, der, gänzlich überrascht, trotzdem ihn niemand
jagte, hin- und herzulaufen begann, die Hände im Schoß gefaltet staunend stehen
geblieben. Seitdem versäumte sie nicht, stets flüchtig morgens und abends die Tür ein
wenig zu öffnen und zu Gregor hineinzuschauen. Anfangs rief sie ihn auch zu sich herbei,
mit Worten, die sie wahrscheinlich für freundlich hielt, wie “Komm mal herüber, alter
Mistkäfer!” oder “Seht mal den alten Mistkäfer!” Auf solche Ansprachen antwortete
Gregor mit nichts, sondern blieb unbeweglich auf seinem Platz, als sei die Tür gar nicht
geöffnet worden. (116)
92
In an earlier subchapter, I have presented Bernofsky’s translation of this passage, wherein she
translates “Mistkäfer” into “dung beetle” (94), revealing once again that her translation, like so
many others, assumes a transformation from human into insect. This interpretation of a changed
physical body on the part of protagonist Gregor once again results in an ekphrastic approach,
with the translator choosing a word that has a direct visual referent, a dung beetle. Note
especially the exclamation “Seht mal den alten Mistkäfer!” in the above-cited passage. Here,
with the word “seht,” the Bedienerin uses the plural-imperative of the verb “sehen,” calling upon
others to look at Gregor. Of course, the Samsas do not follow this demand, as they continue to
avoid facing Gregor.
Secondly, and just as importantly, Gregor engages in a non-response towards the
Bedienerin: “Auf solche Ansprachen antwortete Gregor mit nichts, sondern blieb unbeweglich
auf seinem Platz, als sei die Tür gar nicht geöffnet worden” (116). (Being addressed as such,
Gregor answered with nothing, but instead remained in his spot unmoved, like the door had not
been opened at all). The Bedienerin’s call to come and see Gregor is thus ignored by all members
of the Samsa family, including Gregor himself. The reader is therefore, once again, made aware
that there is something to be looked at in this scene, the material reality of a living body,
something that the Bedienerin did see and wants others to partake in, but that they, as the reader,
do not get to have a visual, ekphrastic impression of.
In the above-cited moment in the text especially, I think that we are once again presented
with the question whether Gregor undergoes an objective, physical transformation into an insect,
or whether something different happens, the details of which once again are not revealed to the
reader, since the text keeps withholding visual information. Once more, these remain shrouded in
93
ambiguity, and what I presume to also be ironic exaggeration on the part of the author, who in
any case makes it impossible for us to imagine the sight of Gregor, because we are kept from
forming an image for this imagination. As native speakers of German will attest to, the word
Mistkäfer, much like Mistkröte (literally dung toad), does not necessarily refer to an actual
insect, but can also be used colloquially as a form of address. As such, the word can have
negative connotations, for instance when referring to a child if they have behaved in bratty ways.
But Mistkäfer can just as much be used as a term of endearment: Anecdotally, I have
heard this word frequently while living in Berlin, and my own grandmother, raised in a Jewish
family in Breslau (today Wroclaw, Poland), routinely and lovingly used this term to refer to us
grandchildren. Therefore, I propose thinking of the exchange between Gregor and the servant as
an instance of mauscheln, speaking German with a Yiddish accent. Without wanting to fall into a
structuralist trap of claiming that a Jewish person knows better than other people how to translate
a Jewish author, perhaps the epistemic advantage of growing up in a certain milieu, especially
linguistically, needs to be acknowledged
Therefore, I have proposed thinking of the term Mistkäfer as “critter” in my first chapter,
rather than “dung beetle” in English, so as to bring back as much as possible the ambiguity of
Kafka’s German. I reiterate this here once more to underscore its importance for my notion of the
open translation: An open translation from German into English needs to ensure that Anglophone
readers are not limited to thinking of Gregor as a bug, a cockroach, or an actual dung beetle, but
also as somebody who is addressed with a term of endearment by a servant who also uses her
body as a tool for labor, who perhaps recognizes his mental struggles and who, unlike the
members of the Samsa family, does not shy away from looking at him in his entirety.
94
It is only after Gregor’s death that his family comes together and for once, albeit briefly,
actually faces his physical body. Upon being informed by their servant that Gregor has died, the
Samsas enter his bedroom, and at least Grete actually assesses Gregor: “Grete, die kein Auge von
der Leiche wendete, sagte: ‘Seht nur, wie mager er war. Er hat ja auch schon lange Zeit nichts
gegessen’” (128). (Grete, who did not take her gaze off the corpse, said: “Look how lean he was.
He had not been eating anything for such a long time”). As a side note, this moment in the text
begs the question whether the physical body of an insect, having an exoskeleton, would be
recognizable as lean, or whether instead Grete’s comment here indicates that Gregor’s was in fact
still a body of flesh and bone . More importantly, this moment of facing Gregor’s body is
17
followed by an immediate departure of the Samsa family from their own home: “Sie
beschlossen, den heutigen Tag zum Ausruhen und Spazierengehen zu verwenden” (130) (They
decided to spend today resting and going for a walk), who decide to travel to the outskirts of
town on an electric streetcar.
This train car taken by the Samsas functions as a space that facilitates both looks and
looking: It is here that the family not only enjoys the views of nature, they also use this moment
to expose themselves to the gazes of strangers once again, after having been confined to the
family home for so long. This gets especially accentuated by Kafka’s description of how the
family members, Gregor’s father, mother, and his sister Grete, are bathed in light, “ganz von
warmer Sonne durchschienen” (131). The sun is described to shine through them in this moment,
My point here is not to argue for one interpretation over another in terms of bodily
17
transformation. Whether or not a physical change from human into animal occurs within the
story is beside the point of this analysis. My point here is rather to illustrate the ambiguity
inherent in this text, which should allow for various interpretations of the type of metamorphosis
that happens here to exist alongside one another.
95
rendering their bodies transparent, and hence fully exposed to the world. And of course the train
is a place of movement, since it physically transports the family from one place to another,
suggesting the development, or perhaps metamorphosis, of the characters. It is in this moment of
seeing and being seen that Gregor’s family members first express relief about him now being
dead, and it is also here that they contemplate their prospects towards the future, “Aussichten für
die Zukunft” (ibid), both literally and figuratively, as they voice their intention to move into a
smaller and more affordable apartment.
Crucially, it is in the moment of the train passage that Gregor’s mother and father realize
that the hardships involving their son have made Grete grow up, and that they can now begin
setting out to find a husband for her: “Während sie sich so unterhielten, fiel es Herrn und Frau
Samsa im Anblick ihrer immer lebhafter werdenden Tochter fast gleichzeitig ein, wie sie in der
letzten Zeit […] zu einem schönen und üppigen Mädchen aufgeblüht war” (131f). With the word
“aufgeblüht,” which literally translates to “blossomed open,” invoking the image of a flower,
author Kafka here once again reminds us of the focus on looks and looking, and the physicality
of Grete’s body: After she has been hidden away inside the family home, enmeshed in the
secrecy, darkness, and averted gazes that involved Gregor’s body, Grete is now able to be
exposed to the scrutiny and judgement of the outside world, ready to be assessed by the social
looks of her surroundings, and without running the risk of failing the petty-bourgeoise
respectability of her family.
Also and especially, note the amount of detail provided in this final part of the text: While
Gregor’s body was at best revealed partially, and described only in abstract fragments, the
depictions of Grete in this passage come to us via the perspective of her parents, with
96
descriptions about her appearance, especially her beauty, basking in sunlight. For once, readers
are here provided with an outside, full-body description of a character’s appearance, and the text
ends with the moment “als am Ziele ihrer Fahrt die Tochter als erste sich erhob und ihren jungen
Körper dehnte” (132) (when at the end of their journey, the daughter was the first one to rise,
stretching her young body).
2.2 The Embodied Self
Considering the central focus on embodiment and bodily sensation throughout the novella, I turn
to an analysis of phenomenology in Die Verwandlung. This rests on the core assumption of a
split between physical and phenomenal body of the protagonist the degree of whose
transformation, as I have stated in the earlier parts of this text, is shrouded in ambiguity. The
question whether Gregor Samsa experiences a corporeal, a mental, or a psychosomatic change,
meaning that his mental state has effects on his physical wellbeing, opens this text up to my
analysis of sensory experience, both within the text and in readerly relations to the text. As a
starting point, I reiterate here once more that I consider Gregor’s behavior to be guided by
monomania, his singular obsession with one thing —his work as a traveling salesman and his
position within the power structures of the company— at the expense of himself, his body, mind,
and matter.
Throughout Die Verwandlung, Gregor Samsa time and time again displays an interest in
sensory responses to his surroundings: To begin with, and in line with the emphasis on visuality
throughout the text, he appears obsessed with looks and looking. Gregor has a liking for higher
vantage points and is described as hanging from the ceiling; he enjoys gazing at the gilded frame
97
with a magazine cutout of a female figure in his room (70), or outside his window (92).
Importantly, he has great desire to see his mother (101), while she goes to great lengths to avoid
a visual interaction with him, refusing to enter his room and only sending his sister Grete to enter
his room.
Gregor himself, on the other hand, is always half-covered, and his family members are
continuously repelled by the half-revelation. Upon catching a glimpse of him on the first
morning of the story, his mother “sah sich zuerst mit gefalteten Händen den Vater an, ging dann
zwei Schritte zu Gregor hin und fiel inmitten ihrer rings um sie herum sich ausbreitenden Röcke
nieder, das Gesicht ganz unauffindbar zu ihrer Brust gesenkt” (83) (with folded hands first
looked at the father, then walked two steps toward Gregor and collapsed into her skirts that were
spreading all around her, her face lowered untraceably onto her chest). The father, similarly, first
glimpses at Gregor in this scene, but “sah sich dann unsicher im Wohnzimmer um, beschattete
dann mit den Händen die Augen und weinte, daß sich seine mächtige Brust schüttelte” (ibid)
(then looked around the living room with insecurity, then covered his eyes with his hands and
cried, his mighty chest shaking). In both of these instances, a look at Gregor is quickly followed
by an aversion of the gaze, and a bodily reaction (the mother collapses, the father cries), which
suggests that both of them cannot rationally deal with what they see. In a similar vein, looking at
Gregor continues to be unbearable for his sister Grete (100) whenever she enters his room, and
Gregor subsequently hides himself under his couch whenever she comes in to bring him things to
eat.
Gregor’s parents, meanwhile, know what is going on with their son, but cannot bear
entering the room that he resides in, and instead make his sister perform the domestic labor.
98
What this results in for the reader, I think, is that we are never able to form a complete image of
Gregor Samsa’s physical shape. The descriptions that we do get about him are from his own
vantage point inside of his body; the book lacks both a description of Gregor from an outside
character who sees him fully, and an assessment of himself, which would be possible for instance
by having him look into a mirror. Instead, we are limited to partial observations of an Ungeziefer
that is always in some state of hiding from his surroundings.
Sara Ahmed (2010) argues that our phenomenological orientation towards an object can
generate a sense of satisfaction or even happiness. With regards to cultural texts, we might for
instance think of the protagonist as such an object: As the literary representation of an embodied
Other, this character becomes an object onto which we as readers can then project feelings such
as compassion, care, or sympathy. In Die Verwandlung, crucially, this process is interrupted
because we are for the most part provided only with partial descriptions of the protagonist.
Instead of being able to visualize his body as a coherent whole, which we as subjects could
render into the object, which we could hold in our imagination in the just described process, we
are foreclosed from doing so by the author. Instead, we are impelled to sit with the incoherence
of Gregor’s sensory responses to his seemingly fractured body parts. To me, these body parts, as
they appear to have a mind of their own and do not respond to the protagonist’s intentions, signal
that Gregor Samsa has lost his own subjectivity. That is also why, as I have laid out above, he
depends on other characters to make sense of himself: Since the reader experiences the text
through the mind of a protagonist whose sense of subjectivity is in chaos, they cannot understand
him as an objective body, and are instead left to ponder his phenomenal body.
99
To deepen my inquiry into readerly affects in relation to the ambiguous text, I turn to
Susan Sontag (1966) and her notion of Against Interpretation: Sontag opens up a split between
cerebral readings, those relating to the brain, and visceral readings, those relating to inner organs.
For Sontag, cerebral readings assume a split between the intellectual and emotional responses to
texts. Instead of seeking to interpret or figure out a text in cerebral ways, Sonntag proposes an
“erotics of art” (17), with which she argues for experiencing a cultural text in a sensory, and not
intellectual way. For Sontag, this leads to a claim for the visceral (i.e. relating to inner organs), a
response of the whole body as opposed to the intellect. For me, Sonntag’s notion of the visceral
reading ties back in with the idea of the split between the physical and the phenomenal body,
since it is here that readerly affects enter the frame: I have laid out above that due to his
employment of anti-Ekphrasis, readers are unable to visualize and thereby imagine the
transformation of Gregor Samsa, and thereby impelled by the author to sit with the
uncomfortable fragmentation of his bodily sensations. Through this fragmentation, as is my main
argument here, we cannot speak of the perceived object on the one hand, and the perceiving
subject on the other (Merleau-Ponty 53). With the text making it difficult to make logical sense
of what is happening on a bodily level, readers are therefore moved towards visceral readings, to
use Sontag’s words.
In this, I locate a special quality of the text: By making it unable to view Gregor as an
embodied, objective other, we cannot employ registers of sentimentality towards him. This is a
100
crucial point in my analysis because, as Zakiyyah Iman Jackson states, “sentimental ethics––
18
sympathy, compassion, protection, stewardship, care, and the humane— [have] historically been
conceived within the terms of a racialized, heteropatriarchal economy of sensibility” (47). I argue
that this sensibility, which rests on a subject-object split, is exactly what is destabilized in Die
Verwandlung: The text makes it unable for readers to render Gregor into an object to which the
above-quoted sense of sentimentality could be applied, since we cannot objectify him, meaning
we cannot render him into an Other. In our relation towards the text, this means that we, just like
protagonist Gregor, cannot achieve a Gestalt, a stable self-image, which would provide us with a
stable notion of how we relate to what we read within the story. Instead, we are faced in this text
with either of two things: either with a bodiless subject, or with no subject at all. This goes hand
in hand with my earlier point on how the text builds tension by repeatedly pointing the readers’
attention towards Gregor’s body, but then making it impossible to coherently understand how
this body is constituted, how it looks and how it operates.
Important to note here are the plethora of partial observations within the story. As a prime
example, recall how Gregor takes to hiding under his couch in the second part of the three-part
novella, whenever his sister Grete announces that she is about to enter his room. Gregor does
this, attempting to hide underneath the couch, even though his body is too big to fit entirely; he
ends up dragging a “Leintuch” (100) (bed sheet) across the room to hide his grotesqueness from
Grete, even though dragging the sheet over from his bed to his hiding spot takes him four hours
Importantly, Jackson writes about sentimentality in readerly affects to Black bodies with the
18
example of Toni Morrison’s Beloved. While I do think her argument is fitting for discussions of
non-Black subjects, I want to remain careful not to abuse her argument. While not the scope of
this project, there is certainly a lot more to be said on sentimentality and racialization in
literature.
101
and causes him physical exhaustion. Gregor does this just so that his family members do not
have to see him, though Grete is the only of his relatives willing to enter his room anyway. It
appears that the entire Samsa family does their best to ensure that none of them has to see Gregor
in his entirety, including Gregor himself. Important to note here is also that throughout the entire
novella, there is not a single instance of physical touch between Gregor and any member of his
family. Due to his own avoidance in facing his physicality, his body is experienced primarily
through phenomena, half-visible observations, by his family members.
Due to his family avoiding his looks —they stay away from his physical presence by
which they also evade being seen by him— Gregor thus becomes a hidden observer to the family
space. Notably, as he refuses to face his own phenomenal body, Gregor is at the same time
grossed out by smells, and he no longer enjoys the foods that his family makes (89, 117). At the
same time, he is ruled by his sensorium and his worries alike, providing him with sleepless
nights: “die ganze Nacht, die er zum Tiel im Halbschlaf, aus den ihn der Hunger immer wieder
aufschreckte, verbrachte, zum Teil aber in Sorgen und undeutlichen Hoffnungen […]” (91). I
suggest here that this is because while he is obsessed with his sensorium, at the same time he
cannot stand what his senses report to him. With this, I arrive at the most prominent example of
the phenomenal body: Rather than giving readers descriptions of how this body appears, how it
functions as a physiological organism, we are only presented with its visceral responses, and the
ways in which it disobeys the mental efforts of protagonist Gregor.
In line with this is also the fact that Gregor’s family members do not want to see him, but
also do not want to be seen by him: I consider these instances of Gregor’s family evading his
gaze as prime examples for the operation of pathic projection within the text. By being unwilling
102
to look at Gregor, the family literally escapes the look of the animal. At the same time, however,
it is important to reiterate here that this is not just any animal, but that the animal here is one that
is part of the Samsa family. It is thus my thesis here that Gregor’s metamorphosis is a reflection
of his family’s insecurities about their status in society; after all, it is the gaze from the outside
that the Samsa family tries to avoid, and it is only in the instance that lodgers enter into the
family home that the circumstances surrounding Gregor escalate. As Adorno writes, “what is not
seen as a human being and yet is a human being, is turned into a thing, so that it can no longer
rebut the manic gaze through any sort of impulse” (Thesis 68). While his family may, at least
initially, still consider Gregor a human despite the changes to his physical appearance, I suggest
here that it is the outside assessment of his state as less-than-human, or in Adorno’s words as “a
thing,” that most frightens the family in the petty bourgeoise milieu that they are positioned
within.
In the moments leading up to the final escalation of the story, we witness a complete
breakdown of linguistic, psychic, and social relations involving Gregor: Grete, who has stopped
recognizing him as Gregor, starts referring to him with the pronoun “es” (125) (it), and states
“Wenn es Gregor wäre, er hätte längst eingesehen, daß ein Zusammenleben von Menschen mit
einem solchen Tier nicht möglich ist” (ibid) (if this were Gregor, he would have realized a long
time ago that a cohabitation of humans and such an animal is impossible). Importantly, in the
moment of losing his humanity, Gregor also loses his personhood in the eyes of his family. They
cease to see him as their family member, and, since he cannot communicate himself verbally to
them, assume that he cannot understand what they say: “Wenn er uns verstünde, […] dann wäre
vielleicht ein Übereinkommen mit ihm möglich” (124) (“If he could understand us, perhaps an
103
agreement with him were possible”), says for instance his father on the last day before Gregor’s
death. This last passage illustrates that Gregor’s family misjudge him entirely, and base their
actions on their interpretations of him, not on his own intentions. They decide that he is no
longer human, referring to him as an animal, for instance in the just-cited passage, because they
fail to understand that it is in fact still Gregor whom they are talking about, and that he continues
to understand their words. They also assume in this last part of the novella that he wants to take
over the entire apartment, when he actually wants to retreat to his room.
These errors in judgement are hardly surprising to readers of this passage if we consider
that at this point in the story, Gregor himself has become unable to make any sense of his
emotions. For instance, he is “zum Sterben müde und traurig” (118) (so sad and tired he could
die), but the reason for his sadness remains unclear. While Gregor briefly speculates about the
cause of his sadness, he apparently abandons this endeavor, or perhaps simply accepts it .
19
Similarly, in Gregor’s final moments, he remembers his family “mit Rührung und Liebe” (127)
(deeply moved and with love), even though his death is a consequence of his family’s actions:
The wounds on his back inflicted by his father were never tended to; he has been hidden away in
a room, abandoned, neglected, and been denied his humanity by his family with increasing
intensity during the last month of his life.
However, it is my assessment that during all of this, Gregor’s humanity, while it is not
The Trauer (sadness) of Gregor in this passage strikes me particularly because it makes him
19
lose his appetite and renders him unable to move, besides making him lose his ability to
communicate himself, especially his wants and needs, to those around him. Furthermore, he has
lost all motivation to clean himself at this point, because his indifference (“Gleichgültigkeit”
[120]) has become overwhelming for him. I know all of these to be symptoms of depression, and
I think they invite further contemplation about possible representations of mental illness in this
novella.
104
recognized by his family members, is in fact reiterated through his sensoria: He is deeply
touched by Grete playing the violin, and while he contemplates “War er ein Tier, da ihn Musik so
ergriff?” (121) (Was he an animal that music touched him so?). In this moment, I argue, Gregor’s
humanity is underscored precisely by a discourse into his inhumanity: Recount here both
Nietzsche’s (1997) and Derrida’s (2002) encounters with an animal: In both cases, this opens up
a series of questions, reflections, and ultimately crisis on the part of the human, while the
respective animals (a cow in the case of Nietzsche and a cat in that of Derrida) seems completely
unfazed. To ponder the source of his emotions, and to have the capacity to interrogate whether
one might be an animal, therefore renders Gregor distinctly human in this scene.
Kafka’s employment of a human/non-human divide takes another turn in this passage, as
hearing the sound of his sister playing the violin makes him lust for her, wishing to take her back
to his room and lock her in with him, because he feels the desire to “ihren Hals küssen” (121)
(kiss her neck), which I understand as him having incestuous thoughts. On the one hand, such
fantasies of course do dehumanize Gregor, and the reader can only be glad that he does not get to
act them out. Yet at the same time, I think that the invocation of sexual morality on the part of the
author reminds us that he is, after all, still very much a human. After all, the taboo of incest
primarily applies to humans, as we do not individualize animals to the same degree as we do
ourselves, and can hardly take an ethical position on the sexual reproduction of, for instance,
cockroaches. In this scene, therefore, Gregor’s humanity is underscored through his inhumane
desire.
Additionally, Gregor being moved by the sound of his sister’s violin music in fact
parallels the reactions of all other humans in this scene, his parents and the three lodgers, all of
105
whom have come together in the living room to listen to Grete play. Gregor’s movement here,
notably, is both emotional, he is moved by the music, but just as much physical, as he moves
closer and closer towards the source of the music into the living room. Everybody in this scene,
Gregor and the others, is phenomenologically oriented into the same direction, towards the
objects that are Grete and her violin. But rather than recognize that they are united in their
enjoyment of music here, the discovery of Gregor at this scene leads to the final escalation of the
novella, with the lodgers —by confronting him visually— realizing that Gregor has been living
in the apartment with them this whole time.
On a final note of ambiguity, it is never made clear why exactly the moment when the
lodgers finally see Gregor ends in escalation. When they first see him, one of the lodgers in fact
smiles, and they appear bewildered at the sight of Gregor, shaking their heads. When they do
complain about the “widerlichen Verhältnisse” (123) (disgusting conditions) inside the Samsa
apartment, which the lodgers then also list as their reason for wanting to move out and not pay
rent for the past nights of their stay, it is not at all clear whether this refers to the sight of Gregor,
or to how he has been treated by the members of his family . Notably, the German term
20
Verhältnisse in this passage can be translated either as “conditions” or “circumstances,” but can
also as “relationships,” if it is used to refer interaction between humans, meaning that the lodgers
might very well critique the Samsas’ treatment of their family member, exiling him into his room
and feeding him scraps, and not his existence within the family home.
Be it about Gregor or the way that he is treated, this critique on the part of the lodgers is
cf. Iris Bruce (1996), who speaks of “the Samsas’ increasingly inhuman treatment of Gregor”
20
(120) and discusses his situation as that of a Jew in exile.
106
in any case an indictment against the milieu that is the Samsa household. This dualism, wherein
subjects and milieu impact one another, and reflect upon one another, is reflected in Deleuze
when he writes of “the subjectivity of those who travel through a milieu, but also with the
subjectivity of the milieu itself, insofar as it is reflected in those who travel through it” (Deleuze
1997: 61). For Deleuze, this leads to an argument for “cartography” rather than Freud’s oedipal
archaeology; for the argument here, I take from this the way in which those subjectivities located
in proximity to one another, within the same milieu, are always at the risk of influencing one
another, willingly or unwillingly. I will return tot this crucial point in the third chapter, under the
concept of Momentaufnahme.
As if to underscore the double-meaning of the term Verhältnisse, the ambiguity of this
moment is highlighted once more in the following sentence: “Sie wurden nun tatsächlich ein
wenig böse, man wußte nicht mehr, ob über das Benehmen des Vaters oder über die ihnen jetzt
aufgehende Erkenntnis, ohne es zu wissen, einen solchen Zimmernachbar wie Gregor besessen
zu haben” (122) (Now, they indeed became a bit angry, one could no longer tell whether this was
about the father’s behavior or about them having had a housemate such as Gregor, as they were
now beginning to realize). While Gregor’s body is the center of attention in this scene, it is once
again shrouded in mystery, and referred to in various ambiguities. Once again, no physical
descriptions of his body are provided here, only other people’s reactions to him, as has been the
case throughout the entire story. And, as I have just laid out, it remains unclear whether the
lodgers’ reaction is in response to Gregor himself, or whether it is in reaction to how he has been
treated by his family members. Lastly, of course, we remain in the dark as to what precisely it
was about Gregor that has provoked such treatment by his family in the first place.
107
To further deepen this point, I would like to ponder the figure of the Schreckgestalt once
more, this time to consider its temporality. I have suggested above that the Schreckgestalt that
Gregor becomes is not a permanent state, but rather a moment of passage or liminality. The
eponymous Verwandlung (transformation) that occurs in this text is thus perhaps best thought of
not as a completed act, which would perhaps have happened overnight and be completed when
Gregor first wakes up in the first sentence of the text. Instead, we might perhaps better think of
this Verwandlung as an ongoing process, wherein the figure of the Schreckgestalt loses its
frightening aspects over time. This leads to questions about the temporality of affects, and the
question whether the Samsa family might get accustomed to a frightening figure living in their
midst, rather than engaging in ostracism so as not to have to face their son.
I therefore suggest that we think of Gregor as being not in crisis, but rather in chrysalis:
Whatever the exact shape of his transformation may be, be it physical, mental, or otherwise, it
could have been accepted and subsequently supported by his family, thereby allowing him to
flourish. In the worst of David Cronenberg, director of The Fly who wrote the introduction to the
2014 Bernofsky translation of Die Verwandlung, what Gregor’s family could have done is
“pointing out that a beetle is also a living thing, and turning into one might, for a mediocre
human living a humdrum life, be an exhilarating and elevating experience” (Bernofsky 10).
While I, as should be clear by now, oppose Cronenberg’s assumption that Gregor turns into a
beetle, I still take his point here.
Since the family does not support him, Gregor’s monstrosity and ultimate downfall are
both socially produced. The above-cited “widerlichen Verhältnisse” (123) (disgusting conditions)
inside the Samsa home that the lodgers comment on, therefore, may just as well be socially
108
produced, for it is his family’s ostracism that marks the center of his demises. Perhaps what
makes the conditions inside the Samsa apartment so disgusting is not commission, what is
actively being done, but rather omission, what is not being done, i.e. help and care for Gregor
during his time of need.
Moreover, we know that Gregor’s family locked him inside his room, as he speaks of
being in Gefangenschaft (95) (captivity), and that the father has been untruthful about the
family’s financial situation. To discuss the significance of these two facts, which are mentioned
in the same passage, I quote the full passage from my own translation:
Already over the course of the first day, the father laid out the financial circumstances and
prospects in their entirety to the mother as well as the sister. Here and there he got up
from the table and removed some receipt or some expense journal from his little chest
safe, which he had rescued from the collapse of his business that had happened five years
ago. One could hear him opening the complicated lock, and then close it again after
removing what he had been looking for. These explanations by the father were among the
first positive things that Gregor got to hear during his captivity. He had assumed that the
father had had nothing left from said business, for at least the father had not said anything
to the contrary, although Gregor also had not asked him about it. Gregor’s worry back
then had only been to do everything to let the family forget as quickly as possible the
entrepreneurial misfortune which had led everybody into an utter hopelessness.
Henceforth he had begun to work fervently back then and had, almost over night,
changed from a minor assistant into a traveling salesman, who of course had entirely
different ways of earning money, and whose successes turned to immediate cash which
could then be put on the table of the astonished and delighted family, due to him working
109
for commissions. These had been beautiful times and never again had they returned, at
least in this splendor, although Gregor later earned so much money that he was able to
carry the expenses of the entire family, which he then did. Thus one had gotten used to,
the family as much as Gregor, one thankfully accepted the money which he enjoyed
providing, but a special warmth would no longer emerge. Only the sister had still
remained close to Gregor and it was his secret plan to send her, who, unlike Gregor, loved
music dearly and knew how to touchingly play the violin, to the Conservatory next year,
despite the large costs that this would create, and which one would be able to come up for
in one way or another. During Gregor’s short stays in town, the sister’s regularly
mentioned the Conservatory in their conversations, though always only as a wonderful
dream whose realization was unthinkable, and the parents did not like to hear even these
innocent mentions; but Gregor thought of this full of sincerity and intended to proclaim
his intentions on Christmas eve.
From this passage, one can extrapolate various crucial insights, all of which relate directly to my
thoughts in this chapter: For one, Gregor has undergone an earlier transformation, when he
became a traveling salesman, the profession that the reader knows he loathes, and that, as I have
discussed earlier, presents the core of his alienation from himself. Notably, this earlier change in
Gregor, brought about by his professions has happened “fast über Nacht” (96) (almost over
night), the expression mirroring the transformation that sits at the core of the Kafka novella, with
its famous opening passage that describes Gregor waking up and finding himself transformed
over night. From this, it becomes apparent that Gregor has been rendered into what Hannah
Arendt calls the animal laborans, a beast of burden, by his entrapment within a capitalist mode
110
of production, which I think paves the way for his other transformation . As such, Gregor has
21
been rendered an animal before the event with which this story begins, and whatever happens
when he wakes up in the morning is merely another step in this process.
Secondly, we must note that this earlier transformation of Gregor occurred because of a
sense of responsibility that he felt for his family members. As quoted above, he took on the new
position as a traveling salesman after his father’s enterprise had gone out of business, and
because his family is indebted to his boss. This will be a crucial moment for my later discussion
of social pressures, molds, and the concept of plasticity; while I fully lay out this argument in the
third chapter, I would like to state here already that Gregor’s initial transformation, that into a
laborer who is utterly alienated from his own needs and desires, including his bodily ones, is
grounded in the social pressures that he is under, and his unfree location into which he is fixed by
the capitalist system of the emerging control society that he lives in, because of debt. As for
instance Deleuze (1992: 6) writes, control societies operate via debt, not enclosure, meaning that
Gregor’s agency is limited and his behavior policed, and this is what keeps Gregor at his job,
which has caused his alienation/transformation into somebody who is alienated from himself.
Notably, as we learn in this passage, that while there really does exist a debt towards his
employer, it had only been an assumption on Gregor’s part that there had been a financial
impasse in the family’s finances, which we find rooted in the fact that Gregor did not inquire
from his father the specifics of the family's financial situation. Notably, the text here speaks of
the “utter helplessness” that supposedly everyone in the family felt after the bankruptcy of the
Marx makes further claims about what he considers human nature. For instance: “Labour is external to
21
the worker – i.e., does not belong to his essential being; that he, therefore, does not confirm himself in his
work, but denies himself, feels miserable and not happy, does not develop free mental and physical
energy, but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind […] He feels at home when he is not working, and when
he is working he does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced
labor” (Marx 1844: XXIII).
111
father's firm. However, as we now find out, there had been money left over, meaning that this
hopelessness was somewhat unfounded in the first place. It is, however, never cleared up whether
this hopelessness was indeed felt by all members of the Samsa family, or whether this was just an
assumption, interpretation, or projection of feelings on the part of Gregor. Thus we see once
again that it is a lack of clear communication, and the reliance on assumption and interpretation
of other people’s behavior rather than permitting their expression, that made the initial
transformation of Gregor, the one before the beginning of the novella, take shape. In other words,
what we can think of as the main transformation, the one around which Die Verwandlung is
centered, has been preconditioned by Capital; both in the alienation that Gregor’s profession has
produced in him, as well as in the social relations within the Samsa family home.
The above-cited passage also speaks to the notion of the potential abuse of Gregor by his
family, which, as I have discussed earlier, might sit at the heart of the lodgers’ complaints and
reason to move out: Aside from being in Gefangenschaft (captivity) and taking on a job that he
does not like in order to financially provide for the family, despite there being no financial
hardship, we also learn here that there had been an initial emotional component to Gregor taking
on the role of the sole breadwinner. The focus of my attention lies here not so much on the fact
that Gregor feels a “special warmth” upon first delivering money home to his family, but rather
on the fact that this warmth quickly dissipates.
2.2.1 Illusion / Delusion
As I have argued at the outset of the first chapter of this project, Die Verwandlung presents the
reader with abstract, ambiguous verbiage, whereby it produces what I have termed an anti-
Ekphrasic effect. Building further upon this finding, I argue that what the reader is presented with
112
throughout the text is not so much an illustration, but rather an illusion about Gregor, given that
the reader can never be sure as to whether his observations are literal descriptions, or whether
they are figments of his imagination, as in: are these perhaps images that Gregor thinks he
perceives, but that do not actually occur, that are not factually, physically happening, but that
exist in his mind?
With this sense of confusion and unreliability in mind, I pose that Gregor has lost the
ability to make sense of both his own body and his surroundings, and that we therefore cannot
trust his observations about what is going on with him. When he states for instance that “die
Ballen seiner Beinchen hatten ein wenig Klebstoff” (81) (the balls of his little legs had a little
adhesive glue), one may be tempted to assume that this is an actual observation of his body
having become strange, monstrous, and animal. At the same time though, just a moment before
in the story Gregor is bewildered that suddenly his sister has gotten dressed, when he thought
that she had just gotten out of bed, and he does not want his mother to hear his cough for whether
or not this sounded human, “was er selbst zu entscheiden sich nicht mehr getraute” (ibid) (which
he no longer dared to judge for himself). If in this passage, Gregor is confused by the passing of
time and by whether or not his voice is understood by other humans the same way that he can
understand it himself, then why should his observation that he has numerous little legs that ooze
an adhesive substance be taken at face value?
This Klebstoff (adhesive glue) makes another appearance towards the end of the second
part of the novella, when Gregor supposedly takes pleasure in crawling up the walls and onto the
ceiling of his room (Kafka 2017: 101). Notably, it is this activity that initiates Gregors demise:
When his mother and sister begin clearing the furniture out of his room, Gregor comes out of his
hiding place under the couch and crawls up onto the gilded picture frame that he made himself,
113
so that it cannot be removed from his room. Seeing him there on the wall leads to the mother’s
shock and panic, which then culminates in the father chasing Gregor around the house and
throwing apples at him, which will ultimately result in his death. The key question here,
however, is whether it really is an apple that gets stuck “im Fleische” (111) (in the flesh) of his
back, or whether this is a hallucination on the part of Gregor, perhaps representing a
psychosomatic wound that is the result of his poor mental state, and the degree of emotional
trauma that he has incurred from being chased around the house by his father.
Die Verwandlung furthermore illustrates the importance of the ability to use language in
order to come into existence as a subject: Gregor cannot communicate himself, thus he is not
recognized as human by his family. While he at first has a voice that sounds almost normal (2),
he feels his voice slowly fading away as the story progresses, and getting higher until it
disappears. Being unable to speak, he of course still has an internal monologue throughout the
rest of the story, which we as readers are aware of, but his family, and the other characters within
the family home, such as the maid, the servant, or the three lodgers, do not seem ware of this.
Thus they subject him to abject treatment, seemingly unaware also of the fact that while he may
not be able to speak himself, he can still hear and comprehend what they say.
In line with the general sensorial chaos that is described throughout the text, there are
certain instances where Gregor is explicitly surprised by his own body: We may think here for
instance of Gregor’s thoughts in the beginning of the story, after he has first woken up, when he
remembers that it had happened to him in the past that he would wake up feeling pain, “der sich
dann beim Aufstehen als reine Einbildung herausstellte” (73) (which then upon getting up turned
out to be mere imagination). Just as well in the second part of the novella, Gregor supposedly
114
takes to climbing up the walls and ceiling, from where he lets himself drop down onto the ground
“zu seiner eigenen Überraschung” (101) (to his own surprise).
Moreover, we are presented with a clear example of Gregor’s unreliability in the
descriptions of the household staff: After the initial shock of the family discovering his
transformation at the first morning of the story, while the Prokurist is inside the apartment, the
Dienstmädchen (maid) begs to be let go by Gregor’s mother (95) and leaves the apartment after
swearing not to tell anybody about the goings-on inside the Samsa family home. In the second
part of the story, there is supposedly still a Dienstmädchen inside the apartment, who has begged
the family to be allowed to lock herself inside the kitchen while she works (102). To me, this can
only mean one of two things: Either this is sloppy writing/editing, with there having initially
been numerous maids employed by the Samsa family, and the text not being clear on this part.
Or, and this appears a lot more likely to me, this is to be taken as an indicator that Gregor’s
observations are hallucinations, meaning that they are mistaken impressions, chaotic and
unreliable, and he does not actually know what is and is not going on inside the family home.
This, of course, puts into perspective the observations he makes about himself, and calls into
question whether he actually has numerous little legs, or whether he is able to crawl up the walls
and onto the ceiling, or whether all of these instances of animality might be mere hallucinations
on his part as well.
Regarding the question of the apple in Gregor’s back, we must note that the passage of
his father throwing the apples at him ends with the diction that one apple “drang dagegen
förmlich in Gregors Rücken ein” (110) (formally entered Gregor’s back). The word förmlich in
this passage is most notable, since it is used as a qualifier that renders me suspicious as to this
means that the apple literally enters Gregor’s back, or whether this is rather to be understood as
115
ironic exaggeration, and yet another instance of Gregor’s sensorial unreliability. As any reader of
my dissertation will already assume, I see the latter strongly supported in the subsequent
sentences: After he feels the apple förmlich enter his back, Gregor is in too much pain to carry on
walking, and ends up stretching out on the floor “in vollständiger Verwirrung aller Sinne” (110)
(in complete confusion of all senses).
The second part of the story ends with the above-discussed passage, and the third (and
last) part begins with a description of how this injury of Gregor’s, the apple getting stuck in the
flesh of his back and remaining there for over a month due to his family’s neglect. With the
general chaos and unreliability of Gregor’s observations in mind, I strongly question whether it
is really rooted in “seiner gegenwärtigen traurigen und ekelhaften Gestalt” (111) (his present sad
and disgusting form) that his health deteriorates and he dies alone in his room. Rather, this
passage suggests to me that Gregor’s wounds are emotional ones. Instead of an apple literally
having entered his body and now sitting there and rotting, perhaps it is instead an emotional
wound that leads to Gregor’s demise. After all, the passage with which the second part of the
novella ends is a traumatic scene for Gregor, with his mother screaming, and his father first
chasing him around the apartment while making hissing noises that are unbearable for Gregor,
and then taking to physically injuring his own son.
Further, the question of Gregor’s poor mental health and its cause for his bodily injury is
illustrated in scenes such as that wherein we learn that Gregor spends the time after his apple-
related injury in his room, “zum Sterben müde und traurig” (118) (deadly tired and sad), while
his family takes to entertaining the lodgers that move into the apartment due to the family’s
financial situation. In the final days of his life, as my above discussion shows, Gregor is
emaciated, apathetic, and unresponsive to his surroundings. As a culmination of the already
116
unreliable observations throughout the entire text, these final moments especially underscore the
psychic dimensions of Gregor’s bodily transformation, and seriously trouble the assumption that
Die Verwandlung is to be understood as a story about an objective, physical transformation, and
literal animality.
2.2.2 Pathic Projection: Monstrosity and Entomology
Due to his family’s constant avoidance of his looks, Gregor becomes an observer to the family
space; he is unseen by his milieu, yet present within the home and, as the story progresses,
increasingly observing the other people within the apartment. This includes his family members
and household staff, all of whom are aware of his presence, and later the three lodgers, who do
not know that he is inside the family apartment. While not facing his own physicality and
therefore not making value-judgements about it, Gregor is at the same time grossed out by
smells, he no longer enjoys the foods his family makes (Kafka 2017: 89, 117); I suggest here that
this is because while he is obsessed with his sensorium, at the same time he cannot stand what
his senses report to him. While his family aware of the look from the animal, they do not want to
see him, but also do not want to be seen by him. As I have mentioned above, I consider these
instances of Gregor’s family evading his gaze as prime examples for the operation of pathic
projection in this story. By being unwilling to look at Gregor, the family literally escapes the look
of the animal that he has become. At the same time, however, it is important to reiterate here that
this is not just any animal, but that the animal here is one that is part of the Samsa family.
Therefore, with the focus on social bonds and projection, I thus focus in this subchapter
on how Gregor’s metamorphosis reflects his family’s insecurities about their status in society;
117
after all, it is the gaze from the outside that the Samsa family tries to avoid, and it is only in the
instance that lodgers enter into the family home that the circumstances surrounding Gregor
escalate. As Adorno writes, “what is not seen as a human being and yet is a human being, is
turned into a thing, so that it can no longer rebut the manic gaze through any sort of impulse”
(Thesis 68). While his family may, at least initially, still consider Gregor a human despite the
changes to his physical appearance, I suggest here that it is the outside assessment of his state as
less-than-human, or in Adorno’s words as “a thing,” that most frightens the family in the petty
bourgeoise milieu that they are positioned within.
On the note of Gregor and looks, it strands out as important that as the story progresses,
Gregor’s eyesight deteriorates: In the second part (or second act) of the text, Gregor explains that
while he still enjoys looking out his window, he can no longer recognize the Krankenhaus across
the street (98), and it looks to him as if earth and sky have become the same thing. Importantly,
in the moment of losing the ability to see things that are farther apart from him, he still retains his
capacity to remember, for instance the name of the street that the family lives on, or details such
as there being a hospital across the street. Therefore, we are once again reminded of the drifting
apart of Gregor’s sensorium: While his eyes have become weak in his transformation, his mental
state is apparently still in order, or at least capable enough to remember factual details about his
neighborhood.
In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari write that it is “as if the power and
cultivation of the affect were the true goal of the assemblage […] learning to undo things and to
undo oneself” (1987: 400). I suggest that, by cultivating such messy affects that float around in
fractured body parts but that never come together to form a body that we as readers see from the
118
outside, or that we could imagine as an entity, Die Verwandlung forces readers into pure affect of
the assemblage. By this I mean that since Gregor does not appear before readers as a Gestalt,
which I have explained earlier in this chapter, he also does not appear before the reader as a
subject. From this emerges the question whether we can think of him as having an incorporeal
subjectivity. And if so, what are the contours of this? I suggest that Gregor’s incorporeality
means that his subjectivity spreads throughout the domestic sphere: The Samsa household
becomes a container for this, and the refusals and repressions that mark the family members’s
reactions to Gregor can be understood as reactions to themselves.
A pertinent example for this shared subjectivity within the Samsa household is in the
fights between Gregor and his father: The repressed exchange of looks between Gregor and his
family, and the dehumanization of Gregor, culminate in a dehumanization of the father figure:
After Gregor has gotten locked out of his room and his father chases him around the apartment,
both men are dehumanized: “Unerbitterlich drängte der Vater und stieß Zischlaute aus, wie ein
Wilder” (87) (Relentlessly the father pushed, hissing ferociously). Notably, it is this aggression
of the father, his temporary dehumanization, is what leads to Gregor’s death. Interesting in this
passage is that the animalistic behavior on the part of Gregor’s father is only of a short duration;
while the change in Gregor appears to have onset overnight and does not seem to be waning all
throughout the text, his father acting wie ein Wilder (like a savage) seems to be limited to a brief
moment of heightened tension, after which, once Gregor has been confined back to his room, the
father returns to his former state.
In “The Animal That Therefore I Am,” Jacques Derrida describes a scene of his self-
realization, which involves an animal: It is in the moment of being seen naked by his house pet, a
119
cat, that Derrida becomes aware of his nakedness, and that he feels great shame. I begin here
with this well-known and often-discussed scene from Derrida to move on from my discussion of
pathic projection in the first chapter to a discussion about self-realization and social looks. The
starting hypothesis here is that expressed in Derrida, that being looked at by an animal is not so
much about somebody else exerting power over the individual, but that being subjected to the
gaze is a moment that enables seeing oneself. Important to note is that in Derrida’s encounter
with the cat, this seeing of himself is not as a part of society, which in this case provides identity
categories for the subject to slot themselves into, but in fact is a seeing of himself as naked,
literally and figuratively, meaning that he is not seen as belonging to any socially constructed
identity category by his cat, but as being outside of these, and therefore left to himself to grapple
with his subjectivity (372f). In Derrida, this moment of becoming aware of one’s own role is
considered as always abject; it is a scene of humiliation, of the recognition of one’s impotence
(374), which points us towards the fact that is is apparently in being faced with creatures that fall
outside of our socially constructed boundaries of respectable life, in Derrida’s case a feline, that
we are pushed towards a realization about the core of ourselves.
I suggest here that it is precisely this malaise (Derrida 372) that Gregor’s family seeks to
avoid at all costs; they cannot bring themselves to look at him because in dong so, they would
perhaps be pushed towards thinking about themselves as animals. Also important here is of
course the fact that the animal in this story is not just any, anonymous animal, but that it is
Gregor Samsa himself, a member of the Samsa family. And, as I have laid out in my discussion
of Geziefer and Ungeziefer in relation to the figure of the animal (subchapter 1.1 of this paper),
the animal that he becomes is one of particularly low status, marked by its distance to the divine.
120
Taking these assertions as a starting point, I will use the following two subchapters to think more
about The Metamorphosis as a story of alienation, first and foremost from the (human) self. I
suggest that Gregor’s turning into an animal complicates the relation between his ego and his
own body; but it just as much is a story about alienation both from and of his family, his work,
and society (Capital) at large towards him. He is no longer human, meaning that he is no longer
the animal that can make promises (Derrida), or that is able to project himself into the future.
Instead, he is stuck in a moment of now-ness, in which his social and/or financial aspirations,
especially his class status, are halted, asking for a reflection about the identity of both himself
and his family.
In Minima Moralia, Theodor Adorno describes the process of pathic projection as a
means of racialization that can serve as a justification for the infliction of violence, including
murder. He writes in detail:
The concept of human beings in repressive society is the parody of the notion that human
beings were created in the image of God. The mechanism of “pathic projection” functions
in such a manner that the power-brokers perceive only their own mirror image as human
beings, instead of reflecting back what is human as precisely what is different. Murder is
thus the attempt to displace, again and again, the madness of such false perception into
reason, through greater madness: what is not seen as a human being and yet is a human
being, is turned into a thing, so that it can no longer rebut the manic gaze through any sort
of impulse (Adorno, Thesis 68).
I argue that much of what happens in Die Verwandlung is an illustration of this very process of
pathic projection: When he first awakes, Gregor does not even want to look at his own legs (69),
121
which he does, I suggest, because he does not want to confront his own status as ‘only an
animal,’ or perhaps the thing that he has turned into by waking up as a non-human. Throughout
the novella, Gregor only ever gives partial descriptions about his physical state, as I have laid out
in detail throughout the first chapter of this paper, which is why a visualization of what the
metamorphosis has made of his body is impossible to achieve. Most important for us here is
most certainly the fact that instead of engaging with his changed body, Gregor’s attention on this
first morning of this story immediately wanders to his duties involving his work, and how he
does not want to be judged negatively by his superior (ibid 3). Moving beyond his direct
interactions with his family members, however, it becomes clear that there is great importance of
seeing and being seen from a social perspective as well. As I will reveal in this subchapter, much
of the petty bourgeoise respectability that the Samsa family appears to depend upon is impacted
by this trade of looks.
At the beginning of Die Verwandlung, the focus on social standing and its combination
with a focus on visuality is illustrated in the fact that after merely hours of Gregor’s absence
from work, his superior sends a manager to the family home to check up on Gregor ––visually––
even though they have previously contacted the family via telephone (76). This scene from early
on in the story, which already points towards the suspicion that his surroundings seem to have
towards Gregor, is followed by a description of the fact that Gregor does not actually like his
work, nor the people that he works under. We should take note of this fact because it shows that
instead of assessing his new physical shape and evaluating, perhaps even celebrating it, Gregor’s
attention immediately shifts to the way in which his metamorphosis may affect his performance
within the capitalist system. Gregor realizes in this scene once more that he cannot quit this work
122
for another five to six years because he has to financially support his family (ibid 79). From the
beginning of the story, I believe that these descriptions set the stage for the social milieu that the
Samsa family aspires towards, and that informs much of the awareness of being looked at from
the outside for the rest of the story.
Returning once again to Derrida’s “The Animal That Therefore I Am,” wherein the author
raises the question whether human subjects can ever become aware of themselves as anything
but naked, or whether they are caught within the social role that they aspire to fulfill. Building
atop my previous analysis of this passage, I suggest here that it is precisely this exchange with
the animal in The Metamorphosis that makes the respectability and family dynamics of the petty
bourgeoisie that the Samsa family works hard to be situated within that points towards their, to
use Derrida’s term, nakedness. We may also want to connect this to Freud’s concept of the Imago
from the essay “On Narcissism”: The Imago is the image of the idealized version of ourselves,
which we carry within ourselves. Freud states that we are never the person that our imago aspires
to be. According to Freud it is only by being looked at from the animal that we do become aware
of ourselves, because we imagine animals outside of ethics. Cannot answer, all we have in this
case is our projection.
Due to Gregor’s metamorphosis, I argue, his family is being confronted with their
nakedness, their identity outside of social construction, and the petty bourgeoise identity that
they perhaps cling onto to gain social respectability. Hence their imago, the image that they have
of themself, gets challenged by Gregor’s very presence. It is due to this imago that looking at
him becomes almost impossible for them. We can see this in the fact that for the most part, the
members of Gregor’s family avoid direct interaction with him, especially looks; as I have already
123
mentioned in subchapter 1.2, when Gregor’s mother finally does look at her metamorphosed son,
she loses consciousness, which sets off a number of escalations that ultimately result in Gregor’s
death. Using Derrida and Freud here, I thus suggest that in the moment of looking at her now-
animal son, Frau Samsa faints precisely because in this very moment, she sees herself as being
subjected to forces that are stronger than herself. In discussing this scene of humiliation for
Gregor’s mother, we should also note also that it is not just a random animal that the Samsa
family exchanges looks with: This animal is an un-animal (see subchapter 1.1 of this paper), a
particularly low, uncultured, and perhaps superfluous kind of animal. Secondly, and just as
importantly, this animal is part of themselves: there is not a single moment throughout the
novella in which the members of the Samsa family doubt that the animal is Gregor, their son. In
a sense then, Gregor shows the other characters within the story what they know to be true: His
dehumanization by capitalism, upon which the family’s status hangs, and which is built into the
very system, becomes impossible to ignore once it is visually manifested in him.
Conclusion Chapter 2
Over the course of this second chapter, I have illustrated that Die Verwandlung is an exercise in
readerly disorientation: In employing ambiguity and abstraction as technique, both of which I
had defined as key terms for my analysis in the first chapter, I have demonstrated in this second
chapter that author Kafka creates what I have referred to as Anti-Ekphrasis, the impossibility to
visualize on the part of the reader. This mode, I have argued further, at the same time created
through a highly visual writing style, with which the text establishes contours of the imaginary,
124
before then turning away, thus leaving the reader with an incoherent, unclear impression of what
may be going on within the scenes of the book.
By foreclosing the possibility to visualize, I have shown here, the Kafka text works to
disorient perception. This results, as I have laid out, in a split between physical and phenomenal
body of the protagonist Gregor Samsa, and the subsequent notion that the reader can never be
certain whether or not the described observations within the text are (un-)reliable, thus leaving
the reader with enigmatic observations. With what I have discussed as a blurring of the lines
between illusion and delusion, I have illustrated the text’s effect of creating fractured references
to embodiment, which lead to a breakdown of protagonist Gregor Samsa’s Gestalt, the affective
experience of which this text invites. This breakdown of Gregor’s Gestalt, who never comes into
being as an embodied Other for the reader, means that rather, he exists only as what I have
termed here, borrowing from the text itself, as a Schreckgestalt, a frightening figure, one that
exists in the reader’s imagination, but that cannot be grasped visually, since it lacks a coherent
body.
In precluding a subject-object split, I have argued further, Die Verwandlung locks readers
inside Gregor’s body as it undergoes sensorial unrest. In doing so, I have suggested, author
Kafka moves readers towards pondering incoherent bodily sensations, which are presented to us
as the experience of sensorial chaos. From this notion, the phenomenal chaos of Gregor’s
sensorial impressions, I have drawn the title of this chapter, and one of the key insights of the
entire dissertation project. Gregor Samsa’s body is therefore to be understood as phenomenal:
The reader is placed in the center of its phenomenal impressions, while at the same time lacking
the logos, the capacity to make any coherent sense of these impressions. At the same time, these
125
unorganized bodily impressions are what, in my reading of the text throughout this second
chapter, makes reading Die Verwandlung the unique experience that it is; the unorganized,
incoherent body, therefore, is also experienced as phenomenal here in the sense of the word
meaning exceptional, outstanding, or stunning.
This chaos, I have illustrated further, is evoked through a steady tension, since readers’
attention is continually drawn towards Gregor’s body where it, due to the ambiguity and
abstraction of descriptions, never finds a concrete object to direct itself at. Drawing on my
arguments about translation and polysemy from the first chapter, I have therefore illustrated that
by cultivating such sensorial chaos, the author creates a disorganized affects that float around
both the Samsa family apartment and the text of this novella, paralleling the fractured body parts
of the protagonist, but that never come together to form a body that we as readers see from the
outside, or that we could imagine as an embodied Other. I have suggested referring to this
impossibility to visualize as chimeric writing, drawing on the illusory, impossible aspects of the
term.
Further, I have returned here once more to the exchange between Gregor and the servant,
of which I had already drawn for my analysis in the previous chapter. As I have shown here, the
servant is the only character within the text who withstands Gregor’s looks, and does not avert
her gaze when encountering him. In my reading of this scene, I have argued for the valence of
non-verbal recognition, and have made the case that in this scene, the reader encounters an
affective response to Gregor’s existence as Schreckgestalt that runs counter the dominant,
normative ways in which his surroundings respond to him. With this reading of that particular
scene, I have demonstrated that in order to restore the logos to Gregor’s phenomenal body, he is
126
reliant on his surroundings. As I have shown, it is only by observing other characters’ reactions
to himself that Gregor is able to make sense of himself.
Lastly, I have taken Gregor’s reliance on his surroundings in order to make sense of
himself to contemplate his family’s treatment of him. Building upon the exchange between
Gregor and the servant, I have provided a discussion of pathic projection, wherein I have made
the point that it is precisely due to their own insecurities regarding their class status that the
Samsas avoid looking at Gregor, as well as being looked at by him. This serves as segue into the
third chapter, where I will remain with phenomenology and at the same time pose that Die
Verwandlung is an open text par excellence. The open text, as stated in Eco, is a text that is
unstable, one that shifts, and that is endlessly interpretable. The crucial notion here is the
multiplicity of possible allegorical readings that all coexist within this text. As I have argued
here, each of these readings can be sustained, yet each of them has a certain surplus of meaning,
something that does not quite fit within the reading, which means that none of these readings is
ever truly sufficient, as none of them can actually exhaust the story.
127
Chapter Three: Plastic, Chimeric, Domestic
Located at the middle-point of the dissertation, this third chapter houses my discussion about
monstrosity, identity, and the death of the subject. In this chapter, I synthesize my findings from
the first two chapters and then use them for an analysis for the monstrous body and the question
of disobedience, as I move towards the concept of plasticity and the question whether
embodiment and subjectivity can be productively approached as plastic. I distinguish the
monstrous from the chimeric before analyzing narrative of a special case, the chimera that is part
human, part animal, which I call the uncanny chimeric. To explore this figure, its relation to the
plastic body, and its role for literary affects, I engage with Deleuze’s notion of becoming. The
uncanny chimera is thus contemplated as a human figure at the danger of becoming-uncanny,
becoming-animal, or becoming-monster. Any reader hoping to get a respite from Franz Kafka
should not get their hopes up; while I move beyond Die Verwandlung as primary object of study
here, I touch base with the text time and time again throughout this chapter as well, connecting
thoughts and findings back to my analyses from the first two chapters.
In order to discuss the concepts of the plastic, the chimeric, and the domestic, as this
chapter sets out to do, I will first need to contemplate the role of Marxism within media theory.
To begin my inquiry here, I introduce the concept of Momentaufnahme, in the spirit of the
Dictionary of Untranslatables (Cassin et al, 2014), which I have referred to in the first chapter of
this project. A simple glance at a dictionary posits this word as similar to the English “snapshot.”
However, crucial differences between the terms exist, as I will lay out in what follows, and I
therefore present Momentaufnahme here as an Untranslatable in Apter’s sense, meaning that it is
128
a term so specific in German that I have not been able to find an appropriate English term that
comes close to its meaning in English.
As a means of approaching Momentaufnahme, I begin with a comparison to snapshot:
The latter term stems from camera technology and is therefore tied to visuality, implying the
recording of something image-based, a visual stimulus. Secondly, the question of temporality
and duration comes into focus with “snapshot,” as “snap” signifies a rapid break, a splitting, or a
coming apart. The term thereby evokes a brief moment in time, and, most crucially, also the
departure of two things; in the moment when a photo is snapped, for instance, a splitting off from
reality and its visual representation occurs. By taking a photo, an image is thus snapped, and
what is represented in the image is frozen in time, flattened into a visual representation of one
brief moment in time.
By contrast Momentaufnahme is not limited to visuality, although the term can be used
for the creation of a photo as well. Rather, the noun Aufnahme, the second part of the compound
Momentaufnahme, is perhaps best though of as recording, a medial taking stock of a referent in
the real. Importantly, this recording is not limited to a time as short as a snapshot. While still
short in time, literally a moment, I suggest that we are afforded a longer duration with this term
than we are in the brief moment of snapping a picture. If one was to translate the term literally,
we may then perhaps think of Momentaufnahme as a survey of a moment. This means that both
in terms of temporality and medium specificity, or perhaps rather sensorial specificity, given the
recording of either visual or a sonic impulse onto a medium, Momentaufnahme is thus more
capacious than snapshot.
129
Besides the question of temporal duration and sensorial specificity, my main point about
Momentaufnahme, however, is a different one: Crucially, Aufnahme, the second part in the
compound Momentaufnahme, has a second meaning besides that of a survey of a moment, which
is that of reception. “Etwas aufnehmen” is to receive something; perhaps most fittingly,
“Nahrungsaufnahme” is the ingestion of food, wherein Aufnahme is not to record or to take a
survey of something, but to literally absorb its matter —for instance vitamins, proteins, and fats,
but also toxins, antibiotics, and micro-plastics— wherein this matter, even if only temporarily,
becomes a part of the body of the person who performs this Aufnahme. To contrast the term once
again to the English snapshot, then, the visual notion of the latter term is perhaps best understood
as perception, whereas Momentaufnahme is in turn best thought of as reception.
This very quality of Aufnahme, or reception, furthermore poses questions about agency
and consent, as it poses the question whether we have the power to prohibit reception, or whether
this is something our bodies do without our active desire to do so. The contamination of
foodstuff comes to mind as an example here, where what appears an appetizing fresh filet of tuna
fish may in fact bring micro-plastics or nuclear radiation into my body. And as the Covid-19
pandemic has shown, the Aufnahme of air into the body means the absorption not only of
oxygen, but can also bring about the involuntary reception of coronaviruses. To combat this lack
of agency regarding the Aufnahme of viral particles, human-made interventions are deployed,
from vaccines to face-masks. To summarize, my suggestion here is that while snapshot may be
best understood as a recording and a perception, Aufnahme on the other hand is perhaps best
thought of as a recording that is a reception.
130
In the first chapter, I have suggested that Die Verwandlung derives its importance for a
reassessment of literary affects under the concept of abstraction because of the author’s anti-
ekphrastic writing style, which I have argued that prohibits the subject-object split for readers,
meaning that protagonist Gregor never becomes visible to readers as an embodied Other. At the
same time, however, I have argued as well that the text is highly visual. Full of looks and
looking, I have shown in the first two chapters, both Gregor Samsa and his family members are
constantly observing visually, and the fact of looks from outside observers entering the family
home, due to the lodgers moving in, I have argued further, leads to the escalation that ends in
Gregor’s death.
Therefore, I pick up the question of visuality here once more, so as to contemplate the
links between image and imagination. Over the course of this third chapter, the main point I will
be working out is that the chimera, the creature that does not conform to chimeric thinking, is
thus rendered disobedient by its very existence. The mere fact of this figure existing in the world,
when normative thinking claims that it should not exist, challenges the established norms.
Crucially, I think this poses a threat since it makes visible that these norms are socially,
historically established, and thus themselves malleable.
3.1 On Alienation
In my first chapter, I have discussed that Die Verwandlung is commonly understood as a tale
about the alienation that workers experience under capitalism, and that Gregor is read as turning
into a bug because of his abject status as a laboring subject within the capitalist system. While it
should be clear at this point in my discussion that I argue for a greater depth of the metaphor(s)
131
that we may see this novella presenting, I nonetheless think it is an important one to consider.
Thus I will dive back into the Kafka text once again to make my point, so as to show the
connections between ossified social norms, which I will discuss in a subsequent subchapter on
Serial Mom, heteronormative family constructs and domesticity, and capitalist system.
To begin with, consider Gregor Samsa’s position as an itinerant salesman, as whom he
(this is a common interpretation that I agree with) represents the proletariat under capitalism.
Due to the financial needs of the family, Gregor is forced to neglect his bodily needs, such as
getting enough sleep, and has to subject his body to the stresses of being “Tag aus, Tag ein auf
der Reise” (70) (day in, day out on the road) for the sake of his profession. Gregor, upon first
waking up and finding himself transformed, reflects upon his discontent for this situation,
referring to his job as “die Plage des Reisens” (ibid), (the curse of travel) and concludes “der
Teufel soll das alles holen!” (ibid) (to hell with it all!). And yet, he is given no choice but to
endure this situation because of the family’s economic situation, in a direct illustration of what
Marx and Engels describe when they write: “the class of modern wage-laborers who, having no
means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labor power in order to live” (769).
The main conflict for Gregor, and the cause of his alienation, is thus presented at the outset of the
story as being between his disdain for his profession, and him being forced into this profession
due to his economic position.
Gregor’s position as a member of the proletariat is illustrated in the hierarchies that soon
move into the Samsa family home: as he has not shown up to work on time, the Prokurist
(assistant manager) is sent by his employer to check on him (78), illustrating to the reader that
his profession is to uphold the hierarchies within the business and managing the labor of the
132
workers, rather than engaging in labor himself. And rather than to trust Gregor after having been
with the company for five years, the employer’s immediate reactions are “der größte Verdacht”
(76) (the greatest suspicion) and the threat of reprimanding him for having neglected his
“geschäftlichen Pflichten” (78) (professional duties); instead of respecting and trusting that he
might be temporarily unable to perform his labor due to an impairment, the assistant manager
threatens that Gregor might be fired.
Subsequently, Gregor’s impairment, his inability to work, whatever its root cause and its
full shape may be, results in his abandonment, starvation, and death. Especially in the treatment
that Gregor receives from his family members, we see here that their relationships are shaped
entirely by capitalist ideology, and that theirs are social bonds that take the shape of petty-
bourgeoise identity: For Marx and Engels, “the bourgeoisie has resolved personal worth into
exchange value […] The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has
reduced the family relation into a mere money relation” (771), which is exactly what we see in
the circumstance that Gregor, who at the outset of the story is the sole breadwinner of his family,
gets locked inside his room as soon as he becomes unable to work and thereby can no longer
financially support them. As soon as Gregor is no longer able to financially sustain his family,
they begin abandoning him; in other words, the social bond between Gregor and his family is
fueled largely by monetary value, and begins deteriorating as soon as Gregor can no longer
provide financially. There, neglected in his room, he starves and ultimately dies from an injury
that remains untreated for over a month.
We see this reduction of Gregor to financial provider especially in the relationship
between him and his father: While Gregor has worked for five years to repay his father’s debts
133
after a failed business of his, he is ignored and neglected as soon as he stops bringing home
money, revealing that the relationship between father and son was based on money in the first
place. It is, of course, also the father’s actions that lead to Gregor’s ultimate demise, with an
apple thrown by the father getting stuck in Gregor’s back, where it rots and causes an immune
reaction, ending up in his death. Most importantly, Gregor's death is not grieved by his family;
on the contrary, his father utters “jetzt können wir Gott danken” (128) (now we can thank god)
and crosses himself, a gesture that is then followed by Gregor’s mother and his sister. Rather
than being sad about their family member having died, the Samsas are instead relieved that he is
no longer a part of their life, for he had been nothing but a burden on the family. Thus it is only
fitting that instead of mourning Gregor’s death, the Samsas go on a train journey to the outskirts
of town, contemplating their good outlooks for the future, and the beauty of daughter Grete.
Importantly, the role of the family’s role breadwinner is also how Gregor relates to
himself: Rather than focusing on his impairment and how he might be able to return to full
health, Gregor contemplates: “‘Was für ein stilles Leben die Familie doch führte,’ sagte sich
Gregor und fühlte, während er starr vor sich ins Dunkle sah, einen großen Stolz darüber, dass er
seinen Eltern und seiner Schwester ein solches Leben in einer so schönen Wohnung hatte
verschaffen können” (90) (“What a quiet life the family was leading,” Gregor told himself and
felt, as he was staring stiffly into the dark, a great pride about having been able to procure such a
beautiful life in such a beautiful apartment for his parents and his sister). Moments such as this,
wherein we see that Gregor puts the needs of his family members above his own, illustrate the
point that Gregor, in ignoring his own bodily needs, understands himself only as financial
134
provider for his family, whose worth is determined only as exchange value within the capitalist
system.
The above-cited scene is also an example of the layers of repression that Gregor engages
in: He thinks of his family and how good they have it instead of facing his impairment. This
thought, however, is followed by his fear that their “Ruhe, Wohlstand, Zufriedenheit” (90)
(quietude, prosperity, contentment) might take “ein Ende mit Schrecken” (ibid) (a frightening
end) now that he has become unable to work. Rather than contemplate this and look for any
solutions, however, Gregor decides to crawl up and down his room so as to distract himself. This,
once again, shows that Gregor exists only to perform his role as a laborer under capitalism. Not
only are his social relationships impoverished, but also and especially his relation to himself, his
desires and his bodily integrity, are subservient to his capacity to earn money.
As he has become unable to work, Gregor is thus dependent upon charity in order to
survive. This is initially provided, primarily from his sister, the only member of the Samsa family
willing to enter his room. While the family does confine him into his room after his
transformation, at least his sister enters twice daily to bring him food scraps. This need for
charity demonstrates that despite his alienation from his body, perhaps his nature, Gregor is still
dependent on nourishment, which makes him dependent on his milieu. In that sense, we see here
once again the reliance on his milieu, which, as I wrote in the previous chapter, is of course also
what conditions Gregor’s relationship to both his physicality and his sensoria.
I suggest here, and with this I certainly do not claim to present an original thought, that
one can indeed understand Die Verwandlung as a cultural manifestation of Capitalism, albeit one
that, like many other of Kafka’s works, illustrates negative sides that capitalist ideology has on
135
the individual subject. For Marx, as should be common knowledge, the four dimensions of
Entfremdung (alienation) under capitalism are the alienation from self, alienation from labor,
alienation from nature, and alienation from other people. These forms of alienation, Marx
explains in Das Kapital I, present a schism or rupture between the individual and its
surroundings. Crucially, however, this split is for Marx not just affective or emotional, but it
makes itself felt through objective facts.
Under capitalism, alienation from nature exists because humans have no relationship to
nature aside from seeing it as a resource to extract capital from. Alienation from labor is rooted
in the fact that the alienated laborer has no ownership over what they produce. Alienation from
other people comes about either because human others are seen by the individual as competition,
rather than equals, whereby capitalism prohibits solidarity between people, or is rooted in the
circumstance that there is a hierarchy between people, wherein the individual resents those who
have authority over them, because one person has punitive power over another within the
capitalist system. Those with whom the individual has a market relationship, Marx explains,
therefore cannot be considered this individual’s community. Lastly, the alienation from the self
under capitalism is rooted in the circumstance that in a capitalist system, each human is reduced
to a profit producer, so the individual subject is just one among many others, in their function as
laborer replaceable. The individual thus has no agency, and their personal needs do not matter to
capitalist system, which is concerned with its profits, and would thus be served best if the
individuals did not have any personal needs whatsoever. The self thus becomes merely an
instrument of labor, not a complex human with needs, desires, creativity, etc.
136
With these four forms of alienation under capitalism as laid out by Marx, it becomes
quickly apparent why Die Verwandlung is commonly understood as a take about capitalist
alienation; the fact of feeling oneself dehumanized, made into an animal, is for instance
described in Marx with the following: “As a result […] man (the worker) only feels himself
freely active in his animal functions – eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling
and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but
an animal” (1844).
Using these elaborations on alienation under capital, wherein Marx states that capitalism
reduces humans to animals in the moments when they are not selling their labor to the capitalist,
because then all they do is consume instead of create, especially they do not create together with
other humans. One possible interpretation about Die Verwandlung based upon this reading is that
Gregor’s metamorphosis into an animal occurs because Gregor Samsa no longer stops acting like
an animal, which had usually, before the morning with which the plot of this story begins, been
reserved to his leisure time. When he wakes up as an animal, the effects of capitalist
dehumanization, as I have sketched them above, have become visible on him.
3.1.1 Social Reproduction and Namelessness
What if, rather than reading Die Verwandlung as a story about an individual body, the
protagonist’s alienation, or his racialization, but rather as a text that asks us what happens, if the
process of social reproduction suddenly failed to work? As any reader will know by now, the
answer is of course that absolute chaos ensues; monstrosity, fighting, throwing around of apples,
and angry words between people. In other words, an interruption of the flow of Capitalism.
137
Upon first waking up at the outset of the text, imagine thus that Gregor wakes up one day
as not a worker, because he has not been socially reproduced overnight. He does not awaken in
the morning replenished for another day working under capitalism, but instead, he finds himself
unable to leave his room, unable to make it to his place of work, confined to the domestic realm
of the Samsa family home. This is of course, like so many other aspects of Die Verwandlung, and
by extension of this dissertation, once again linked to the human body in crucial ways. The
breakdown of social reproduction is a breakdown of the functioning of Gregor’s body, and it is
through his fractured embodiment that readerly affects which experience this breakdown are
mediated.
Before diving further into an analysis and discussion of this breakdown and its embodied
effects, I first lay out my working definition of social reproduction:
In Arruzza et al., this is referred to as a truth that capitalism conspires to obscure. They write
further:
[T]he waged work of profit-making could not exist without the (mostly) unwaged work
of people-making. Thus, the capitalist institution of wage labor conceals something more
than surplus value. It also conceals its birthmarks—the labor of social reproduction that is
its condition of possibility. The social processes and institutions necessary for both kinds
of “production”—that of people and that of profits—while analytically distinct, are
nevertheless mutually constitutive (Arruzza et al. Feminism for the 99 Percent: A
Manifesto).
As the above statement suggests, Capitalism
138
Further, as voiced by the above-cited Marxist-feminist critics, Capitalism free-rides on
social reproduction; as stated in Arruzza et al., “capitalist society harbors a social-reproductive
contradiction: a tendency to commandeer for capital’s benefit as much “free” reproductive labor
as possible, without any concern for its replenishment” (SOURCE). As they argue further,
reproductive labor, largely unpaid labor carried out within the house, such as cooking, childcare,
or cleaning, is carried out in vast percentages by women, hence making capitalism free-ride
especially on the work of women, much more so than it does on the work of men (SOURCE).
The split between social reproduction and reproductive labor is important, although for
my argument here, I think the two concepts in fact share a lot of traits: (SOURCE)
In Die Verwandlung, this lack of concern for the replenishment of reproductive labor is
suddenly interrupted.
Names, I suggest here, foreshadowing my later chapter, are immaterial, they do not seem
to matter. But do they have matter? Certainly, the bodies of those designated by names have a
matter, a material reality to them.
Capital’s role in hegemonic discourse is to individuate issues; liberal market logic that
makes everything a personal responsibility, not something caused, and also solvable, by systemic
issues or the market. In Die Verwandlung, we see this in the fact that aside from Gregor, Grete,
and the maid who is employed by the family to assist in the Samsas’ social-reproductive work,
the characters are not mentioned by their names, but by their respective roles. Notably, these
roles are, almost exclusively, stated like objective names, when really, they are descriptors of
their social roles in relation to Gregor. As an example, Gregor’s mother is “die Mutter” [the
mother], his father is “der Vater” [the father], his boss is “der Chef” [the boss], and the assistant
139
manager from the firm that Gregor works at is “der Prokjurist” [the assistant manager]. With this,
the text universalizes Gregor’s subject position, making it appear as though his mother is a
universal mother, his boss is a universal boss, and so forth.
“Man is the namer; by this we recognize that through him pure language speaks. All
nature, insofar as it communicates itself, communicates itself in language, and so finally in man”
(Benjamin, “On Language…” 65).
These examples show a particularity of the original Kafka text, albeit one that
contemporary translators apparently have chosen to forego. In the original text, there are almost
no possessive pronouns, such as “his” to refer to Gregor’s father, mother, boss, etc., with Kafka
opting instead to use, as just mentioned, the articles “der” [the], “die” [the], and “das” [the].
Notable exceptions to this are Gregor, the protagonist, and Grete, his sister. They are the only
two characters within the text who possess given names, and are not referred to with their social
roles. This absence of proper names, I propose, illustrates that all exchanges in Die Verwandlung
are impersonal ones, wherein each individual stands in for a social group, and that all of these
relations are conditioned by market capitalism. Certainly, reading Die Verwandlung as an
allegory for alienation under capitalism is not a novel insight. However, it must be noted that
through the use of indefinite articles, none of the characters besides Gregor or Grete has a
personality, any inherent worth as a human subject, or, more importantly, none of these
characters is a subject. Rather, these individuals are mere stand-ins for social roles, whose worth
is defined exclusively by their labor power and/or their respective position within the capitalist
system.

140
What I think of here as subject-less characters has also been changed by existing
translations, and is another facet of the Kafka text that my translation intervenes into. Notably, all
characters in the original text are described from Gregor’s point of view, but carry the determiner
“the” preceding their respective titles. As a translator, it should be noted that this is something
that I have changed back from the translations of Bernofsky (2014) and Corngold (1996), which
both, curiously, use possessive pronouns. I use the term “curiously,” since this makes such a
stark difference in how the text reads, and was something that I had not expected these
translators to decide to change from the original . In my translation, as in the German original,
22
Mr. Samsa is not “his father” but “the father,” Gregor’s boss is not “his boss” but “the boss,” and
so forth with only few exceptions regarding Gregor’s mother.
Instead of being described in relation to Gregor, the other characters thus appear not as
individuals, but as embodiments of their respective social roles, which I hope will underline the
sense of alienation and loss of self that I see in this story. This has the effect of producing further
alienation, both on the part of Gregor and on that of the reader. While the words “his mother,” as
used in both Bernofsky and Corngold, might invite feelings of kinship for Gregor, letting this
characters appear as somebody who might be warm and nurturing towards him, this characters is
instead merely “the mother,” a person in the socially assigned role of a mother.
3.1.2 Family and Discipline
In Discipline and Punish (1975), Foucault traces shifts of control enacted by regimes, such as the
State, from the body being the locus of power exertion to the inner self becoming this locus. He
I have reached out to both translators to inquire about this choice, but have not heard back from either.
22
141
considers the family, the factory, the school, and the army, among others, all as spaces of
enclosure, meaning that these are spaces where systematic surveillance of the individual reigns,
which compels subjects to regulate their behavior, and to internalize this surveillance and
regulation. Foucault sees this also reflected in different penal styles: While in the 18th century,
the locus of penalization was the human body, with States exerting the death penalty, especially
via public execution, in the 19th century this shifted with the inner self becoming the locus. Now,
discipline and control reign, as described above.
As I have discussed all throughout my first chapter, capitalism as a trope is inherent to the
entire text of Die Verwandlung, and thus feels inevitable as a trope to be discussed in any
analysis of this story. That is why I suggest here that Gregor operates as a sort of prosopopoeia,
the personification of an otherwise abstract thing: He is personified Capital, penetrating the
private home, and his desire is that of Capital itself, in cast in the role of the itinerant salesman.
This makes the interplay between the family, as a space of social reproduction, as a space of
enclosure, and as an institution on the one hand, and the effects of all these dimensions on its
individual members interesting to assess.
Crucial is here once again the focus on embodiment: Gregor is, of course, made a symbol
for Capital itself because of how he is able to deploy his body when he moves it across physical
space: He is not in the factory, not producing commodities himself, but it is his work to sell these
commodities, which makes him a worker himself. Yet Gregor’s work is to enter the homes of the
working classes, where their social reproduction happens. Gregor’s success has allowed for the
Samsa family to ascent into the petty-bourgeoisie milieu, with enough money to employ a maid,
i.e. a woman who is paid to engage in the domestic care work, assist the Samsa family in their
142
social reproduction. Due to the interruption in Gregor’s success, which we might then understand
as an interruption in the flow of Capital itself, the family’s social standing is thus threatened.
Relying first on the maid and then the Bedienerin (“charwoman” in Bernofsky, “servant” in my
translation), the novella thus posits a care chain, drawing on female bodies in order to facilitate
the social reproduction of a male body, that of Gregor Samsa.
The pressures of Capitalism are expressed within the text through hyperbole: As Judith
Butler reminds us in Bodies That Matter, in their discussion of how drag relates to gender norms,
“The hyperbolic conformity to the command an reveal the hyperbolic status of the norm itself,
indeed, can become the cultural sign by which that cultural imperative might become legible”
(1993, 181). While I will return to the questions of kitsch and camp third chapter of this project,
the potential hyperbolic aspects of Die Verwandlung should be noted already. Along these lines,
it seems fitting to recall that for Susan Sontag, the works of Kafka are among what she considers
camp (Thesis 36).
As an itinerant salesman, Gregor Samsa acts as mediator between the market and
consumers. He works in the sphere of exchange, meaning that he is what is visible to consumers
of commodities. Kafka’s story parallel’s Marx’s reading of capitalism: With Gregor at the fore in
the realm of exchange, the sphere of production stays tucked away in what Marx calls the
“hidden abode” [source] of capitalism. If we were to follow this path of interpretation, reading
Die Verwandlung as capitalist critique, then visuality and the personhood of Gregor gain new
relevance, especially in the moment of their disappearance.
In the moment when language fails, since he literally loses the ability to speak, he is no
longer available to Capital as a worker, since social reproduction has been interrupted in the
143
moment when he woke up transformed. At the same time, Gregor’s transformation makes him
into a being that is absolutely unavailable for capitalism. He did not start with a desire created by
capitalism that was then reified into an identity which could now be targeted or marketed to by
Capital. On the contrary, attempts at consumption of any kind utterly fail. While at first he is
hungry, so hungry that he cannot sleep, (Kafka 1915: 91) Gregor loses his appetite as the story
progresses, (104) and ultimately starves, with Grete stating “Seht nur, wie mager er war. Er hat ja
auch schon lange Zeit nichts gegessen” (128) as she observes his corpse. Therefore, the
transformation that has rendered him a non-producing being has also rendered him a non-
consuming one.
The Samsa family's sense of respectability, ultimately shaped by Capital, gets further
expressed through the presence of the three lodgers that the family has to take on in the third part
of the story: These men rent out a room in the family’s apartment because now that Gregor no
longer contributes financially, the family is in need of more money (1995: 118). This, of course,
means that observation from the outside coming into the family home, where already
respectability and presentation are under pressure, for instance illustrated in the fact that
Gregor’s father, who has had to go back to work, refuses to take off his servant uniform (112).
These three lodgers then spend time in the Samsa family hime, and clinging on to the Imago
becomes increasingly difficult, as outside agents who see and observe have entered the
seemingly private family home. When the lodgers spot Gregor, they say they will move out and
not pay rent because of the conditions of the apartment (119f), which in my mind perfectly
illustrates the circumstance that now, a reality that the Samsa family has tried to shield from
public view has literally come to light.
144
After the encounter in which the lodgers see him and threaten to expose the goings-on
from within the family home to the rest of society, Gregor retreats to his room, where he finally
dies; out of sight from the rest of his family, locked behind closed doors and thus unseen by the
rest of society. The circumstance of his death here is especially noteworthy: After Gregor’s
mother sees him and faints subsequently in part II of the story, Gregor’s father chases him around
the apartment and throws apples at his son, and one such apple gets stuck in Gregor’s back. This
apple has rotted and the inflammation and dirt all around it ultimately lead to Gregor’s death.
This is of great importance because I think that it once more illustrates looks and looking, or
more concretely the lack thereof, in Die Verwandung: The apple that got stuck in Gregor’s back,
I think, could have been removed easily by a family member, but since nobody has looked at
Gregor in his entirety, none of them has even noticed that it was there. While acknowledging his
physical presence, the family has only ever let Gregor witness them, while keeping him confined
to the darkness of his room, hence barring a direct exchange of looks.
A last illustration of Kafka’s sensorium and the focus on looks and looking comes to us in
the final part of the story. After Gregor is dead, the family resumes life, and as I argue they have
become respectable again, as the death of the animal enables them to finally carry on with their
normative lives. After Gregor has died alone in his room, his family decides to take a trolley to
the countryside. The train, I think, functions as a space of observation and of being observed. It is
here that the family exposes itself to the gaze of strangers once again, after having been confined
to the family home for the longest time; this gets especially accentuated by Kafka’s description
of how the family members, Gregor’s father, mother, and his sister Grete, are bathed in light,
hence fully exposed to the world. And of course the train is a place of movement, since it
145
physically transports the family from one place to another. It is in this moment of being seen that
his family members first express relief about him now being dead, and that they make plans to
move on with their lives, both literally and figuratively: Plans are made to move into a new,
smaller, more affordable apartment (131). Lastly, it is in the moment of the train passage that the
parents realize that the hardships involving Gregor have made Grete grow up and that they can
now set out to find a husband for her (132). Important here is also that in the German original of
the story, the parents use a language of a flower to talk about her daughter. The focus here, once
again, is put especially onto her body, focusing on its surface in a socially comparative way:
Während sie sich so unterhielten, fiel es Herrn und Frau Samsa im Anblick ihrer immer
lebhafter werdenden Tochter fast gleichzeitig ein, wie sie in der letzten Zeit […] zu einem
schönen und üppigen Mädchen aufgeblüht war (131f).
I believe that in using the word “aufgeblüht,” which literally translates to “blossomed open,”
and, as I think most crucially, immediately invokes the image of a flower, Kafka once again
reminds us of the focus on looks and looking, together with darkness and light here: We may
initially note that paralleling women with flowers is not unique to Kafka, but has been done
continuously by writers reducing women to objects to be looked at, rather than human beings
with thoughts and agency. In the context of Die Verwandlung however, especially the ending of
the story where the Samsa family is exposed to light and the outside world after weeks of being
confined to the secrecy and darkness of the interior of their apartment, I believe that here we see
yet another instance of alluding to the sun. After she has been hidden away in the family home,
close to Gregor with his darkened room and the inside of the apartment, Grete, or rather Grete’s
body, is now able to be exposed to the scrutiny and judgement of the outside world once again,
146
ready to be assessed by the social looks of her surroundings without running the risk of failing
the petty-bourgeoise respectability of her family.
One should also and especially note the amount of detail provided in this passage of the
text. While Gregor’s body was at best revealed partially, and described only in fragments, the
depictions of Grete in this passage come to us via the perspective of her parents, with
descriptions about her appearance, especially her beauty, that are basked in sunlight. Much like
the fictitious observers to the Samsa family in the book, readers are here provided with an
outside, full-body description of Grete’s appearance. Instead of being caught in shameful
questions about their social standing (as I have elaborated on with the example of Gregor in the
second chapter of this paper), I believe that with this last passage, mother and father Samsa are
now able to make implicit statements about themselves and their regained status in society by
means of talking about the beauty of their daughter, and her readiness to be entered into marriage
to a proper, respectable husband (Kafka 2006: 65).
3.2 The Chimeric Text: Impossible Objects
‘What am I doing here? I have come to terrorize you! I am a monster, you say? No! I am
the people! I am an exception? No! I am the rule; you are the exception! You are the
chimera; I am the reality!’
—Victor Hugo, The Man who Laughs (1869), quoted by artist Lorenza Böttner in thesis
‘Handicapped?’ (1982)
The above quote stems from the opening page of Paul Preciado’s Can the Monster Speak? A
Report to an Academy of Psychoanalysts (2021). With this quote, and with the subsequent
147
discussion, Preciado points out the polysemy of the word chimera: A chimera can either refer to a
(mystical) creature that has parts of several animals, for instance a monster from Greek
mythology that breathes fire and has a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a snake’s tail. Or secondly,
the adjective chimeric describes something that is hoped for, but that is illusory or impossible to
achieve, e.g. “a world without war is a chimeric idea.” Put into my own words, this second
definition of chimeric, the one that I am primarily using, is thought of as “wishful thinking,”
linked in my argument to the knowledge-power to define what counts as normative. I count
among this chimeric thinking any taxonomical impulse, any urge to name, to classify, and to
assign value to the respective differences, all in the face of entropy.
In the first two main chapters of this dissertation project, I have discussed the coming-
together of abstraction and ambiguity in Die Verwandlung as the absence of visuality, referring to
this as anti-Ekphrasis. Building upon this analysis, I now propose the concept of the chimeric
text to further think about this. As my analysis in this subchapter will show, the chimeric text is
defined by its use of anti-Ekphrasis, in that it challenges readerly affects in their attempts to
move from abstract into imaginary.
The term chimeric itself is twofold: On the one hand, it describes (mystical) creatures that
have parts of several animals, such as “a monster from Greek mythology that breathes fire and
has a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a snake’s tail” (Merriam-Webster). Looking at the Kafka text
and everything that I have thus far written about it, one can easily see why this first definition of
the term is a fitting descriptor for Die Verwandlung.
On the other hand, the adjective chimeric also describes something that is hoped for, but
that is illusory or impossible to achieve (ibid). This second notion, wherein the chimera is
148
something that is not possible in reality and that exists only in imagination, is what undergirds
any attempt at making sense of Die Verwandlung: This text carries such openness that it allows
for various allegorical readings to coexist, but does not allow for any definite answer regarding
its interpretation. In other words, many different interpretations can be sustained from reading
this text, but none of these readings can be said to be more reasonable than any other reading. To
assume that there is one true meaning of this text is, thus, chimeric.
To better illustrate my argument regarding the chimeric text, I propose we understand it
as a type of impossible object. For this, I draw on the concept of the Penrose Triangle. At first
glance, the very notion of illustrating a thought might seem paradoxical, given that I have argued
against visualization, and rather advocated for abstract literary representation.
The Penrose Triangle (Fig. 10), is described by its creators with the following: “Each
individual part is acceptable as a representation of an object normally situated in three-
dimensional space; and yet, owing to false connexions [sic] of the parts, acceptance of the whole
figure on this basis leads to the illusory effect of an impossible structure” (Penrose & Penrose,
31). To begin with, one might look at this sentence as another iteration of a literary
representation of an object that is impossible to visualize. And yet, it is precisely the
circumstance that it can indeed be represented visually, resulting in the optical illusion, that the
Triangle is known for.
I refer to the Penrose Triangle here to pose the idea that the body of protagonist Gregor in
Die Verwandlung, much like the Penrose Triangle, is an object that is impossible, and that it is in
the attempts at imagining it that the impossibility of the object comes to the fore.
149
A caveat here is that in my contemplation, the chimera is located not in the Imaginary, but
in the Symbolic: I draw on Lacan (2009) here, wherein he sets up the tripartite of the Real, the
Imaginary, and the Symbolic to describe how phenomena are registered in the human mind. As
my earlier discussion has illustrated, it is precisely the leap from the symbolic —the language of
the text— into the imaginary that is interrupted due to Kafka’s ambiguous, abstract, anti-visual
writing in Die Verwandlung. In the terminology of Lacan’s mental registers, we are therefore
within the Symbolic, the realm of language and culture, when discussing the chimeric text; the
chimera then becomes not a figment of the imagination, but rather a specter, its absence . This
23
specter of the imaginary haunts the image-based attempts at making sense of the text, as it
continually draws attention to visualization, but forecloses the possibility to do so, thereby
trapping us inside the register of the symbolic.
Furthermore, it needs to be added that not all chimeras are the same: As I have described
above, the term chimeric itself is twofold and can on the one hand describe (mystical) creatures
that have parts of several animals, such as “a monster from Greek mythology that breathes fire
and has a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a snake’s tail” (Merriam-Webster), or on the other hand,
the adjective chimeric can describe something that is hoped for, but that is illusory or impossible
to achieve (ibid), which makes the term attractive for the study of readerly affects. With this note
of something that is hoped for, but impossible to achieve in reality, I once again return to the
A further way to contemplate these mental registers would be via Pauline Oliveros’ Deep
23
Listening: Therein, she argues not to hear a text, but to listen to it, the latter meaning the reader
(or listener) being open to every possible thing in every possible way. “To listen is to give
attention to what is perceived both acoustically and psychologically” (xxii). Perhaps, one might
consider Die Verwandlung as a piece of literature that encourages such deep listening; if so, what
task does this notion of listening pose to a translator? And what does it mean not to hear a text,
but to listen to it, recognize when it defies definition and asks us to sit with its ambivalence?
150
Penrose Triangle. As this optical illusion shows, this triangle, as abstract as it may appear, is an
object whose existence we might hope for, when seeing its depiction on a page, as in Figure 6 at
the end of this section; but the Triangle itself cannot come into existence, at least not in triangular
form . I thus take this illusion as an example for the chimeric thinking behind representation.
24
This notion of the chimera, wherein the chimera is something that is not possible in
reality and that exists only in imagination, is what undergirds any attempt at making sense of Die
Verwandlung: This text carries such openness that it allows for various allegorical readings to
coexist, but does not allow for any definite answer regarding its interpretation. In other words,
many different interpretations can be sustained from reading this text, but none of these readings
can be said to be more reasonable than any other reading. To assume that there is one true
meaning of this text is, thus, chimeric. This might, however, also mean that any attempt at
creating a translation that accurately reflects the original in all of its complexity might therefore
itself be considered a chimera, something that may be hoped for , but that is ultimately
25
impossible to achieve.
Polysemy, poetic absence, and other instances of ambiguity in the Kafka text can
therefore be considered to be engaging a reader’s chimeric thinking: We may want to get a clear
idea of what is happening to Gregor, but due to polysemy and overall surrealism of the situation,
this is made impossible. Any attempt at finding a “true,” definite, unambiguous meaning from
the text is a chimeric endeavor, or, in other words, wishful thinking, since we can never be
Sculptures that allow for a physical representation of the Penrose Triangle do exist. They are,
24
however, elongated structures that depend on a viewer’s perspective in order to replicate the
shape of the triangle depicted in Fig. 10.
As it certainly is by this translator, who wrote an entire dissertation trying to prove this point.
25
151
certain what exactly it is that is going on. In the second chapter, I further explore how this notion
of readerly affinity and how this is used to build tension. For now, my focus remains on the role
of the translator in engaging with the polysemous text.
In Kafka’s original text, as I have argued earlier, this subject-object split is prohibited,
and Gregor never becomes visible to us as an Other. This means that he never comes into
existence as a happy object, which, is defined in Sara Ahmed as […]. Through this discussion, it
becomes clear that the lack of a subject-object split is an uncomfortable one, for it precludes us
from employing registers of sentimentality.
Figure 10: Penrose Triangle (Penrose and Penrose, 31).
152
3.2.2 Open and Uncanny: Rebel Animality
A starting point here is Umberto Eco’s notion of Opera Aperta, or the open work: In my first
chapter, I have laid out the importance of the term ambiguity in the text Die Verwandlung. I
return here to this notion so as to dive into an analysis of the concept of the open work, which
will then allow me to think about the question of comfort and discomfort in readerly affects, and
later use these findings for my discussion of rigidity versus plasticity.
In “The Poetics of the Open Work” Eco writes the following:
It is easy to think of Kafka's work as “open”: trial, castle, waiting, passing sentence,
sickness, metamorphosis, and torture—none of these narrative situations is to be
understood in the immediate literal sense. But, unlike the constructions of medieval
allegory, where the superimposed layers of meaning are rigidly prescribed, in Kafka there
is no confirmation in an encyclopedia, no matching paradigm in the cosmos, to provide a
key to the symbolism. The various existentialist, theological, clinical, and psychoanalytic
interpretations of Kafka’s symbols cannot exhaust all the possibilities of his works. The
work remains inexhaustible insofar as it is “open,” because in it an ordered world based
on universally acknowledged laws is being replaced by a world based on ambiguity, both
in the negative sense that directional centers are missing and in a positive sense, because
values and dogma are constantly being placed in question. (9)
To explain my line of thinking, I pull once again from Kafka: I have stated above that from the
outset of the story, Gregor ceases to be a Gestalt, as he ceases to exist or act as an organized,
coherent whole. Rather than a Gestalt, he becomes a “Schreckgestalt” (121), (literally:
frightening figure), meaning that his relationship to his own body is fractured. The word
153
Schreckgestalt used by Kafka towards the end of the story is useful as a concept here, for it is the
dissolution of his Gestalt that causes Gregor Schrecken, horror, which frightens and disorients
him.
I have mentioned already in the introduction to my first chapter that the term Ungeheuer
from the opening sentence of Die Verwandlung can be translated as monster or ogre; here, I take
this as a starting point to further consider Gregor’s monstrosity, and the Schreckgestalt that he
becomes as his Gestalt drifts apart, taking with it our readerly orientation. My goal here is to not
think of the chaos and disorientation as an absence or lack, but rather to pursue this as a
productive moment, and to inquire into this form of monstrosity as a mode of being, or perhaps
as an orientation.
Distinction between heimlich and unheimlich in Freud: Freud noted how the meaning of
heimlich first became ambivalent and then fell together with its opposite unheimlich. Heimlich
(literally: homely) stems from heimelig (cozy, intimate, familiar, trusting) – from feelings of
domesticity, of being at home – yet came to signify things that are concealed, kept hidden, done
in secrecy. Unheimlich is then the un- or not-homely that is however there, tied to the home and
its secrets, emerging with and beneath the heimlich, and thus a ghostly presence. This amounts to
an etymological manifestation of how ‘that which supposedly lies outside the familiar comfort of
the home turns out to be inhabiting it all along’ (Wigley 1995, 108). The uncanny thus denotes a
peculiar knot of the familiar and the unfamiliar. It designates the strangely familiar, the familiar
becoming defamiliarized, in its two senses: something familiar emerges in an unfamiliar context,
and something unfamiliar emerges in a familiar context. The uncanny thus involves feelings of
uncertainty and apprehension and a crisis or critical disturbance of the proper, of the boundaries
154
of inside and outside; it hardly needs mentioning that Die Verwandlung can be used once again
as an exemplar to discuss this concept given that the text, aside from the final scene, is set
against the backdrop of petty-bourgeoise domesticity.
Unheimlich in Marx: Marx makes further claims about what he considers human nature.
For instance:
Labour is external to the worker – i.e., does not belong to his essential being; that he,
therefore, does not confirm himself in his work, but denies himself, feels miserable and
not happy, does not develop free mental and physical energy, but mortifies his flesh and
ruins his mind […] He feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he
does not feel at home. His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced; it is forced labor
(Marx 1844: XXIII).
In Marx’ understanding then, we see that the notion of being at home is only available to the
worker then they do not work. Work itself thus becomes unheimlich, as it is not where the
workers are able to be themselves. This link suggests that, at least for Marx, being able to be
one’s true self is what might be considered heimlich, and having to perform otherness, for
instance the role of the laborer, is unheimlich, or uncanny.
For a concise discussion of the entanglement between animality and social control, I cite
Frédéric Gros’ discussion of Foucault’s notion of the incorrigible:
Those individuals incapable of bending themselves to the norms of the collective, of
accepting social rules and respecting public laws. They included, for example, unruly and
lazy schoolboys incapable of following instructions, bad workers who slacked and
botched, recalcitrant hoodlums, offenders who were constantly in and out of prison.
155
Incorrigible individuals were those that the disciplinary apparatuses of school, church,
factory, etc. were powerless to bring into line. They might well be controlled and
punished, sanctioned in various ways, subjected to exercises, but they remained incapable
of progress, unable to perform their nature and overcome their instincts.
This ‘incorrigibility’ arose from a source of rebel animality. […] Disobedience
means letting oneself slide down the slope of savagery, giving in to the facilities of
anarchig instinct. If it is the animal in us that makes us disobey, then obeying means
asserting our humanity. (18f)
We should immediately note the connections between disobedience, savagery, and animality in
the above quote. These invite readings vis-à-vis concepts such as civility, domesticity, and
respectability.
Uncomfortable Readings
Returning once again to the question of aesthetic intelligibility, which I have touched upon in the
first chapter, my question now becomes this: How are language and comfort linked, if language
is necessarily intelligible, is this not also comforting? And, to pick up another thread of inquiry
from the first chapter, does a translator have to make what is uncomfortable, because
incomprehensible, because foreign, comfortable, understandable? Where does this leave room
for art that is uncomfortable or discomforting? Can language be art and can art be language?
In Badiou, there is always a discursive dimension to politics: An event has to be
discussed in order to be realized, so to become real instead of merely happening and then fading
away. Rendering it into language, for Badiou, means fixing it, making real what appears as a new
156
possibility. Important to underpin here is that for Badiou, an event is something that shifts the
relationship between what is considered possible and impossible, so once the event has been
realized, it makes new things possible, things that were deemed impossible before.
Now if the subject comes into existence linguistically, and politics always have to be
realized discursively, then linguistics comes to the fore as the crucial node in order to point
towards any form of utopianism, as I will argue in the third chapter of this project, which will
culminate in the concept of queer plasticity. To lay the foundation for this, I quote Ludwig
Wittgenstein: “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” (68).
This reading of Badiou allows for a further interpretive layer of Die Verwandlung, one in
which this text serves as an illustration of Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle, wherein the
two drives, Eros and Thanatos, are two sides of the same coin: It is the pursuit of the pleasure
principle in this text that leads to the death of the protagonist, collapse of the family structure.
[insert detailed reading of the text, how does the family seek comfort by not looking, ignoring
the new reality and the new possibilities emerging from it].
An alternative to this would be, to argue with Badiou, for the Samsa family to accept this
new vérité, any of the four dimensions that make human flourishing possible: Science, art, love,
or politics. In my later chapter on SOPHIE’s song “Immaterial,” I will provide a glimpse into
what this openness can look like. Instead of doing so, however, of finding their flourishing in
these four, for instance by loving Gregor as a person, not as a breadwinner and/or a
representative of their social status to their social surroundings, they seek to remain in what they
had deemed possible before, which makes any acceptance of new possibilities impossible.
157
Is it possible, however, to take Badiou’s concept of possible and impossible and apply it
to readings of fictional texts, such as Die Verwandlung? The task of the reader here is to accept
the impossible, fantastical, ambiguous and abstract, which, as this dissertation argues, is exactly
what is done with the Kafka text. As I have argued above, the fragmentation and foreclosure of
the possibility to visualize are what enables this, what make this reading so uncomfortable.
I argue that this is in large parts achieved through the fractured, abstract, and anti-visual
writing style, which I have discussed extensively in my first chapter. By invoking the
phenomenal body, and inviting visceral readings, my point here is that Kafka moves readers in
ways that involve smell and taste, as well as tension, pressure, and tactile sensations. In doing so,
I think, drawing on Rosa, this text invites a bodily resonance in readerly affects, meaning that it
moves readers to ponder their relationship to the world, ideally resulting in an interrogation of
resonance (92).
158
3.3 Power, Norm, Camp
As a means of illustrating my thoughts on subjection and social control vis-à-vis my earlier
arguments on monstrosity, I use this chapter to turn towards the 1994 John Waters motion picture
Serial Mom. Building upon my earlier discussion of social control, monstrosity, and the uncanny,
my starting point for the discussion of this film is the question of what has been rendered
grotesque, or perhaps monstrous, by socially and historically established norms. Set in the milieu
of upper-middle class Baltimore suburbia and full of pristine façades and (seemingly) intact
heteronormative families, in which the figure of the matriarch rules, I discuss Waters’ film here
to contemplate what is put forth as an obsession with social norms and their resulting in
capability for secrecy, crime, and murder, as manifestations of what I present as the concept of
chimeric thinking.
My starting point for the discussion of the film is the question of what has been rendered
grotesque, or perhaps unheimlich and monstrous, because of socially and historically established
norms. To begin with, I suggest parallels between the characters of Gregor Samsa and Beverly
Sutphin. Both are relegated to the domestic sphere, both live under the pressures of the capitalist
nuclear family model, and most importantly, both are rendered monstrous. In the first two
chapters, I have discussed at length the specifics (and unspecifics) of Gregor’s monstrosity. To
pave the way for my further argument, I first provide a discussion of queer cultural practice,
from which camp and kitsch emerge as operative modes. I then move on to an analysis of the
petty-bourgeoise milieu and the representation of domesticity and social reproduction. With this,
I return to my earlier claims on sentimentality, readerly affects, and comfort from the second
chapter.
159
As I discuss here, Serial Mom offers, through the use of camp exaggeration, a
commentary on petty-bourgeois respectability and domesticity: The film illustrates that
respectability and domesticity themselves carry grotesque parts, and that the obsession with
rules, norms, and obedience can be monstrous. Drawing on Derrida’s discussion of Freud’s
unheimlich, I show a dualism of monstrosity. In that same vein of inversion, I introduce the term
plasticity here and discuss with Serial Mom as my example that the assumed rigidity of social
norms, respectability, and identity alike are monstrous, and deny the reality of plasticity. The film
demonstrates extreme reactions to violation of social norms, and exaggerates the subjection of
women into the role of housewife and mother, who is assigned the enforcement of social norms.
Defined in Nolan (2015), social norms are “rules and standards that are understood by members
of a group, and that guide morally relevant social behavior by way of social sanctions, instead of
the force of laws” (3).
In the film, Kathleen Turner plays Beverly Sutphin, a mother of two teenage children
from Baltimore who is revealed to be a serial killer in the course of the film. My assertion here is
that at the heart of this film, with its camp exaggeration, lies maternal femininity, and the
question whether women, especially mothers, make for better murderers. This assumption is
rooted in the thought that under normative femininity, women are socially expected to sacrifice
aspects of themselves for the sake of their children and their households, and thus responsible for
upholding the intact façade of their respective family unit. With this, the parallel between Gregor
and Beverly begins to become visible: Both are shaped by their monomania, their singular,
obsessive focus on one particular object. In both cases, this object is petty-bourgeois
160
respectability, reflected to outside society by the façade of the nuclear family, and the dwelling
where this family unit resides.
The human body is crucial in the cases of both protagonists, and the sacrifice of the
individual body for the sake of the heteronormative family unit, which immediately recalls the
dynamics within the Samsa household in Die Verwandlung: Much like Gregor Samsa, Beverly
Sutphin uses her body to labor. While he works as a traveling salesman, she is a housewife and
mother, maintaining the family home and representing the family to the outside world. Both
characters, Samsa and Sutphin, use their bodies to enter the homes of other people: Gregor enters
the homes of his others in order to present them cloth samples and win them as clients for the
company that employs him, while Beverly enters the homes of others in order to punish those
who violate social norms. The latter, an extreme form of domestic labor, means that Sutphin does
not labor for a wage, but rather for normativity. She engages in corporeal punishment, working
directly upon the bodies of her neighbors. Therefore, one might perhaps think of Beverly as a
combination of Gregor and the Bedienerin: She is both the protagonist who is rendered
monstrous, but also the female laborer who does not shy away from facing violence, death, and
decay.
While I would not venture to use such a term with regards to Die Verwandlung, I do think
that Serial Mom should be understood as a camp cultural text, one which employs the operating
mode of drag in order to critique social norms and social control; as Judith Butler reminds us in
Bodies That Matter, drag relates to gender norms in important ways by engaging in hyperbole in
order to illustrate. Butler writes: “The hyperbolic conformity to the command can reveal the
hyperbolic status of the norm itself, indeed, can become the cultural sign by which that cultural
161
imperative might become legible” (1993, 181). I take Butler’s understanding here to think further
about social norms and social control. The goal of this discussion is to illustrate the hardness of
said norms, which, as I will argue, become ossified especially in the way that they subject
individuals. Considering the camp and queer aspects of Serial Mom, it will become interesting to
contemplate whether the Kafka text as well invites such queer readings.
Camp
In Susan Sontag’s “Notes on Camp,” she defines camp, before providing a famous list with 58
entries about examples for things that constitute camp, as a sensibility, one which loves artifice
and exaggeration (53). She also refers to camp as a “taste” (54) and “a way of looking at things”
(ibid), which is why I suggest we consider thinking about it as an affinity as well, bringing it
back into my discussion of readerly affinities in the first chapter.
In her definitions of Camp, Sontag discusses primarily cultural objects, such as films,
buildings, and music. As I will reveal with my below discussion of Serial Mom, however, social
norms themselves can also be revealed as Camp, as the film does. Much like “art that proposes
itself seriously, but cannot be taken altogether seriously because it is ‘too much’” (59), once
social norms and standards become ossified, they, too, take on the form of being ‘too much,’
which in turn makes them as easy to critique from a queer perspective as they can be harmful for
the queer subject seeking plasticity.
Sontag considers the works of Kafka as part of camp, because of his work “overstraining
the medium and introducing more and more violent, and unresolvable, subject matter (61). Going
back to my earlier thoughts on materialism and how Die Verwandlung traps us within and
162
amongst the materiality of Gregor’s body, I think it is fascinating to think here about excess and
overload via the term “subject matter”: Instead of merely taking this as a noun referring to the
topic of a story, I think we should take this word literally and consider the matter that makes up
the subject.
Norm
In the opening scene of Serial Mom, Beverly Sutphin is seen waiting on her family at the
breakfast table; while her husband and her two children sit at the table and eat, Beverly remains
standing throughout the entire breakfast. Acting like a servant for her family, she procures fruit
salad, toast, and other food items for her family, and offers to make scrambled eggs. At the same
time, however, she verbally sets ––and enforces–– the rules at the table, for instance managing
who eats what, and telling her daughter that she does not allow the chewing of gum inside the
house.
The breakfast scene is interrupted by the visit from two police officers to the Sutphin
residence, who inform Beverly and her husband that their neighbor Dottie Hinkle has been
harassed with sexually explicit phone calls, and has received a note that reads “I’ll get you, pussy
face,” with a cutout smiley-face. While the viewer finds out soon thereafter that it is Beverly
making these obscene phone calls, she performs normative maternal femininity during this scene,
replying “I’ve never even said the p-word out loud” upon being shown the paper note, which is
met with the words “no woman would” by one of the two police officers. I read this exchange as
illustrating the removal of heteronormative, maternal femininity from sexuality, which, together
163
with the opening scene as a whole, serves to illustrate the split of Beverly’s personality between
intact, cheery, maternal façade on the one hand, and brutal murderer on the other.
With this split between Beverly’s pristine façade and what goes on beneath the surface,
the film engages with Freud’s notion of the uncanny, or unheimlich: To the outside, the Sutphin
hime is presented as heimlich (homely), which, as I have discussed earlier, stems from heimelig
(cozy, intimate, familiar, trusting) – from feelings of domesticity, of being at home – yet came to
signify things that are concealed, kept hidden, done in secrecy. Unheimlich is then the un- or not-
homely that is however there, tied to the home and its secrets, emerging with and beneath the
heimlich, and thus a ghostly presence. In what I consider to be camp exaggeration, the viewer
sees in scenes such as the above-described, in which she makes obscene phone calls, some of the
unheimlich aspects hidden beneath the surface of Beverly’s heimelig homeliness.
Soon after Beverly has made further obscene phone calls to her neighbor, we find out that
the reason she terrorizes is that Dottie had taken Beverly’s parking spot at a shopping mall at an
earlier moment. While this is not a violation of any legal document, it nonetheless represents a
violation against a moral code, one which Beverly apparently seeks to enforce by exerting
punishment upon her neighbor. In a similar vein, later in the film, Beverly decides to murder
Mrs. Jenson for not rewinding the VHS tape that she had rented from the video store where
Beverly’s son Chip works, once again a violation of a social convention, but not of any legal
document.
This tension between legal rules and social norms is further exemplified by the fact that,
later in the film, Beverly continues to be so obsessed with rules that she interrupts her own
attorney’s opening statement when she is on trial for six counts of first-degree murder, to show
164
him a note that reads “Juror #8 is wearing white shoes! After Labor Day!” Beverly later murders
said juror in a courthouse bathroom for exactly his reason, explaining to her “you cannot wear
white shoes after Labor Day,” and disputing the woman’s exclamation “fashion has changed!”
It may therefore appear hardly surprising that Beverly contemplates the murder of her
neighbor Rosemary based on the fact that Rosemary does not recycle her trash, a circumstance
that is later, during Beverly’s court hearing, enough not only to evoke a loud gasp from the juror
and jury, but to even discredit her testimony altogether and dismiss Rosemary as a witness while
she tries to speak out against Beverly during her trial. Flexibility within this norm is not
permissible, as Rosemary’s attempts at justifying why she does not sort her trash and recycle
what she can, are dismissed by the court officials and two garbage collectors, with whom
Beverly had complained about her neighbor’s lack of trash morale earlier in the film, show their
visible disgust for Rosemary, whose murder they had suggested earlier as well.
As Serial Mom exemplifies with in camp hyperbole, heteronormative, there is an aspect
to upper-middle class motherhood that consists of constant evaluation, both from other women
and by the rest of the community, for parenting styles just as much as for physical appearance,
aging, food choices, alcohol consumption, popularity of one’s children, et cetera. All of these
norms are what I suggest to think of here as ossified; that is to say, as I have discussed with the
above examples, that while they are not legally binding, they are nonetheless social rules, which
allow for no flexibility or plasticity. This is especially notable since Beverly herself, being
judged by others, also heavily judges the lives, households, and habits of those around her. Most
importantly, Beverly continuously enacts self-justice to enforce social norms and rules, and to
punish violations of those.
165
One cannot not notice the overwhelming whiteness of the characters in this film: As
Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman reminds us in Against the Closet, race, sexuality, and identity are
contingent upon one another and in works of culture (9f), and a Black partner is oftentimes used
to mark a white character’s transformation. While perhaps one might consider the whiteness of
the Baltimore suburbs presented here as an exaggerated, camp commentary, we might perhaps
just consider this a poor decision on the part of the film producers. After all, the overwhelming
whiteness of both Hollywood films of the 1990s and John Waters’ oeuvre is by no means
contested, nor difficult to notice.
3.4 Monstrous Domesticity
With Beverly Sutphin so heavily invested in the performance and upholding of ossified social
norms, it becomes all the more interesting to assess the role that her husband plays in this, or
perhaps it is better to ask what he does not, and how gender roles connect to the question of
inside and outside of the domestic sphere. One has of course already seen this in Die
Verwandlung, where Gregor was locked away at the center of the Samsa apartment, while his
sister Grete was bathed in light, stretching her young body, and upholding the family name in
front of strangers. In Serial Mom, a similar dynamic can be observed: While Beverly, alongside
her female neighbors, is actively engaged in competitive behavior, being outwardly friendly
while secretly backstabbing (or literally stabbing) other people, her husband only plays a passive
role in the social configuration of the community. Interestingly, Serial Mom demonstrates, it is
put upon women to be the representatives of their households, to embody the façade of
domesticity, which is where I locate the boundary between heimlich and unheimlich.
166
Therefore, I raise the question whether one might apply the term matriarch here, with
Beverly Sutphin in the role to rule over, and defend in front of the outside, what the members of
her nuclear family are to do. This is exemplified for instance when Beverly murders the math
teacher of her son Chip by running him over multiple times with her car, after he had insinuated
that something might be wrong within their family, and that suggested that perhaps the son
should see a psychotherapist. Beverly thus takes to violence to uphold the façade that her nuclear
family is functioning, in front of the community, which is presented to us as strictly hetero-cis-
sexist: Gender here is defined within utterly narrow parameters —men are men, women are
women, and nothing is to happen in between.
Building upon assumptions of femininity as manufactured and curated, yet necessary for
the functioning of the heteronormative family, the excessively heteronormative world of Serial
Mom excellently demonstrates that the figure of the matriarch, the successful über-mother, the
woman who has it all, allows for mystery and intrigue. I have also shown here that this archetype
is mysterious not so much because she wants to, but because she has to, because the gendered
expectation for mothers does not allow them to be vulnerable and/or honest about themselves
and their family unit, not even within the confines of the family home. Positioning the maternal
figures from the example that I have chosen across from their male counterparts, the common
tropes of femininity become visible more clearly, as the mother is employed here as a site to
organize anxieties around class status, and the functioning of the nuclear family, creating a sense
of composure, which simultaneously contributes to the mystery that is used in this novel to keep
up the suspense about the murder at its finale. Since it falls onto women to uphold the façade of
an intact family, they are primed to safeguard whatever secrets may linger in the darkness.
167
In this, they in fact mirror the home of the Samsa family in Kafka’s Die Verwandlung: In
Kafka, the inside of the house is in darkness, not letting the gaze of the outside world into the
privacy of the family home. Of course, the question of the façade is an important one, since it
illustrates here the amount of labor that goes into maintaining a façade, presenting an intact,
normatively legible exterior to a judgmental outside world, while at the same time
acknowledging the amount of (feminized) labor that is required within the home.
The question of the corpus emerges here, the domestic cannot hold Beverly’s emotions,
they erupt outward. These are presented as infectious within the movie: For instance, the space of
the concert venue that Beverly visits, ends with the masses chanting the words “Serial Mom,”
meaning that Beverly’s monstrosity, her murders, resonate with other people. Similarly, her
affinities and dispositions are transported to other people via mass media later in the film, when a
spectacle of television cameras swarms the Sutphins, and her children make money selling
merchandise with Beverly’s face on it.
The public monstrosity of Beverly is a notable contrast to Gregor Samsa: In Gregor, all
aspects of his monstrosity are turned inward: His family locks him inside of his room and he is
left alone with his obsession, and with his body. His monstrosity, therefore, has effects primarily
on Gregor’s own body, which is then reflected back to the other members of the household, who
are conjoined within the corpus of the family home. The only ones affected by Gregor’s
monstrosity are, therefore, those present within the Samsa family home, like his mother, who
faints when seeing him, or his father, who becomes angry and chases Gregor around the
apartment, throwing apples at him.
168
Beverly, on the other hand, casts her obsession outward. Her monstrosity affects the
bodies of others, people that are not members of her household. She and Gregor share the sense
of obsession with respectability under capitalist modernity, which I have discussed earlier, and
are rendered monstrous through this act. Beverly’s monstrosity, however, is from the beginning
of the movie targeted towards the bodies of others, not her own body. While her physical
appearance certainly plays an important role within the film, it is the bodies of the people in her
community whom Beverly acts upon, for instance terrorizing them over the phone, running them
over with her car, or stabbing them with scissors.
Collective Emotion
As the film progresses, Serial Mom illustrates that while it may appear shocking at first, the
violent self-justice that Beverly Sutphin employs is in fact socially normalized within her
society: This is illustrated by her son Chip’s obsession with violent horror films, as well as the
fact during Beverly’s court hearing, t-shirts with her portrait on it are sold outside the courthouse,
as well as a book about her murders, written by a character that is introduced as a local Baltimore
journalist. Once the unheimlich, which has been beneath the surface, has been brought out into
the open by Beverly, she enjoys a status of celebrity for her violence.
We see this willingness to engage in violence for the sake of domesticity throughout the
film, where various other characters —notably all men— voice their approval of capital
punishment: Father Sutphin advocates for it during a scene within the family home, saying that
he approves of convicted serial killers being put to death, an exertion of the power to decide over
human life by the State; Similarly, the priest of the church that the Sutphin family attends on
169
Sundays, stating that Jesus did not condemn capital punishment as he was hanging on the cross,
and that therefore, he cannot have been against it.
Interestingly, the cultural fascination ––or perhaps even obsession–– with violence and
murder is what is presented as a cultural binding-agent in the film: While it holds true that
Beverly represents a type of white, upper-middle class maternal femininity and thus follows the
norms and conventions from that particular milieu, once she gets named the prime suspect in the
murders (that we as the audience know she has committed), her rise to stardom makes her appeal
to other social groups as well. While chased by Beverly, Chip’s friend Scotty, who has witnessed
Beverly murdering Mrs. Jenson, escapes into a music venue where an all-female rock band by
the name of “The Camel Toes” is playing. The bouncer at this music venue only lets Beverly
enter after he has recognized her as “Serial Mom” while originally pointing out that she does not
fit into the crowd that normally attends this venue.
The cultural fascination with violence is taken to the extreme in this scene, as the masses
of concert attendees dictate Scotty’s movement by moving him toward the stage while he dies to
get away from Beverly. The audience cheers when Scotty is set on fire by Beverly, and the fire is
reproduced by various audience members who hold up lighters; one of the band members of
“The Camel Toes” spits liquor onto Scotty’s corpse, thus fueling the flames, eliciting another
roar of applause from the audience, as she partakes in the violence. While Beverly and the
presumably subcultural “Camel Toes” scene may not come from the same social milieu, they are,
however, brought together by the fact that Beverly is a serial killer.
When Beverly gets arrested, handcuffed, and escorted out of the music venue, the crowd
chants the words “Serial Mom,” thus illustrating her rise to celebrity, and her appeal not only to
170
other upper-middle class mothers or housewives, but apparently society writ large. Beverly’s
stardom culminates in discussions of a television adaptation of her life story, with her son Chip
acting as a manager, constantly on the phone with Hollywood agents during her trial, as well as
the sale of t-shirts and books bearing Beverly’s face outside the courthouse.
Taking this notion of the normalization of violence (albeit as a form of hyperbole) in
Serial Mom, we might then use this to think back to the question that I have posed earlier about
temporality and exposure with regards to the concept of Momentaufnahme: In the third chapter
of this project, I have discussed how this moment of affective encounter is best thought of as
reception, in contrast to perception. Returning to my earlier argument about Schreckgestalt, the
frightening figure that is
Conclusion Chapter 3
This chapter has moved the focus from the individual body onto the social body. For this
discussion, I have first used Kafka once more, before then moving away from the abstract realm
of literature into visual media for my analysis, with the motion picture Serial Mom. I have used
this film to broaden my analysis, and to take into consideration two main things: The notion of
camp and kitsch on the one hand, and hardened, ossified social norms on the other. As my
discussion has made clear, these two complexes are not to be understood as different points of
analysis. Rather, I have presented them here as interconnected, producing and impacting one
another.
With my line of inquiry, I have tackled the question of bourgeoise respectability and the
heteronormative family unit as a marker of normativity. For this, I have once more about Kafka’s
171
Samsa family, so as to ponder in how far they experience Gregor’s body, how whatever is
happening to him is also something that is happening to them. Using terminology of visuality, I
have laid out that, since they are bound up in the same family unit, whatever is happening to
Gregor reflects onto his family members. I have thus posed the family unit as another form of
body, and, leaning on the title Die Verwandlung, proposed thinking of the Samsa’s apartment as a
type of body in itself.
With these pressures about family performance and social control in mind, I have then
contemplated camp as a cultural practice, which has has led me to ponder the notion of queer
critique. Through my discussion of Serial Mom, I have shown a hyperbolic version of the
dynamics from the Kafka novella, wherein social norms rule everything, so that bodily harm is
accepted in order to accomplish respectable normativity. With my discussion, I have pointed out
how the camp hyperbole of the film points to the ridiculousness of this fetishization of ossified
social norms.
Further, I have returned to the idea of the unholy monstrosity once again. Building atop
my earlier analysis of the split between animality, savagery, monstrosity on the one hand, and
domesticity, respectability, civility on the other. Paralleling Gregor Samsa and Beverly Sutphin, I
have argued that each of these characters’ personhood is unmade. I have argued that this happens
against the backdrop of capitalist modernity or capitalist maternity respectively. I have argued
that each of these characters’ transformation, and the question of their monstrosity, is both rooted
in bourgeoise respectability, and therefore preconditioned by Capital.
Lastly, I have used the notion of concrete vis-a-vis that which is soft, malleable, and
plastic in this chapter, to refer to social norms and how they shape the embodied subject. My
172
analysis in this chapter has pointed out the rigidity of normative social categories such as that of
the mother, and has pointed out the queer practice of employing hyperbole to reveal and critique
these norms. My use of the metaphor of aggregate states for my discussion in this chapters was
deliberate, and I will remain with it in the next chapter. In my discussion of queer plasticity, I
will turn towards materialist readings of the embodied subject.
173
Chapter Four: The Plastic Body
I begin this fourth chapter with the assertion that music has literally saved my life: Growing up
as a gender-non-conforming little egg in the hinterland of northwest Germany, first in line to
inherit the family farm, and deeply unhappy, the commercialist enterprise that was MTV
connected me to the outside world. Viciously bullied, weakest of the pack, on a trajectory of
straight time, supposed to reproduce, settle down. Interrupted and reoriented by the wonders of
Missy Elliott music videos, their bombastic set designs, extravagant costumes, and playful
approach to embodiment, with everything morphing, moving, flying, shifting, suggesting an
elsewhere that lured me in as I snuck downstairs night after night, first to watch satellite
television, imagining how it must be to “get your freak on,” later to go on the internet on the
family computer where, via message boards, chat rooms, and Livejournal pages, I made contact
with other kids who were creating their own spaces online. I mention this here not to evoke pity
from listeners, but rather to make the point that music, entering my body and making it vibrate
with possibility, allowed me to project my young self away from the material reality that I was
subjected to in the here and now.
Via digital media, I imagined myself in spaces beyond what was available to me at that
time, with my imagination moving beyond the material reality of my embodied teenage self. This
sets the stage for my engagement with the artist SOPHIE, the song “Immaterial,” and the
question of queer, immaterial utopia. This immediately poses questions about location and
domesticity. In my previous chapters, I have written about the characters’ obsession with their
family units, linked to privacy, domesticity, and the private abode. In order to now face the
question of escapes, these private homes are left behind, and the individual body enters
174
communal spaces, frequent by other bodies, which leads to questions about kinship and
recognition.
Having made the queer migration from periphery to metropolis, I now find myself in Los
Angeles. Interestingly enough, this parallels the migration of Kim Petras, with whose song
“Unholy” I have begun this dissertation topic; in her 2023 Grammy acceptance speech the singer
recalled growing up in “Nowhere, Germany,” (Lavietes), thus reproducing the narrative of what I
refer to here as a queer migration, wherein many people who identify outside of
heteronormativity migrate to urban centers . While this move has facilitated a more direct
26
engagement with other queer people, and has thus makes me less dependent on digital media,
music still plays an important role: Bars, nightclubs, concerts – many of the venues where I come
together with my queer peers are built around the joint consumption and celebration of music,
where joint bodily movement on the dance floor brings people close to one another, and
facilitates recognition and community. It is in one such venue where I first encounter the song
“Immaterial.” Importantly, this means yet another engagement of and with the human body: In
the examples used here, bodies are not only recognized, but they are also used. Not as tools for
capitalist logics, as the bodies of Gregor Samsa and Beverly Sutphin were in my earlier
examples, but rather for skating, dancing, movements that engage a variety of muscles and that,
as I will argue in this chapter, invite the individual to consider their sense of self by engaging
with their own embodiment.
I refer to this here as a “narrative” because, as argued in works such as Scott Herring’s Another
26
Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism or Karen Tongson’s Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries,
the distinction between heteronormative suburbs or countryside and the queer-friendly urban
center is in itself a social construction, marked by race and class.
175
Through a close-reading of “Immaterial,” I will discuss the ways in which the artist
engages with social categories, identificatory regimes, and the location of desire. Without trying
to force a queer reading based on the late artist’s identity, I argue that SOPHIE plays with
concepts of consumerism and dialectic materialism, and thereby opens the door for fluid,
viscous, and plastic relations to subjectivity. As I will illustrate, the artist references social
pressures to subject individuals into historically and socially pre-determined, linguistically fixed
categories; with this, I build upon my analysis of these same topics from previous chapters.
SOPHIE's song, as I argue through a discussion of uncomfortable and discomforting affects, can
be read as a manifesto for a queer, collective recognition that is grounded in solidarity, and made
possible by a sharing of space. This chapter understands the SOPHIE song as an invitation
towards the immaterial as a utopian site of queer futurity. This introduces a shift from subjection
to projection, as the song gestures towards an elsewhere in which fluidity and freedom are
possible, a move away from materialism and material reality.
Music, notably, is immaterial, consisting of sound waves that have no matter themselves,
but that nonetheless are able to penetrate our bodies, stir up emotions, and solicit movement,
especially in the dancey hyperpop variety put forth by SOPHIE with “Immaterial.” In the song,
we as listeners can feel the syncopating measures of poetic rhythm, with chants such as
“immaterial girls, immaterial boys” growing stronger, enveloping us, drawing us in, as the song
builds towards a crescendo. So while music itself may be immaterial, its listeners, of course, are
not. Our bodies have a material reality that structures how we move about the world, how we are
recognized, at the club, walking home from the clubs, at the police checkpoint, at the border, etc.
The materiality of our bodies also impacts who can access the venue where this music may be
176
playing: Who is permitted entry at the door, whose body finds space for movement on the dance
floor, and so forth. For now, my focus is not on the sonic aspects of “immaterial,” but rather on
its lyrics. I refer to these here as poetics, going along with Hannah Arendt’s notion from The
Human Condition that poetics, from the Greek poiesis, is the creation of something that endures,
that provides a form of stability in an ever-changing world.
With what I call a plastic relation towards subjectivity, I also tie SOPHIE’s approach back
to Kafka’s from Die Verwandlung. Once I have laid out my arguments on “Immaterial” and its
potentials for queer utopian vision, I return to the question of bodily subjectivity. Here, I will
argue that we cannot wish away the body, quite on the contrary. Grounded in Judith Butler’s
Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex,” my discussion here centers on the body,
its location in (also and especially social) space, ability, and its recognition. Further, the attempt
to ignore one’s own body, its movements, its demands, and its reactions to outside influence, is
precisely what we have seen Gregor Samsa attempt in Die Verwandlung, and what he failed so
spectacularly to do. As I have discussed in the second chapter, he tries continuously throughout
the story to cast his attention elsewhere, away from his own embodiment, only to then be
reminded of it when other characters react to the sight of him.
The body, then, returns to my analysis here, as the mediator between the individual and
their milieu, and as the lens through which all phenomena are filtered. Since this chapter is
centered around a song that proclaims immateriality, a central question for me here is whether
there is a self without the body, and if so, what constitutes this self. Also, and especially, is this
self thought to exist in isolation, or does it have peers, kinship ties, people who recognize and
support it? Engaging once again with the question of readerly affects and the question of affinity,
177
this final chapter therefore argues, via a discussion of uncomfortable and discomforting affects,
that the SOPHIE song can be read as a manifesto for a queer, collective recognition, wherein at
least two bodies come together in a shared space. The chapter reads SOPHIE’s song as an
invitation towards the immaterial as a utopian site of queer futurity and makes the claim that
queer plasticity, in line with Malabou’s notion of plasticity, is a synaptic mode of being.
As I will discuss, this invites a connection back to the question of the bodiless subject,
which I have touched upon in the first two chapters. SOPHIE invites a shift from subjection to
projection, as the song gestures towards an elsewhere in which freedom and fluidity are possible,
in a move away from materialism and material reality. I argue in closing that “Immaterial,” just
as Die Verwandlung, make a case for understanding subjectivity as plural. For this discussion, I
turn towards the sonic aspects of SOPHIE’s “Immaterial,” and contemplate the space of the gay
nightlife venue. Thereby, queerness, monstrosity, and the figure of the chimera emerge as lines of
flight for reorientation towards possible escapes.
With this, I inquire into the im_materiality of the human body. Through my discussion of
SOPHIE, I ask what (and where) the self might be located without the body, or whether the two
are always necessarily bound to one another. In a similar vein, I discuss whether identity is
always necessarily fixed in language, the impetus to identify oneself, give an account of oneself,
state a name, a pronoun, assign oneself to one of the identificatory categories that society and
state recognize. All of this is within language, the self has to be rendered recognizable,
communicable in language. As we know from Walter Benjamin, there is always a loss when
trying to rendering things into language, what is meant (das Gemeinte) is always limited by the
manner of meaning (die Art des Meinens).
178
With this assessment, I depart from Legacy Russell: In Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto, the
author presents arguments about the potential of queer disembodiedness that are similar to my
own thoughts on the power of moving beyond subjection by means of digital media: Russell
argues for the power of existing on the internet, where the human body, they argue, can be left
behind, and the disembodied self can engage with others without limiting identifications based
upon the subject’s embodiedness. This argument, however, argument rests on a Cartesian split.
Russell’s point that while moving about the real world (or afk [away-from-keyboard] space, as
they propose to call it instead), they are always read as a queer, Black, female body, while online,
they can escape these identificatory categorizations, is certainly taken.
At the same time, however, I would offer that we cannot wish away our bodies. I am
thinking here for instance of so-called Zoom fatigue, feelings of exhaustion experienced from
many hours of communicating via online video conferencing software, as has become
commonplace since the Covid-19 pandemic. Additionally, Russel’s argument ignores the bodies
of those who maintain the infrastructure of the internet, for instance the server rooms, the electric
energy needed to power these in the first place. Or, of course, the workforce that enables the
supposedly disembodied exchange of opinions online: As the most present example, in
November 2022, after Elon Musk had bought the social media platform, it was reported that
7,500 people were laid off from the workforce of Twitter (Conger et al.). In other words, 7,500
human bodies that had enabled the platform’s operation in various roles, such as content
moderation, were let go by the Musk, revealing the amount of labor that had up until that point
been performed to allow the flow of information on the social network.
179
All of this is to say that, much like Judith Butler argues in Bodies That Matter (1993): As
much as we may try to be immaterial or plastic, our bodies have a material reality, one that we
cannot wish away, and one that never not constitutes how we move about the world, how we
encounter the world, and how the world encounters us.
4.1 Becoming Plastic, or: Gender-Affirming Slop
For the longest time, I have been fascinated with the materials that we employ to underline our
expression of self, both in- and outside of any supposed gender binary. A first association here
might be makeup and heels that one might consider femininity -adjacent, but of course this goes
27
just as much for the keychains, leather boots, flannel shirts, and other masculinity-adjacent items.
Piercings, tattoos, lip injections, butt injections, hair dye, glitter, or various other types of body
modification add further to this list. As I skate the night away at the Moonlight Rollerway in
Glendale (Los Angeles County) at their weekly “Rainbow Night,” the gay event every
28
Wednesday, where the DJ endures my requests to play “Immaterial” week after week, I note the
materials that are all around me, and hear the gossip as to who wears what (who wears whom),
who owns their skates and who had to rent them, whose outfit lights up in which colors once the
black light comes on, whose style is lagging, etc.
I use gay venues, such as the nightclub and the skating rink, here as examples because of
their importance for LGBTQIA+-identified people, as well as their relevance as a safe space of
In Halberstam’s (1998) vein, traits of masculinity and femininity are here assumed to be
27
inherent to all genders.
Used here to connote nightlife establishments that cater to the LGBTQIA+ community, though
28
historically and from personal experience in European and North American metropoles more
often than not in fact dominated by white gay men.
180
experimentation, self-expression, and community, as laid out by Xiomara Cervantes-Gómez
(2016) following the mass-murder at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. In this sense then, music then,
despite the immateriality of the sound waves that it is comprised of, stimulates not just the
individual body, but also a collective queer body, facilitating the recognition and kinship that can
be experienced through the experience of listening –and moving– to music in community.
Be it inside or outside the club, I think of the materials that we use to put onto our bodies
as viscous; no matter their actual materiality and their state of aggregation, I think of such
objects as being semi-fluid, thick, and sticky with regards to the meanings and significations that
they bring in to our identification. Consider also the temporal dimension of this viscosity: Some
materials last longer (implants, hairstyles, clothes we love and wear as often as we can), while
others (make up, clothes we wear once and then discard) only last a short while, perhaps just one
night until they wear off, or until we decide to discard them and move on for other reasons.
Of course, this surrounding of the self with materials is by no means limited to
LGBTQIA+ people nor night clubs, quite the contrary. As queer discourse has shown for
decades, the power of camp practices and/or drag lies in pointing out the constructedness of
normative performances of gender and sexuality, and the supposedly respectable, normative
identity categories emanating therefrom. As an example for how the objects and materials all
around human individuals are supposed to align with, and help express, gender identity, think of
the product Manwich (Fig. 11): Consisting largely of tomato puree, sugar, and spices , this
29
product is a portmanteau of the words “man” and “sandwich” (Manwich website), suggesting
The full list of ingredients as listed on the Manwich product can: Tomato puree, high-fructose
29
corn syrup, distilled vinegar, corn syrup, salt, sugar, carrot fiber, dried green and red bell peppers,
chili pepper, guar gum, spices, xanthan gum, dried garlic, natural flavors, citric acid.
181
that its ingestion is linked to masculine gender identity. Added to one pound of cooked meat, the
instructions on the can read, this sauce will make a meal called “sloppy joe,” that is further
described with the words “thick & chunky” on the food can label.
Keeping this name in mind, I suggest we thus think of this product as gender-affirming
slop, as somehow a connection is made between the consumption of a sandwich called “sloppy
joe” and the historically and socially predetermined identity category of “man.” The gendered
subject is, of course always also an embodied subject: The very material that this foodstuff
consists of, meat, tomatoes, and sugars , by entering the human body via the upper end of its
30
gastrointestinal tract, is somehow imbued with the characteristics of contributing to masculinity.
The social category of gender, therefore, is charged via material reality. As a side note, albeit an
important one, the notion of ingestion, of matter entering the human body via the mouth and
being absorbed there, can also be understood as plastic. As research shows, micro-plastics enter
the human body and accumulate there. The difference here of course being that the ingestion of
micro-plastics is most likely unintentional, unlike that of a Manwich. At the same time, a can of
Manwich may of course very well contain micro-plastics, so that an ingestion of one also brings
about ingestion of the other.
Notably, going back to Arendt’s notion of poiesis (bringing forth, or herstellen), it strikes
me that gender is here co-produced not by produce; by that I mean that it is not something
produced, grown, by nature itself. Rather, the product Manwich has been produced, in other
One can of Manwich contains about 40 grams of sugar, far exceeding the 25 grams of daily
30
sugar consumption suggested by the World Health Organization. This suggests a link between
masculinity and preventable diseases linked to excessive sugar consumption, such as diabetes
and obesity.
182
words manufactured, brought into being, through human action. The person devising the recipe,
the factory that makes the product and fills it into cans, the shipment and sale of the product
itself, alongside its marketing, are all human activities. Following this logical chain, gender, it
becomes clear, is then always already chimeric, always a combination of human and non-human
elements, of biology and manufactured commodity, in the case of Manwich ground beef, tomato
puree, sugar, salt, and various additives. The non-human element of this chimeric construct, the
man whose masculinity is accentuated through his ingestion of Manwich, however, has been
produced by human activity.
Be it inside or outside the club, I think of the materials that we use to put onto our bodies
as viscous; no matter their actual materiality and their state of aggregation, I think of such
objects as being semi-fluid, thick, and sticky with regards to the meanings and associations that
they bring in to our identification. While my use here is metaphoric, perhaps the Manwich
description of “thick & chunky” comes to mind for a reason. Consider also the temporal
dimension of this viscosity: Some materials last longer (implants, hairstyles, clothes we love and
wear as often as we can), while others (make up, clothes we wear once and then discard) only
last a short while, perhaps just one night until they wear off, or until we decide to discard them
and move on for other reasons.
What all of these viscous materials, from breast implants to Manwich sauce, have in
common is that a Lacanian reading would immediately denounce them as originating not
31
Paul B. Preciado points out Lacan’s racism and transphobia, and the translator’s note to Can
31
the Monster Speak discusses some of the critiques on Lacan. I use Lacan here, alongside a whole
lot of other white men, not to defend him or his readings in any way, but rather to show how his
widely discussed theories can in fact be used against himself. With this, I show the opening up of
queer possibility that can be located in the Eurocentric canon.
183
within the self, but outside of it; thus, the Lacanian argument, they fulfill a desire, a desire that is
constituted through a lack of an object, and a desire that is all too easily formed by the capitalist
lifeworlds that we move within. In that same vein, Sara Ahmed speaks of “happy objects” in her
analysis of how how wanting to be happy orients us towards certain objects, and away from
others, hoping to be “made happy” (2010, 21) by them, or by proximity to them. In Ahmed’s
discussion, objects “take up residence within our bodily horizon” (ibid 24) and, as they “become
saturated with affects as sites of personal and social tension” (ibid 44), they establish not only
what we like, but also what we are like. To connect this to my observation about gay clubs and
materialism, perhaps we can say with Ahmed in mind that to an extent we are all material girls
(boys, other) as Madonna would have it, given the affectively charged materials and objects that
we surround ourselves with.
To better lay out what I mean with the difference between wants and needs, I turn to
systems theorist Donella Meadows, who writes in The Limits to Growth (1972):
People don’t need enormous cars; they need respect. They don’t need closetsful of
clothes; they need to feel attractive and they need excitement, variety, and beauty. People
need identity, community, challenge, acknowledgement, love, joy. To try to fill these
needs with material things is to set up an unquenchable appetite for false solutions to real
and never-satisfied problems. The resulting psychological emptiness is one of the major
forces behind the desire for material growth. A society that can admit and articulate its
nonmaterial needs and find nonmaterial ways to satisfy them would require much lower
material and energy throughputs and would provide much higher levels of human
fulfillment. (216).
184
Here, the authors argue for the telling of optimistic stories, and human needs that move away
from consumerist materialism. I want to pay special attention to what are stated as human needs
in the above quote, which are “to feel attractive […] excitement, variety, and beauty […] identity,
community, challenge, acknowledgement, love, joy.” I will thus, over the course of this chapter,
think about the materiality of the body and the objects that are layered above and beneath its
surface, in line with with subjection into categories that have been historically and/or socially
predetermined. With this, I seek by no means to argue for a notion of identity that pretends it can
do without any and all materialism. As I hope to have made clear with the opening part of this
chapter, I believe that using non-human materials to express gender- and other identity markers
is something common.
On a note about tone, I should mention that at its heart, my project is one of optimism and
hope. In recent a recent discussion with a QTPoC academic friend, she explained how
vehemently she disagrees with Muñoz because of his sense of utopia and futurity. “What if there
really is no future,” she asked me over lunch, “what if sex and death are all we have?” I have
thought about these questions long and hard, wondering how much my own sense of optimism
and joy may be tied to privilege of being who I am, and having what I have. I do see where she is
coming from, looking at oppression, violence, perpetual war, pandemic, and climate catastrophe
that seem all around. And yet, I have to say, I still find myself longing for more, propelled by an
inner positivity, and find myself resisting the cynicism, inertia, and depression that I feel would
come from rejecting the idea of a queer future. In other words, I am propelled by a creative
enthusiasm, constantly dreaming of a transcendence of the here and now. That is why in this
chapter, I engage with a piece of music that has evoked a sense of euphoria within me ever since
185
I first encountered it, and that continues to excite me to this day with its thumping beats,
alongside its lyrics, which I analyze in the following, and read as an invitation into a queer,
collective, plastic utopia.
Written by Cecile Believe and SOPHIE and produced by SOPHIE, the song “Immaterial”
from SOPHIE’s 2017 album Oil of Every Pearl’ s Un – Insides is a citation of, engagement with,
and in my understanding also commentary on Madonna’s 1984 song “Material Girl,” written by
Peter Brown and Robert Rans and produced by Nile Rodgers. Before diving into an analysis of
the lyrics of SOPHIE’s song, it should be noted that the music video to Madonna’s “Material
Girl” (Fig. 13) is a visual citation of Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” (Fig.
12) from the 1953 motion picture Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, pointing towards the historical arch
of curated, white, normative American femininity in its lineage of beauty standards, and
consumerism. Note here the connection between the image, in this case the rapid succession of
images of the motion picture, and materialism, both in the form of commodities and normatively
gendered bodies. And of course these bodies, in their gendered performances, are outfitted with
commodities, brought forth as embodied, gendered subjects via the materials that they are
surrounded with, and those that they are not.
In both of these older songs, a gender binary is cited, with a dyad of “boys” on the one
hand, and “girls ” on the other. In both songs, the main feature sustaining this gender binary is
32
the exchange of monetary value: In the Marilyn Monroe song, this is reflected in lines such as “A
kiss on the hand / May be quite continental … / A kiss may be grand / But it won’t pay the rental
The infantilization of adults by referring to them as “girls” and “boys” perhaps deserves more
32
critical attention, which, however, this project does not have the space to address.
186
… / Diamonds are a girl’s best friend,” and in Madonna through lines such as “But I don’t let
them play, no way / Only boys that save their pennies make my rainy day.” Be it gemstones or
cash, in either of these two songs only two genders are assumed to exist, and men (also “boys” or
“guys”) are the ones supposed to provide the valued object, a material reality, to a woman
(referred to as “girl” in both songs). This woman in both cases is presented as being in need of
material objects in order to “pay the rental” or make it through her “rainy day,” suggesting that
without the help of a man, who is the one holding wealth, she cannot sustain herself financially.
While the “material” in Madonna refers to singer having a preference for material goods
with high monetary value, in SOPHIE’s “Immaterial,” we encounter a dual meaning of the term:
While title and composition of the song lets us recognize the Madonna song that SOPHIE builds
upon, the lyrics here point away from money, and the objets layered on top of the human body,
and instead discuss the materiality of the singer’s body. Written and produced into a euphoric
hyperpop song by the late SOPHIE, I read the lyrics of “Immaterial” as an enumeration of
possibility: The artist is playing with the concept of the self, and allowing us to dream, when
telling us that they could be anything that they want.
33
These objects, I propose further, are not merely material, but also highly visual. The
diamond, “a girl’s best friend,” is especially noteworthy here, as it is known for its reflection and
refraction of light. As stated on the website of the international diamond mining exploitation
corporation De Beers:
SOPHIE did not use pronouns. Any use of the pronoun “they” here is intended as an umbrella
33
term do refer to the imagined protagonist of the song (written and produced by SOPHIE, and
sung by Cecile Believe) not the artist SOPHIE.
187
An expertly cut diamond with perfectly symmetrical and aligned facets will maximise
[sic] sparkle. This is because it reflects light internally from one mirror-like facet to
another, dispersing it through its uppermost surface, referred to as the table. Finally, the
polish gives a diamond its beautiful outside finish.
The above is one of the 4Cs, which, according that same website, relate to the cut, color, clarity
and carat weight of diamonds, the combination of which “determines a diamond’s relative rarity
and value.” Taken together, this indicates that in order to represent its value, a diamond needs to
be exposed to the light. Of course the diamond, with no apparent use-value, at least none that this
author can see, thus holds only representational power, one that is primarily visual, meaning that
the diamond needs to be hit by rays of light in order to be able to represent its value. This is all to
say that, apparently, the material and the visual go hand in hand in consumerism, so that
fashioning oneself as a subject works through being recognized by others.
188

Figure 11: “Manwich” product cans in a grocery store (photo taken by author, 2022).
189

Figure 12: Marilyn Monroe, “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
(1953). Video Screenshot/Warner Records
Figure 13: Madonna, “Material Girl” Music Video (1984). Video Screenshot/Warner Records
190
4.1.1 Subjection, Recognition
In Lacan’s (2009, 469) notion of the lack, desire is defined as being located in the unconscious,
and pointing outside of the subject. For Lacan, it is an object that I as a subject desire, imagining
that the attainment of said object would make me as a subject more myself, or, more precisely,
bring is closer to being my self (ibid, 195). This self, in this logic, is always an imagined self and
can never be achieved, since the desire perpetually points outside the subject, always constituting
a lack in the self that is sought to be filled with objects. Looking back at the Madonna and
Marilyn Monroe songs with which I have opened this dissertation chapter, we can surely claim
that it is this Lacanian logic of desire for the object that informs the heterosexist gender relations
within both texts. Interestingly, though not surprisingly, in both songs the monetary object that
the “girl” desires is provided by the “boy,” meaning that the desire for a material good is what
sustains and lubricates the heteronormative coupling in both cases.
Thus I think that both Monroe and Madonna fit into the Lacanian understanding of
desire, wherein desire is always constituted by a lack, a lack that it located outside the self, which
then moves the subject towards objects through whose acquisition the subject seeks to fulfill said
desire. In other words, this fits into the consumerist idea that need to purchase our identity,
meaning we express our identity via material goods. In this logic, desire always points outside of
the body, since it is captured in the objects that we need to acquire in order to quench our desire.
In the Lacanian view, desires are produced by capitalist propaganda in the form of advertising,
which is why Lacan, building on a Marxist understanding of dialectic materialism, distinguishes
between wants and needs. Social differentiation, a want, is thus carried out largely by the matter
that we surround our bodies with, which I link back to the materials that one encounters for
191
instance at a night out at a gay club, as I have described in the opening paragraphs. But if we
consider the importance of the gay club for queer life, we can hardly consider any desire for
material objects as a mere product of capitalist propaganda.
That is why it is all the more notable that in “Immaterial,” we find the logic of dialectic
materialism inverted: Rather than desiring more objects, the SOPHIE song talks here about doing
away with them, laying the foundation for a utopian approach not only to embodiment, but also
to subjectivity. With this, the song turns Marx (2001, 7) from his feet back onto his head, who
writes: “The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social,
political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence,
but their social existence that determines their consciousness .” In what I consider to be a
34
Hegelian move, the song therefore raises the important, albeit utopian-seeming idea: What if we
already are our full selves, determined by our consciousness, our minds? What if the cycle of
desire, pointing outside the self as a lack and suggesting a reliance of material goods, both in
order to fashion the self and to facilitate interpersonal relations, as exhibited in the above-quoted
Marilyn Monroe and Madonna songs, wherein a man is necessary to facilitate a woman’s need
for material objects, were to be interrupted?
Notably, SOPHIE does not list objects that would give the singer more of a self, but
instead asks who we could be if there was less materiality to our body: “Without my legs or my
hair / Without my genes or my blood / With no name and with no type of story / Where do I live?
/ Tell me, where do I exist?” Crucially, the cited list of things (legs, hair, genes, blood) are not
“Es ist nicht das Bewusstsein der Menschen, das ihr Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr
34
gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr Bewusstsein bestimmt.”
192
objects outside of the human body, but instead integral body parts; while humans are most
certainly able to live without the first pair, legs and hair, a living human body without genes or
blood appears unthinkable. With these lines, the artist further reminds us of a history of eugenics
that has tried over and over again to impose taxonomies in human beings based on genetics or
blood quanta. While I do not read this song as an explicit engagement with science discourse and
its racist, transphobic histories (cf. Preciado, 2021), this line from the first stanza of the song
nevertheless addresses questions of power and asks about the location of individual subjectivity
outside of identificatory regimes of the State.
In that sense, I suggest that we think of the word immaterial in this song also as
extraneous, one of that term’s synonyms. Being slotted into an identity category such as boy or
girl then becomes something that the individual is subjected to, but not something that has any
meaningful, objective power over the individual. I also believe that with questions such as these,
the song pushes us to engage in what I have earlier referred to as “creative enthusiasm,” the
willingness to imagine otherwise even though we know that his is not possible in there here and
now.
But what is the self without the body, if we really were to strive towards immateriality?
Instead of fashioning a self based on the accumulation of material objects, SOPHIE asks us here
where the self is located: Can we trace a self —especially a gendered one, given that this song
insists on boys and girls in repeated, echoing lines— if we strip away the materialism that
surrounds us? This question is further accentuated in the latter part of the first stanza, “with no
name and with no type of story / where do I live / tell me / where do I exist?” These lines invite a
Derridean reading, as they refer to the violence that lies in names and naming: Derrida (1998, 2)
193
asks what there is to my subjectivity that has not been socially pre-constituted, pre-determined;
more concretely, he writes “Yes, I only have one language, yet it is not mine,” pointing out that
language always has to be understandable to those around us and can therefore never be private
or personal if it is also supposed to be readable or understandable.
Given that I have first encountered this song in the setting of a gay club, in the pre-
Covid-19 days when coming together with strangers in a confined physical setting to socialize,
dance, or flirt was possible and appeared harmless, I have come to think of this first stanza in
“Immaterial” as a fundamental question about recognition, with the subject having to make
themselves legible in language in order to be recognized in their humanity by others. In other
words, the song is here set up as L’Entre deux, meaning that any activity it describes is a
collaborative act of at least two people, and begs questions such as: With no name and with no
type of story, are we even recognizable as human? And secondly, who is it that does this act of
recognizing, and what is their relationship to us? Is it our queer peers in a chosen family, a
community, or is it strangers on the street, or at our workplace? These queries are further
underpinned by the lines “Where do I live / tell me, where do I exist” meaning that the singer
may be in the process of becoming a stranger, a pariah, a refugee. Crucial here is the interjection
of the “tell me” in these last two lines, addressing the other, perhaps us as the listener, asking for
recognition, asking us what were to happen if they cannot be recognized by others in both
material (legs, hair, genes, blood), and immaterial (name, type of story) ways.
The split between material and immaterial could perhaps also be understood as one
between internal and external; if we assume an immaterial boy or immaterial girl as an internal
gender identity, then SOPHIE presents us here with an understanding of identity that goes
194
against the Lacanian notion outlined above, one that does not rely on a form of desire that points
outside of the subject. Hence we have in this song, I argue, a wonderful, utopian gesture that asks
us to imagine ourselves outside the fantasies of identification, and without subjection and
subjectivity. Identifications, as Samuels points out, are fantasies which “merge imagination and
the real through desire, a desire that manifests in material effects on actual people’s bodies and
lives” (3). To be anything that one wants, therefore, is an expression not only of one’s own
desire, but at the same time always engages with the desires of others, the latter of which are
hegemonic by conforming to, and resulting from, historically and socially pre-determined
categories.
In fact, SOPHIE directly speaks to the question of subject: In Lacan, the subject comes
into being linguistically, by using the word “I” to refer to the self. In “Immaterial,” this logic is
not only addressed but also played with, as the singer opens the first stanza with the following:
“You could be me and I could be you / Always the same and never the same / Day by day, life
after life.” For starters, we could perhaps think of Hegel’s master-slave-dialectic here: With
35
these lines, the opening of the first stanza of the song no less, they position two subjects vis-a-vis
one another. With these lines, I suggest that the artist asks us to consider the dissolution of the
ego, and to asks ourselves what we stand to lose, and what to gain, if you were to be me and I
were to be you. We find this speculative mode reflected also in the circumstance that these lines
are full of indeterminacy, especially due to the conjunctive verb “could” that is used here, rather
than “can,” which would suggest a real possibility.
Herrschaft und Knechtschaft in German original. While “master-slave dialectic” is the
35
common English translation for this concept, it has been pointed out that these terms are more
succinctly translated into English as “Lordship and Bondage.”
195
Feeling the World
In the obituary in the British newspaper The Guardian, SOPHIE is cited with the following:
“Transness is taking control to bring your body more in line with your soul and spirit so the two
aren’t fighting against each other and struggling to survive […] It means you’re not a mother or a
father – you’re an individual who’s looking at the world and feeling the world.” (Beaumont-
Thomas). This sense of experiencing, or feeling the world once again connects to the question of
phenomenology, which I have discussed at length in the second chapter. In what I think of as the
same vein as SOPHIE, José Muñoz’ seminal essay “Feeling Utopia” of course already carries
that same verb, feeling, in its title. Therein, as is known, he describes queerness as something that
we can “feel … as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality” (2009, 1), a
feeling of the “not-yet-conscious” (ibid 3), and a “feeling of forward-dawning futurity” (ibid 7).
Working towards the idea of a queer plasticity, I thus pose an understanding of plasticity as an
orientation, as a way of feeling the world and feeling utopia, and therefore as a queer mode of
being in and with the world. This might be best understood as a phenomenal world, where the
relationship is coined by the experience of a radical, phenomenal openness, paralleling the
experience of the phenomenal body in my second chapter.
Crucially, my definition of queerness is one for which I move away from contemporary
discourse that employs “queer” as an identity marker, for instance an umbrella term to refer to
LGBTQIA+-identified individuals (cf. Barker & Scheele 2016). Rather, my understanding of the
term is informed by Muñoz’ definition of queerness, which he takes from German idealism, to
take the song “Immaterial” and think about queerness as the refusal to never be legible for
196
normativity, for instance with identificatory regimes such as the state, schools, police, or other
venues of capitalism. Since I understand “Immaterial” as a play ––and perhaps commentary–– on
the consumerist materialism of Madonna and Marilyn Monroe, I suggest that we think of the
understanding of queerness that SOPHIE points to as one that positions itself critically towards
capitalism. If it is capitalism and materialism that facilitate a gender binary and that lubricate
heterosexist frameworks of the earlier two songs, then perhaps the immateriality proposed by
SOPHIE invites us to orient our thinking away from capitalism and material objects as a queer
mode.
The imperative to identify is imposed upon subjects by disciplinary spaces of enclosure
(cf. Foucault 1970), such as the school, the factory, or the military. Subjects are forced to make
themselves legible, to render themselves into language, and thus to identify themselves to as to
be identifiable by others. Thus they are being rendered visible by way of language, which makes
it possible to incorporate them into surveillance apparatuses. Being legible, once again, always
loses something, as Water Benjamin reminds us with his discussion of the distinction between
what is meant (“das Gemeinte”) and the manner of meaning it (“Die Art des Meinens”), wherein
the language that is available to a subject is always limiting, and can never encompass the full
range of what is meant.
Further, as Judith Butler (1997, 2) reminds us, subjection is always a submission to
power, so that in order to come into existence as a subject, we are always in some form
subordinated. This subjection is made linguistically, and the power that subordinates us, they
further point out, “assumes a psychic form that constitutes the subject’s self-identity” (ibid 3).
With Butler and Benjamin in mind, and thinking further about identification, subjection, and the
197
immaterial, an important detour via language is important to reach my concept of plasticity:
After all, we are faced with what I consider linguistically as well as aesthetically fixed social
categories that are available for subjection of individuals. These identity categories, for instance
boy or girl, have to be socially legible in order to work as structural categories. By naming, these
are made concrete, or, to use a materialist word, ossified. A queer thought-inspired approach on
the other hand, which I am taking here, invites us as listeners and readers of SOPHIE to embrace
the plasticity of shifting markers and meanings, brought about by the ambiguity word usage. The
hardness of an ossified category with rigid boundaries is thus replaced by a soft, malleable,
plastic one.
Moreover, I am intrigued by the temporal dimension of the lines “always the same and
never the same / day by day / life after life” in this part of the song. In its most basic sense, life is
the sequence from birth to death. In this sequence on the other hand, I think SOPHIE invites us
to consider that a new life does not start upon birth, but that instead a new life can begin with
every new day. But what does this mean for the subjection to identity categories, which have
been historically and socially predetermined before they get assigned to individuals?
We might also recall here Eve Sedgwick (1990, 68), who writes about “the deadly
elasticity of heterosexist presumption,” which, she argues, forces a gay person to come out of the
closet (or choose not to) time and time again, every time that they enter a social setting
dominated by heteronormativity. Getting a respite from what Sedgwick calls “heterosexist
presumption” is also an important reason for my continuous visit to spaces marked explicitly as
queer-friendly, as this promises a few hours among people who are in a similar situation, and will
thus not subject me to their expectations in the same way straight folk do. With the song lyrics
198
“always the same and never the same” from the first stanza, I think that SOPHIE speaks to this
very notion, as the lyrics here remind us that a fluidity of self and identification may not be
legible to an outside. This can result in the circumstance that while our self-identification is
different from one day to another, this is not read or recognized by others. Or vice versa, while
our self-identification may remain the same from one day to the next, we might get read,
interpreted, recognized--and for instance gendered--differently from one day to the next.
4.1.2 Escape
The chorus of “Immaterial,” continuously repeats the line “I could be anything I want.” I find
two things notable about this: This is an enumeration of wants, not needs, once again taking us
back to the Marxian understanding that I have mentioned earlier: What the individual is capable
of wanting, in this view, is dependent upon what systems and structures they are surrounded
with. As Lacan writes, wants are historically and socially pre-determined, and as Marx argues,
the mode of production is the base structure that shapes these wants. While I am critical of this
Lacanian understanding and will show how SOPHIE in fact transcends it with “Immaterial” in a
little bit, I will briefly go along with this logic: Anything that we consider possible to want, in
this framework, is determined from the outside. Being “anything I want,” as the song lyrics go,
would therefore mean that the individual can only be things that they have been taught they can
be, which appears utterly limiting from a queer perspective.
But secondly, I think that SOPHIE presents us with a utopian gesture in this song:
“Immaterial,” I suggest, can function as a caesura, disrupting the split between needs and wants
as understood in the Marx/Lacan framework. Notably, the above-quoted line begins with the
199
words “I could be,” not “I can be,” a conditional that I read as an invitation for utopian thought.
By repeatedly stating “I could be anything I want,” SOPHIE gives us only the second half of a
bipartite . We are presented here only with the then part of the if-then structure of the
36
conditional tense, and are left to wonder what the if part might be. In other words, we are left to
ponder ourselves what would have to happen in order for this sentence to stop being conditional,
what the world would look like if the could became a can. With this conditional sentence, the
chorus connects to the first lines from the first stanza of the song, “you could be me / I could be
you,” whose utopian possibility I have discussed earlier.
Finally, in the bridge of the song, we encounter the shift away from the conditional and
into a concrete grammatical structure with the following lines: “I was just a lonely girl / In the
eyes of my inner child / But I could be anything I want / And no matter where I go / You’ll
always be here in my heart / Here in my heart, here in my heart / I don't even have to explain /
Just leave me alone now / I can't be held down / I can't be held down.” Here, a break occurs from
the conditional into concrete, present tense, and the could indeed does become a can. Moreover,
the bridge of the song represents a torn relationship between self and other: The artist states both
that an other will always be in their heart, and yet they also ask to to be left alone and state that
they cannot be held down. To me, this captures the ambivalence in the relationship between self
and other that this song, and shows the caesura of the contemporary moment, where the subject
is aware of the utopian future, yet at the same time socially tied to past and present, stating that
While not within the purview of my work, this split also hints at a Christian framework,
36
wherein a bipartite split between body (the material) and soul (immaterial) is assumed. The
question emerging for theologians would perhaps be one about the possibility of imagining a
soul that is not bound to a body. In either case, in this passage, the song most certainly asks about
the ability and potential of the incorporeal.
200
the only thing the artist is truly able to do is to break free, perhaps no longer being subjected. In
this, I locate what I think of as queer plasticity: Drawing on Hegel’s Plastizität des Geistes, the
plasticity of spirit, the queer subject here proudly proclaims the ability to be anything that they
want, no longer held down by identificatory regimes, and the need to be legible, identifiable by
an other. While for Malabou, as I have discussed earlier, plasticity is located between rigidity and
flexibility, I suggest here, going along with SOPHIE’s lyrics, that it includes a moving-away —a
stretching if you will— from the Other, who is the one holding down the subject, but who, at
least so it seems, is also the one whom the subject requires in order to be recognized and
recognizable.
This introduces a torn relationship between self and other, the I and the you: The artist
states both that an other will always be in their heart, and yet they also ask to to be left alone,
state that they will not explain themselves, and that they cannot be held down. Here, we see the
subject yearning for a future of freedom and self-determination, yet at the same time they are tied
to both past and present, subjected to expectations of who, and how, they are supposed to be.
With this, the song once again locates us amidst the question whether queerness can ever free
itself from the norms that is positions itself against, or whether it in fact depends upon them, so
as to negatively define itself against them.
We find this question of form and flexibility in the chorus that follows after the bridge in
the song: “I could be anything I want / Anyhow, any place, anywhere, anyone / Any form, any
shape, anyway, anything / any thing I want.” This passage, following right after the exclamation
“I can’t be held down” from the bridge, raises questions about the end(s) of humanity, and reads
to me like a manifesto for an immaterial, plastic utopia: Here, the song boldly presents a list of
201
wants, and we have moved on from “you could be me and I could be you” at the beginning to “I
could be anything I want.” This list of wants, at the end of the song, are now apparently able to
break the material reality of the human body, and allow the singer to not only become “anyone,”
but also “any shape” or “any thing” that they want. Instead of being flexible and adapting to the
shapes, forms —or molds— that might be presented to us as sites of subjection to press ourselves
into, the song here proudly claims a transcendence of form. Especially with the last line,
becoming “anything / any thing I want,” we are invited to move beyond subjection and
subjectivity, which, since they are linguistic, are always historically and/or socially pre-
determined, and subsequently limited in what they allow us to do. Here, in its climax, the song
breaks free from subjection, and flies toward a non-human, thing-ness as a mode of being. While
this may certainly sound utopian, I believe that it is this invitation to imagine ourselves
elsewhere, to move from subject to project, that SOPHIE performs with this song; if only for
three-and-a-half minutes.
If we are to accept the Lacanian notion that none of the above-cited wants from
“Immaterial” originate in the subject themselves, but are rather shaped by the outside, the
question emerges whether we can conceive of queer utopia as an act that is both solitary and
idealist, or whether it is always in relation (and perhaps opposition) to the social. I am thinking
here of Henri Bergson (1988), and new materialism in general, for whom the body is assumed to
be porous, constantly influencing and being influenced by what surrounds it. For Bergson, this
leads to the question where individuality begins and where it ends, if it exists in the first place.
For my project, I extract from this a question about queerness and utopia vis-a-vis epistemology:
As Foucault writes, epistemes set the conditions of possibility for what can be thought and
202
known, and what each period perceives to be real or true, he argues, is in fact an effect of the
“power-knowledge relations” (1995, 30) of this period. Foucault calls this knowledge-power. But
how might queerness be situated within knowledge-power, if to embrace queerness means a
rejection of there here and now, and an aspiration towards a utopian futurity?
To consider this question, how queerness relates to the here and now and whether it
requires the Other, as well as the possibilities of queer thought and utopianism raised by
“Immaterial,” I take an approach via Sara Ahmed’s (2010) concept of the affect alien: This
character is the person who discomforts, the subject that makes others uncomfortable, because of
their affects, as soon as they do not orient the affect alien in the same direction that everyone else
in a scenario is oriented. The examples listed in Ahmed include the feminist killjoy, used as a
projection foil for people who seek to remain in the normative happiness of sexism and other
forms of oppression that they are complicit in. My use of queerness, borrowing from Ahmed, is
thus understood as an operative mode, working against oppressive structures, against social
control, and against collective emotion. Connecting Ahmed to my earlier thoughts on plasticity
and viscosity, I suggest that we think about affects as viscous as well: The affect alien that
Ahmed describes discomforts the flow affects that a majority enjoys in what she calls “sociable
happiness,” (2010, 38) and therefore the latter’s formerly uninterrupted affective state may get
unsettled. Moreover, the majority’s affects may stick to that of the affect alien, whose alienation
can unsettle their happiness and will therefore be considered a drag, since they have ruined the
collective affective orientation (ibid, 42) of the majority.
On the note of sociable or collective affects, I return to questions of queerness and
identity, to consider whether becoming immaterial may mean being illegible and perhaps moving
203
towards schizophrenia (in the notion of Deleuze and Guattari) as that which allow us to be fluid
and, as I am working towards, plastic. As I have shown above, subjection is never a solitary act;
subsequently, resisting it can be neither. Instead, a queer collective is addressed in SOPHIE,
which brings me back to the thoughts on the importance of collective dance and the setting of the
gay club, which which I opened my discussion in this chapter. In line with the notion of the
opening, the first stanza of the song begins with the following: “You could be me and / I could be
you / always the same and / never the same / day by day / life after life” in what I consider to be
a queer utopic vision of what we could have if we were to allow ourselves the optimism of a
plastic future, the song here speaks of a dyad of two human bodies.
In this stanza, a sense of queer kinship is evoked, interrogating our sense of self and ego:
If you could be me and I could be you, I need to be willing to let you take my place, and willing
for me to take yours. This question of community and solidarity posed by SOPHIE impels us to
move away from both individualism and materialism, and asks us to consider that there is
nothing to lose when you take my place and I take yours. In embracing this idea of mutual queer
recognition, we are invited to move towards the immaterial, which is evoked in the song as a
hopeful and utopian site.
4.2 Queer Plasticity
Catherine Malabou takes her definition of the word plasticity, which I borrow for my discussion
moving forward, from the Greek word plassein, which, she writes, carries two different
meanings, “at once the capacity to receive form (clay is called ‘plastic,’ for example) and the
capacity to give form (as in the plastic arts or in plastic surgery)” (2008, 5), and “talking about
204
the plasticity of the brain thus amounts to thinking of the brain as something modifiable,
‘formable,’ and formative at the same time” (ibid). For me, this raises a fascinating range of
questions, for instance: If we accept that the biological is inherently plastic, then what does this
mean for the social and the cultural, which is, for instance in nature-vs-nurture-debates around
sex and gender, often considered in opposition to biology?
If plasticity is the ability to both give and receive form, is between rigidity and flexibility,
and structures for instance the relationship between the individual and their body. Since I do not
here have the time to do justice to the complexity of Malabou’s concept, I would like to add my
own notion of the plastic, namely plastic as the material that does not break down: Plastic straws,
plastic bags, plastic pollution, micro-plastics that enter our bodies without our consent and then
accumulate in our organs–– time and time we have heard that the plastic that surrounds us will be
around long after we, either as individuals or as a human species, have perished from planet
Earth. The old is dying and the new cannot be born, because the old, the plastic, simply will not
decay, and we are dying in this, and because of this, material world; plastic pollution contributes
to death, blanketing parts of the ocean, choking animals, poisoning our bloodstreams. The
advertising slogan “A Diamond is Forever” by diamond mining and merchant corporation De
Beers and according to the company’s website heralded as “The Slogan of the Century” by
advertisers, should then perhaps be rephrased as “plastic is forever.”
At best, it seems, plastic can be recycled, given new shape, while its material reality
remains; In the spirit of the 1970s slogan “we’re here, we’re queer, get used to it,” I therefore
wonder whether once a subject has been brought into this world as a queer subjects, deviating
from the rulebook of heteronormative life and straight~forwards, can they ever be gotten rid of?
205
Perhaps not, SOPHIE suggests, as long as these subjects find queer peers to recognize them, who
can provide an answer to the question: Where do I live —tell me— where do I exist. The above-
quoted slogan starts in the present, announcing that we, queers, are here, and points towards the
future, with the imperative of “get used to it” signaling a shift wherein the audience of this
sentence, presumably a non-queer general public, is impelled to accept a reality in which queer
people exist.
In a similar vein, in the bridge of “Immaterial,” we encounter several shifts: the lyrics are
here presented in past, present, and future tense, and further, the song here pivots away from the
conditional and into a concrete grammatical structure takes place:
I was just a lonely girl
In the eyes of my inner child
But I could be anything I want
And no matter where I go
You’ll always be here in my heart
Here in my heart
Here in my heart
I don’t even have to explain
Just leave me alone now
I can’t be held down
I can’t be held down
In the above lines, a break occurs from the conditional, where the song presented lines such as
“you could be me and I could be you” or “I could be anything I want,” into a concrete tense, “I
206
can.” Notably, the possibility of this “can” is used here in the negative, “I can’t be held down,”
telling us that the one thing that the artist is able to do is to break free. But break free from what?
Perhaps from the here and now into the then and there of queer futurity and utopia? Or, in other
words, what is the change that occurs in this part of the song, what is it that conditions the shift
in tense, from the conditional into concrete grammatical structure, drawing on the past and
projecting into the future? It appears that something has been achieved here, a development must
have taken place. Perhaps this is a breaking-free from being subjected, from having to obey the
normative categories that make one person legible to another? With this notion of breaking free,
“Immaterial” adopts a similar stance as Malabou, from whose conclusion I quote at length:
It is as though we had before our eyes a sort of caricature of the philosophical problem of
self-constitution, between dissolution and impression of form. Fashioning an identity in
such a world has no meaning except as constructing of countermodel to this caricature, as
opposed simply to replicating it. Not to replicate the caricature of the world: this is what
we should do with our brain. To refuse to be flexible individuals who combine a
permanent control of the self with a capacity to self-modify at the whim of fluxes,
transfers, and exchanges, for fear of explosion. To cancel the fluxes, to lower our self-
controlling guard, to accept exploding from time to time: This is what we should to with
our brain. . . . To ask ‘What should we do with our brain?’ is above all to visualize the
possibility of saying no to an afflicting economic, political, and mediatic culture that
celebrates only the triumph of flexibility, blessing obedient individuals who have no
greater merit than that of knowing how to bow their heads with a smile (2008, 78).
207
In this passage, Malabou’s concept of plastic as an explosion, I locate what I think of as the
poetics of disobedience: Drawing on Hegel’s Plastizität des Geistes, the plasticity of spirit, the
queer subject here proclaims the ability to be anything that they want, no longer held down by
identificatory regimes, and the need to be legible, identifiable by an Other. With that, the term
Immaterial emerges in the sense of “irrelevant,” as in, whether you call us boys or girls doesn’t
matter, we disobey being slotted into these categories. I refer to the lyrics of the song here as
poetics drawing on Hannah Arendt’s notion from The Human Condition: For Arendt, the term
poetics, from the Greek poiesis, is the creation of something that endures, that provides a form of
stability in an ever-changing world.
Fittingly, the above lyrics from the bridge of the song introduce a torn relationship
between self and other, the I and the you: The song states both “no matter where I go / you’ll
always be here in my heart,” and yet they also ask to be left alone and state that they will not
explain themselves, for they cannot be held down. Here, we see the subject yearning for freedom
and self-determination, while at the same time remaining tied to both past and present, subjected
to expectations of who, and how, they are supposed to be.
To connect back to my earlier elaborations on subjection and subjectivity, we find the
question of form and flexibility in the chorus that follows after the bridge in the song: “I could be
anything I want / Anyhow, any place, anywhere, anyone / Any form, any shape, anyway,
anything / any thing I want.” This passage, following right after the exclamation “I can’t be held
down,” raises questions about the end(s) of humanity, and reads to me like a manifesto for an
immaterial, plastic utopia: Here, the song presents a list of wants, and we have moved on from
“you could be me and I could be you” at the beginning to “I could be anything I want.” These, at
208
the end of the song, are now apparently able to break the material reality of the human body, and
allow the singer to not only become “anyone,” but also “any shape” or “any thing” that they
want.
With this, as I have argued, we are able to consider viscosity, fluidity, and spiritual
flourishing that moves away from regimes of identification. Influenced by idealism, I have
highlighted the queer potential of plasticity, for what is plastic is what is not readily available for
readings and recognition. At the same time, this plasticity runs the risk of rendering the queer
subject a pariah, for, as I have further shown, being completely unrecognizable confronts us with
existential questions about selfhood and belonging. Thus I suggest that “Immaterial” is best
understood as an invitation for queer recognition, one that interrogates pre-determined identity
categories, and that acknowledges the importance of kinship and solidarity.
The formulation of “queer plasticity,” which I use in the title of this essay, might
therefore be a tautology. If to be queer is to reject the notion of a fixed identity, and to be a
project rather than a subject, as I have argued above, then this means also to be plastic. In this
latter quality, queer plasticity differs decisively from Malabou’s notion of the plastic: While for
her, as I have described above, plasticity is situated somewhere between rigidity and endless
adaptability, my conception of queer plasticity engages more critically with the structures of
subjection. Going along with Muñoz’ (1999) notion of Disidentification, I think what SOPHIE
invites us towards with “Immaterial” is a simultaneous awareness of power structures that shape
our subject positions and the conceptions of self that are available to us, and at the same time a
critical, ironic, exaggerative stance towards these structures.
209
4.3 Poetics of Disobedience
Rooted in the Greek poiesis, bringing-forth , I am further interested in what it is that
37
“Immaterial” brings forth for the queer subject. Because José Esteban Muñoz’ definition of
queerness is anchored in large parts in the German idealist tradition, largely drawn from Kant
and Hegel, I go back to the latter (1988) to think about what he calls the “infinite plasticity is the
essence of the spirit” (“Plastizität des Geistes”) for my discussion here. It should be noted that
the noun Geist used in Hegel translates to both “spirit” and “mind” in English, which colors the
way I think about this term. Marx would of course go on to dispute Hegel’s notion of the
plasticity and argue for dialectic materialism instead, a discussion that Lacan then used for his
distinction between wants and needs. The return to Hegel and German Idealism, I suggest, lays
the groundwork for why this song gestures away from Lacanian thinking as I have laid out
above, and moves us towards a future of queer possibility instead, which points towards an
ascension beyond material reality. With Hegel’ notion of the Plasticity as a starting point, I thus
argue that SOPHIE’s song serves as an anthem for plasticity of mind and spirit, and thus works
as an invitation for hope and utopia. Throughout this subchapter, I argue specifically for a queer
utopia, drawing on Muñoz’ definition of the term.
An important counterpoint to the optimism of utopian possibility promised by queer
plasticity as a concept as I am working towards it here, comes from Zakiyyah Iman Jackson
(2020, 64); for her, plasticity is a negative quality attributed to Black bodies under slavery: In her
discussion of Toni Morrison’s Beloved, she analyzes how character Paul D is “boxed into not
simply animality but plasticity: he can be manipulated and poured into a mold.” This definition
As discussed in Heidegger, whom I decide not to cite or refer to in this project aside from this singular
37
footnote. Instead, I use Hannah Arendt’s engagement with this idea for my analysis.
210
of plasticity is fascinating in its focus on the mold as the concrete outside pressure that gives
shape to the subject, and very much in line with my way of thinking. While my understanding of
queer plasticity is different from Jackson’s and takes on a utopian dimension with its rejection of
the mold, her work here is nonetheless informative for my discussion. Further, her discussion of
violence and pressure, encapsulated in her discussion as well as mine in the signifier of the mold,
remains with me for the remainder of this chapter.
To return to my reading of SOPHIE’s poetics and connecting back to my earlier
elaborations on subjection and subjectivity, we find the question of form and flexibility —and, as
I will show in what follows, plasticity— in the chorus that follows after the bridge in the song: “I
could be anything I want / Anyhow, any place, anywhere, anyone / Any form, any shape,
anyway, anything / any thing I want.” This passage, subsequent to the exclamation “I can’t be
held down” from the bridge, raises questions about the end(s) of humanity, and reads to me like a
manifesto for an immaterial utopia: Here, the artist once again situates the song within the
caesura of wants and needs, and boldly exclaims another list of wants. These wants, towards the
end of the song, are now apparently able to break the material reality of the human body, and
allow the singer to not only become “anyone,” but also “any shape” or “any thing” that they
want. Especially with the last line, becoming “anything / any thing I want,” I think we are invited
to move beyond subjection and subjectivity, which, as I have laid out above, always linguistic,
therefore historically and/or socially pre-determined, and subsequently limited in what they
allow us to do. Instead of being flexible (cf. Malabou) and adapting to the forms —or molds—
that might be presented to us as sites of subjection, the song here proudly claims a transcendence
211
of form. Especially the last two lines, “anything / any thing I want,” break open theories of
subjection, and point toward a non-human, thing-ness as a mode of being.
I think that there lies a Derridean brilliance in SOPHIE’s lyrics: “With no name and with
my type of story, where do I live, tell me, where do I exist?” As the artist reminds us here, it is
only through social recognition that we can belong, that we come into existence as subjects. This,
of course, directly counters the notion that anybody could ever be “anything they want,” because
if who we are depends on social recognition, then everybody is locked into a position of who
they have to be, a subject position that has been historically as well as socially pre-determined.
Important to note here is, too, that the chorus of the song is entirely in the plural. The lines
“we’re just / immaterial boys / immaterial girls” refers to a collective, indicated both by the word
“we” and the notion of boys and girls respectively being at least two people. This suggests to me
that while questioning the relation to material objects, including our own bodies, being
immaterial, and as a result plastic, is a queer collective act, which underscores the importance of
subcultural formations and relations between people.
Plasticity as Reading Practice
Given that with this subchapter, I read a piece of music as a gesture of queer utopia, it becomes
important to ask about the plasticity of the cultural text and how to recognize it. Here, I suggest
plasticity means that such texts are not readily available for readings or recognition. Instead,
being plastic means that they invite readings that allow us to imagine leaping from one plateau to
the next, in the words of Deleuze and Guattari, because of how they complicate and confuse our
habitual reading practices. In other words, I propose viewing “Immaterial” as a writerly text in
212
Barthes’s (1973) sense, considering the euphoria that I extract from it. But if plasticity is, as I
have stated above, a mode and a way of queer recognition and relation, how and where might
plasticity be located in a cultural text, and how might a plastic reading practice be constituted?
For this question, and the question of reading texts that invite plasticity, I once again turn
towards Susan Sontag’s notion from Against Interpretation, which I have already used in the
second chapter of this project to talk about visceral reading experiences in Kafka. To recall,
Sontag opens up a split between cerebral (relating to the brain) and visceral (relating to inner
organs) readings. For Sontag, cerebral readings assume a split between the intellectual and
emotional, physical responses to texts. Instead of seeking to interpret or figure out a text in
cerebral ways, she lays out, an “erotics of art” (1966, 17), with which she argues for
experiencing a cultural text in a sensory, not intellectual way. For me, this connects right back to
the idea of feeling the world which I have discussed earlier, where I drew on both Muñoz
definition of queerness and an interview with SOPHIE to talk about the importance of feeling as
a means to embrace utopianism. For Sontag, this leads to a claim for the visceral (i.e. relating to
inner organs), a response of the whole body as opposed to the intellect. Yet, at I would like to
add, the brain is obviously a part of the body, and readerly responses that are said to encompass
the whole body must necessarily take into account both the cerebral and the visceral. My
conviction here is that any readerly practice is always mediated through the human body. I do
this without taking a position as to whether or not I assume the Cartesian mind-body dualism to
be truthful.
In order to embrace the concept of queer plasticity, I suggest that we as readers and
listeners of SOPHIE need to open ourselves up and lose the safe ground that we stand on. This
213
connects right back to my above point on the use of queerness that I extract from this song, and
that I have explained earlier in this text. With this, queerness comes to us as being both
uncomfortable and discomforting because of its unsettling power: As Deleuze and Guattari
(2009) claim, to accept identity politics means to accept an identity that is the State’s definition
of the self, so the individual gets subjected into historically and socially predetermined identity
categories. For D&G, the individual thus becomes part of a demographic or statistic, meaning
that capitalism and subsequently target them based on their specific identity category, and thus
evoke desires within the subject. These desires, the original Marxist formulation, are different
from needs but mere wants, and can only be fulfilled via the acquisition of consumer goods.
Instead of making oneself available to consumerism, Deleuze and Guattari (2009, 132) propose
to become minor; by following the schizoid, we are called to become revolutionaries and/or
nomads, who cannot speak as representatives of any specific subject position.
I want to be careful with this argument, for I fear that making the argument to move away
from any form of subject position lends itself all too quickly to arguments against identity
politics, which is by no means what I am suggesting here. I am, however, interested in the
question of being a nomad, which takes us right back to the above Adorno citation, with his
pronouncement about the infantile need of protection and being on safe ground. To follow
SOPHIE’s invitation and to become an immaterial girl or an immaterial boy, then, is perhaps to
leave behind the categories of boy and girl altogether, and to embrace the plasticity of identity
that we are invited to move towards. Building on SOPHIE’s words, I therefore propose a queer
reading practice that is informed by the immaterial as an affinity rather than identity position, the
latter of which would fix and render into language. Readings that are informed by queer
214
plasticity complicate the relation between signifier and signified, as they discomfort habitual,
normative interpretations.
A habit, as Badiou writes, is something that we may find comforting, even if it is bad for
the subject, and therefore any interruption to what is habitual may at first seem uncomfortable,
because it disrupts what we are used to. This disruption, however, is also where I locate the
liberating potential of queerness: Queer texts such as SOPHIE’s “Immaterial” are able to blast
open what is vapid and uninspired, they make us work because they confront us with vapid
happiness, a life that is vapid because of its hollow norms, habits, and pleasures. To step outside
of what is comfortable is what allows for human flourishing. That is why queerness moves us
towards flourishing, but only if we are willing to lose our footing and step away from the solid
ground of the material reality, and towards immaterial utopia.
In other words, I side here once again with Sara Ahmed’s notion of the affect alien, to
engage in queerness of “Immaterial,” to take up SOPHIE’s invitation to become immaterial
ourselves, and to join the groups of immaterial boys and immaterial girls awaiting at the club, we
have to be willing to be the person who is considered discomforting by others, those who are all
affectively oriented into the same direction. Queerness, in this understanding, has to be
understood as going against the grain. In a return to the German word quer, from which the word
was taken and which, as I am sure most readers are aware, translates as across, or askew, I
propose here that we think of queer as an orientation. In other words, SOPHIE presents to us in
the queer anthem that is “immaterial” what José Muñoz would call an open horizon of
possibility. We may currently find ourselves to be living in a material world, this song says with
215
its play on both Madonna and Marilyn Monroe, yet we can still start considering life as
immaterial girls and immaterial boys.
Plasticity as Mode of Being
Tying together my above discussion of discipline from Foucault with my subsequent analysis of
queer discomfort, I have shown in this subchapter how SOPHIE’s “Immaterial” provides a
critique of contemporary discussions of social control, subjection, and discomfort. With this, as I
have argued, we are able to consider viscosity, fluidity, and spiritual flourishing that moves away
from regimes of identification. Influenced by idealism, I have highlighted the queer potential of
plasticity, for what is plastic is what is not readily available for readings and recognition. At the
same time, this plasticity runs the risk of rendering the queer subject a pariah, for, as I have
further shown, being completely unrecognizable confronts us with existential questions about
selfhood and belonging. Thus I suggest that “Immaterial” is best understood as an invitation for
queer recognition, one that interrogates pre-determined identity categories, and that
acknowledges the importance of kinship and solidarity.
This focus on recognition once again underscores the importance of the human body. As I
have argued earlier, attempts to with away the body, to imagine ourselves as immaterial, as
digital, as minds without bodies, may be an attempt at utopia, but hinges on ignoring the material
reality of our physicality. This, of course, connects back to my earlier elaborations on the body of
Gregor Samsa, which is never not present within Die Verwandlung, no matter the protagonists’s
attempts at ignoring it. Consequently, perhaps we can think of the human body as plastic in itself.
216
Much like the plastics that surround us, it cannot be wished away, and cannot not be taken into
consideration by the subject that inhabits this body, and by those subjects that encounter it.
Moreover, I conclude that this song works to redirect the listener away from happiness,
and invites them to engage in uncomfortable and therefore discomforting practices, interrogating
our sense of self and ego. If you could be me and I could be you, as the first stanza of the song
goes, I need to be willing to let you take my place, and willing for me to take yours. This
question of community and solidarity posed by SOPHIE, as I have argued, impels us to move
away from materialism and consider that there is nothing to lose when you take my place and I
take yours. In embracing this idea of mutual queer recognition, I have further shown, we are
invited to move towards the immaterial, which is evoked in the song as a hopeful and utopian
site.
Therefore, queer plasticity, as I have worked it out over the course of this chapter thus far,
operates not so much as a reorientation, but rather as de-orientation. While Happiness, as I have
laid out with Sara Ahmed (2010), may orient us in certain ways, towards some objects and away
from others, SOPHIE’s “Immaterial” asks us to consider who made the map and the compass that
we may use for orientation in the first place, what the means and ends of this cartography are,
and what were to happen if we stepped out into uncharted territory. Or, to add more complexity
to this analogy: Instead of pointing us towards a self full of molds to choose from, the song
brilliantly points us towards the door that leads outside, yet also points out that getting there will
require work. With this song, SOPHIE turns us away from there here and now and towards the
then and there of queer utopia.
217
Conclusion Chapter 4
In this final chapter, I have worked out the notion of queer plasticity. Paving my way towards
this concept, I have employed insights from my earlier dissertation chapters, where I have
worked on notions of subjection, subjectivity, and identity. I have taken my concepts of
Schreckgestalt, the phenomenal body, as well as monstrosity and the social body, in order to
develop my queer critique. Through my engagement with the song “Immaterial,” I have here
posed the question about becoming immaterial as a utopian mode, one that does away with
embodiment and ties to material reality.
Building atop my earlier concept of the phenomenal body, I have here considered the
body as plastic, in several senses of the word: Drawing on different conceptions of plasticity, I
have discussed human body as malleable on the one hand, for instance in the interplay between
gender expression and commodities, wherein the individual human subject is located between
social norms and individual agency, navigating their way by placing non-human materials in
proximity to their respective body. On the other hand, I have pointed to the queer body as
recalcitrant, disobedient, and impossible to be gotten rid of, in the sense of queer kinship that
moves away from legibility and subjection into ossified norms. My analysis has shown that the
question of recognition is important here. Linking SOPHIE back to Kafka, I have shown that
while Gregor was denied recognition by his milieu, “Immaterial” presents a dyad of two human
bodies, who recognize and affirm one another.
To make my point about new materialism, I have discussed the what have referred to as
“gender-affirming slop,” in order to illustrate that the individual human body is shaped by the
materials that surround it, from clothing to foodstuff. By drawing on the example of canned
218
tomato sauce loaded with sugars, brought into proximity to masculinity via its branding and
marketing, I have illustrated once more the dependence between the human body and its
surroundings in order to form a subject. With this example, I have shown some of the ridiculous
aspects of the gender binary, and the ways in which these norms are socially enforced. Having
focused on the figure of the matriarch and the expectations placed upon women in the third
chapter, I have used the example of the “Manwich” here to demonstrate that masculinity, too, is
defined as a similarly limiting set of social norms and expectations.
Fortunately, I have then moved away from normative gender roles, and, much like I did
with camp cultural production in the previous chapter, have made the point here that queer
culture presents alternatives to the restrictions of normative social roles. As I have discussed,
artist SOPHIE plays with concepts of consumerism and dialectic materialism, and thereby opens
the door for fluid, viscous, and plastic relations to subjectivity, ones that go beyond the
individual, and invite collective recognition. As I have argued in my engagement with the lyrics
of “Immaterial,” the artist references social pressures to subject individuals into historically and
socially pre-determined, linguistically fixed categories. I have drawn on Catherine Malabou’s
concept of plasticity as a stepping stone towards Hegel’s notion of the plasticity of spirit. As
these names suggest, I go down the road of theory once again, engaging with Malabou and
Hegel. With this, my end goal is to turn dialectical materialism back on its head, and turn
towards José Muñoz’ notion of queerness for my readings. With this, I land on the question
whether queer plasticity is in fact a tautology, or whether there are differences between the two
concepts.
219
Further, I have tackled the question of escapes in this chapter: Drawing on Deleuze to
trace SOPHIE’s ideas backwards to critiques already present in Kafka, with themes such as
environments of enclosure and the Schreckgestalt of social control, I have put forth here a
concept that I refer to as Poetics of Disobedience. With this, I propose a positive, utopian
outlook, thus differing greatly from Franz Kafka’s works and Gregor Samsa’s demise. Through
my discussion of “Immaterial,” I have demonstrated that escape, resistance, and disobedience are
possible within the space of queerness; with this, I have further complicated my discussion from
the third chapter, where, by bringing Paul Preciado into my discussion, I have posed the question
of what happens when subjects refuse the identity terms deployed by the (neo)liberal
multicultural national project of being hegemonically legible and recognized. Especially in the
notion of queer monstrosity, which I have linked back once more to the unholy monstrosity
Gregor Samsa and my proposed concept of Schreckgestalt in the third chapter, I have
incorporated a discussion of queerness and dis_ability into my analysis to further add to my work
on embodiment and subjectivity.
Lastly, have returned to the question of readerly affects, with which I had begun my
inquiry at the beginning of the dissertation, once again here at the end: Through a discussion of
uncomfortable and discomforting affects, I have argued that “Immaterial” acts as a manifesto for
a queer, collective recognition. Tackling dance music, I have pointed here to yet another form of
body, the collective body that comes together and moves as once on the dance floor of the night
club. This discussion has culminated in an argument for a shift from subjection to projection,
wherein I have argued that SOPHIE gestures towards an elsewhere, in which freedom and
fluidity are possible, moving beyond materialism and material reality, while at the same time
220
celebrating there here and now of kinship in the queer cultural venue. With this, I have argued in
closing that “Immaterial,” much like Die Verwandlung a century before it, makes a case for
understanding subjectivity as plural, blurring the line between individual human bodies.
Queerness, monstrosity, and the figure of the chimera have thus emerged in this last chapter as
lines of flight for reorientation towards possible escapes.
221
Conclusion
Over the course of four chapters, I have argued that when Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning
from restless dreams, he finds himself in his bed, transformed into something unholy. A
monstrosity, perhaps, but by moral standards, not by objective, physical ones. I have used this
dissertation project to discuss the human body, its representation in different forms of media, its
imbeddedness within social bodies, its abilities and disabilities, and its monstrous qualities. With
my analysis, I have shown how these different media appeal to bodily sensations, how they
represent sensoria and how they appeal to the bodies of those who come into contact with these
media objects. Having drawn on Foucault’s notion of discipline and my subsequent analysis of
queer discomfort, it thus becomes clear why Die Verwandlung, Serial Mom, and “Immaterial”
have all served as touch points for my discussion of social control and discomfort, which, as I
have argued earlier, is necessary to allow for viscosity, fluidity, and human flourishing. The
guiding question for the entirety of this project has been how the human body is conveyed in
cultural texts, how is it brought into the realm of consciousness of the reader or media consumer.
How it is experienced by the; not in terms of surface or boundary, and not with rationality or
logical ways, but rather in terms of sensuality, sensoria, and emotion. As I have argued
throughout the entirety of this project, the body, both in its material reality and in its sensorial
impressions, has played a central role in each of the media objects that I have considered,
continuously making itself felt to the reader. I have shown that, in the case of Kafka’s Die
Verwandlung, these are sensual, not rational engagements..
I have presented my retranslation of Franz Kafka’s Die Verwandlung, included with this
document after the main dissertation text, and demonstrated the interventions that this project
222
poses into the way that this story is currently read within the Anglophone realm. I have
demonstrated the aim of this retranslation, and of this project as a whole, which is to wrestle the
Kafka text out of these imposed interpretations, and to show that author Kafka engages in
propositional modes of thought, which are, due to their in-concreteness, diffuse to grasp and
therefore difficult to translate.
My analysis began with a discussion of my retranslation of the aforementioned novella
Die Verwandlung. I began this project with the bold claim that there is no insect in this text;
rather, readers have been led to imagine one, which is the issue that this dissertation set out to
correct. Thus, the project began with a rather bold intervention, claiming that existing
Anglophone translations of the Kafka text are over-determined, and that the text needs to be
wrestled out of the interpretations imposed upon it by its translators. This is the point of
departure for my inquiry, and which I tackle in the first two chapters. This dissertation project
begins by looking at readerly practices involving texts that go beyond, or that do without,
representation, and culminates in the concept of queer plasticity as a utopian mode.
The main goal for my translation, as I have discussed over the course of the first and
second chapters, was to retain as much of the ambivalence, confusion, and openness of Kafka’s
original, much of which I felt had gotten lost in Susan Bernofsky’s or Stanley Corngold’s English
renditions of this German text, as it had in any other English version that I have been able to
find. As I have shown with my retranslation, the image of the protagonist, Gregor, having
changed into a creature that is most definitely an insect, is flawed and not sustained by the
German original of this text. Rather, I have laid out, his body is split between physical and
phenomenal, drifting apart, and perceived by Gregor himself in incoherent, unreliable,
223
unimaginable ways. With the retranslation that I have presented here, and the discussion that
accompanies it in the first two chapters, I have shown that with my work, I make room for a
variety of different possible readings of this text, all of which are able to exist alongside one
another, due to the text’s abstract, opaque, and polysemous qualities.
Discussing my retranslation, I have further laid out that Die Verwandlung is an open text
par excellence. The open text, as stated in Eco, is a text that is unstable, one that shifts, and that
is endlessly interpretable. Crucial for this, as I have demonstrated, are the multiplicity of possible
allegorical readings that all coexist within this text. As I have demonstrated, each of these
readings can be sustained, yet each of them has a certain surplus of meaning, something that does
not quite fit within the reading, which means that none of these readings is ever truly sufficient,
as none of them can actually exhaust the story.
Translating Aesthetic Intelligibility
I have begun my inquiry with a translative approach into Kafka’s Die Verwandlung. Drawing on
Anglophone translations by Susan Bernofsky and Stanley Corngold, I have presented my
retranslation of the Kafka text, pointing out various differences, gaps, and untranslatabilities
between different renditions of the same source material. For my discussion in the first chapter, I
have discussed my retranslation via close-readings of several key passages from the Kafka text,
comparing and contrasting to both Corngold and Bernofsky. I have shown that these other two
translators impose readings onto the text, thus erasing some of the finer details of the original,
and thereby changing the range of possible interpretations.
224
Through comparisons to my retranslation of Die Verwandlung, I have in this first chapter
presented thoughts on the translation of Minor Literature, and have pointed to the task that this
poses to any translator: To go about, I first provide a brief discussion of Minor Literature and its
specificities, in order to subsequently argue that the vast number of what I consider to be
overdetermined English translations of Die Verwandlung shape how this text is read by
Anglophone audiences, and the scholarship that has been subsequently produced about the text.
In my discussion in this first chapter, I have argued that in order to create a translation of Minor
Literature that is able to reflect the political aspects of the original, conveyed for instance via the
texts’s ambiguity, it is beneficial for the translator to undertake amounts of research into the
specific milieu of an author, and special attention paid to the potential multiplicity of meanings
used by that author. To make my case here, I have presented brief definitions of the terms
ambiguity and translation, so as to demonstrate the special complexity posed by the translation of
ambiguity within a literary text.
I have provided an in-depth discussion of the infamous opening sentence of Die
Verwandlung, with which I have demonstrated that from the outset, translators overdetermine
Gregor Samsa’s physical form, thus removing the aesthetic intelligibility of the original. After
explaining what it is that I mean by the term aesthetic intelligibility and pointing out instances in
the text where my translation restores this intelligibility, I have argued that especially in the
exchange between Gregor and the Bedienerin, the servant whom the Samsa family takes on as
the story progresses and the family’s financial situation worsens, the author employs ambiguous,
Yiddish terminology. As my analysis of this passage has revealed, it is precisely through the
character of the Bedienerin, whose physical features the text actually does elaborate on, that
225
Gregor is not only recognized, but also identified, albeit in terms that are rendered opaque. With
my analysis of this exchange, I have made my case for the reading Die Verwandlung as a tale
about Jewishness and anti-Semitism.
However, I have not argued in my analysis of this passage that the above-stated reading
of anti-Semitism is the only possible one; on the contrary: With my close-readings throughout
this first chapter, and my retranslation especially, I have made the point that due to its abstract
qualities and usage of polysemous verbiage, the Kafka text invites a wide range of
interpretations, which are open, and, despite the racialized connotations that the figure of the
insect carries, able to coexist within the same text. Therefore, I have made the point that while
the Bedienerin serves on the one hand as a means to illustrate the limitations of existing
Anglophone translations of Kafka’s text, she is not to be understood as a skeleton key through
which one is able to understand this story as only and exclusively about Jewishness. As my
analysis in this first chapter has ultimately shown, the paths that Die Verwandlung takes the
reader on are a lot more winding, and not as clearly visible as they may seem in existing
translations, which, due to their lack of ambiguity and abstraction, impose limits on the reader’s
imagination. With this, I have proven my claim that any reader entering the text and hoping to be
able to imagine what it is that its protagonist, Gregor, undergoes, will be left unsatisfied, as the
text does not provide any clear or coherent answer. I have demonstrated that this is because the
reader remains locked inside of Gregor’s body throughout the text, and does not get an outside
perspective on this body in any way. Rather, they are presented with Gregor’s reactions not to his
body itself, but to the way that the people around him react to this very body.
226
In my discussion of Ekphrasis and Un_Translatability, I have further touched upon
market logics and the medium of the book itself, taking on the question of cover image. With
several examples of book covers, and drawing on the letter exchange between Franz Kafka and
his editor, I have revealed that the image of a large insect, which the author himself had asked
not to be used, has become so commonplace in publications of this novella that it is often used to
identify the entire text, and placed on book covers. Pondering the question of visuality, I made
the point that while the written text itself may be an abstract medium, allowing the reader to try
to imagine what may be otherwise unimaginable, the form of the printed book still carries with it
aspects of visuality, which will inform how a reader approaches the text before ever having read
its first page.
Lastly, I have used digital technology to make another case for my interpretation over
those by other translators: Using a piece of software that analyzes and displays sentence length, I
have illustrated in the last part of my first chapter that the translations by both Corngold and
Bernofsky diverge from Kafka’s original in terms of words per sentence. This may seem ironic,
given my constant rambling against visuality throughout this chapter; yet, this data visualization
has served to drive home my point: I have presented bar graphs that illustrate how long Kafka’s
sentences in the original German of this text are, and have shown that the translations by
Corngold and Bernofsky, unlike my own retranslation, differ from this in important ways.
The Phenomenal Body
I have remained with the text of Die Verwandlung in my second chapter, but have here turned
towards Gregor’s sensoria. Building upon my earlier insights about the translation of abstract and
227
polysemous writing, I have shown here that the Kafka text engages in readerly disorientation: I
have demonstrated that author Kafka employs what I have discussed in this chapters as Anti-
Ekphrasis, the impossibility to visualize on the part of the reader, while at the same time putting
forth a highly visual writing style. Through close-readings from several passages of Die
Verwandlung, presented in the German original and my retranslation, I have laid out my claims
by showing that the text is highly visual, while at the same time impossible to visualize. My
analysis has shown that the text establishes imaginary impressions, before then turning away,
thus leaving the reader with an incoherent, unclear notion of what may be going on within the
story.
Through this analysis, I have shown that the text distorts readerly perception foreclosing
the reader’s possibility to visualize. This results in a split between physical and phenomenal body
of the protagonist Gregor Samsa, and the subsequent notion that the reader can never be certain
whether or not the described observations within the text are (un-)reliable, thus leaving the
reader with enigmatic observations. With what I have discussed as a blurring of the lines between
illusion and delusion, I have thus illustrated the text’s effect of creating fractured references to
embodiment, which, as I have presented in depth, leads to a breakdown of protagonist Gregor
Samsa’s Gestalt, the affective experience of which this text invites. This breakdown of Gregor’s
Gestalt, who never comes into being as an embodied Other for the reader, but rather as a
Schreckgestalt, a frightening figure, one that exists in the reader’s imagination, but that cannot be
grasped visually, since it lacks a coherent body.
The concept of Schreckgestalt marks one of my central insights in this second chapter: In
my discussion of readerly affects, I have argued that by precluding a subject-object split, Die
228
Verwandlung locks readers inside Gregor’s body while it undergoes sensorial unrest. In doing so,
author Kafka moves readers towards pondering incoherent bodily sensations, which are
presented as the experience of sensorial chaos. To support my claims in this part, I have drawn
on several moments within the text to argue that Gregor relies on those around him to make
sense of himself, and can only understand himself by monitoring other characters’ reactions to
himself. In this part of the second chapter, I have returned once again to the exchange between
Gregor and the Bedienerin, to illustrate the rapid change within Gregor’s understanding of
himself in the one moment when another character does not shy away from looking at him.
As I have demonstrated with my return to the above-described exchange, Gregor’s ability
to comprehend his bodily sensoria has gotten lost, and he is no longer able to make sense of
himself. Due to this absence of a logos, I have argued that any attempt at phenomenology thus
comes to a halt in this text. Gregor Samsa’s body, as has been my central insight here, can only
be understood as phenomenal: The reader is placed in the center of its phenomenal impressions,
while at the same time lacking the logos, the capacity to make any coherent sense of these
impressions. This chaos, as I have shown with various examples from the text, is evoked through
a steady tension, since readers’ attention is continually drawn towards Gregor’s body where it,
due to the ambiguity and abstraction of descriptions, never finds a concrete object to direct itself
at. Drawing on my arguments about translation and polysemy from the first chapter, I have
subsequently made the point that in cultivating such sensorial chaos, author Franz Kafka creates
disorganized affects that float around, both the Samsa family home and the text of the novella
itself, paralleling the fractured body parts of the protagonist, who is experienced sensually, not
rationally, by the reader.
229
Lastly, I have focused on Gregor’s reliance on his surroundings, which he needs in order
to make sense of himself, to contemplate his family’s treatment of him. Building upon the
aforementioned exchange between Gregor and the Bedienerin, I have discussed the concept of
pathic projection, wherein I have made the point that it is precisely due to their own insecurities
that the members of the Samsa family avoid looking at Gregor, as well as being looked at by
him.
Plastic, Chimeric, Domestic
The third chapter has marked a move away from the abstract realm of literature, and a turn
towards visuality proper: At the center of my analysis in this chapter sits the John Waters film
Serial Mom. I have focused on Waters’ film to broaden my analysis of the body in media, and
will discuss two main points in this chapter: The notion of camp and kitsch on the one hand, and
hardened, ossified social norms on the other. Drawing on parallels between Die Verwandlung and
Serial Mom, I have argued in this chapter that Gregor Samsa and Beverly Sutphin are in fact
similar in their monomaniac obsession with social norms and respectability
I began this chapter by thinking about this very question, that of respectability and social
milieu, in Die Verwandlung, with its focus on looks and the pressures that come from this. I have
argued here that protagonist Gregor, after having been invisible all his life, suddenly becomes
hyper-visible in the novella, and becomes hyper-aware of this fact. I have asserted here that it is
the attention from other people that he struggles with, more than anything, rather than whatever
may have happened to his physicality. I have underscored that this happens against the backdrop
of complete passivity of the Samsa family, who voice no question as to why this might have
230
happened to Gregor, and who stage no attempts at healing him, or any other kind of intervention.
From this, I have pointed out the importance of the milieu for the individual body, especially in
terms of recognition and embodied subjectivity.
My main goal in this chapter was to move from the individual body of the first two
chapters to the question of the social body: To this end, I have discussed the corpus of the family
unit, and its relation to bourgeoise respectability and normative social norms. Drawing on the
Smith & Petras song with which I had opened the dissertation project, the question in this
chapter was not what it is that “daddy” does, but rather why the activities that this person
engages in are deemed unholy. Drawing on my earlier findings about the Samsa household in
Die Verwandlung, I argued that the Waters film is a queer response to the pressures and maladies
experienced by the Samsas. Drawing on the experience of Gregor’s phenomenal body from my
earlier chapters, I have asked here how the social body can be experienced, and what Waters’
film tells audiences about its affects. One of the aims of this chapter is to show that deciding
what does (and what does not) count as unholy, and enforcing this division, is in itself
monstrous.
In the latter part of this chapter, I have focused especially on the role of the matriarch:
Having spent much of my time on Gregor and his agonies up to this point, I have turned towards
the impositions placed upon women through social roles. With my discussion in this third
chapter, I have moved beyond the Kafka family layout with its powerful (-seeming) father figure,
powerless (-acting) women, and the sturdy female servant, and towards more contemporary
questions of femininity, gender binarism, and -conformity. Drawing on the question of the
dwelling, which I had already discussed in my earlier chapters, I have here once again
231
contemplated the private and public spheres, and the links between normative feminine gender
roles and the façade of the family home. This has allowed me to contemplate the relationship
between monstrosity and domesticity.
In discussing Beverly Sutphin, the protagonist of the film Serial Mom who murders those
violating social norms, I have demonstrated the particular pressures placed upon women within
heteronormative frameworks. In other words, to go back to Smith & Petras, I ask here what
“mommy” might be up to while “daddy” is at the body shop. Showing that she, too, is doing
“something unholy,” I have argued that it is the social script itself that is monstrous, subjecting
individuals into social roles that demand compliance. In this discussion, I have highlighted that
Beverly Sutphin and Gregor Samsa alike are obsessed with their respective social roles, rendered
monstrous by their exaggerated performance thereof.
The Plastic Body
In the fourth and final chapter, I have turned towards electronic music, queerness, and the space
of the night club for my analysis. Employing insights from earlier chapters, I have engaged here
with the 2017 hyperpop song “Immaterial” by the late avant-garde electronic music artist
SOPHIE. Through a close-reading of this song, as well as anecdotal evidence and queer critique,
I have discussed the ways in which the artist engages with social subjection, identificatory
regimes, and the location of desire. Here, too, my analysis has centered on the human body.
Building atop my earlier claims about the phenomenal body, I have in this final chapter
considered the body as plastic, in several senses of the word: I have presented the plastic body as
malleable on the one hand, and as recalcitrant, disobedient, and impossible to be gotten rid of, on
232
the other. As have underscored, the body in this fourth chapter is a queer one, one that resists
normative legibility. Drawing on notions of queer monstrosity, I have argued, this is a body that,
in the realm of Smith & Petras, one may find at the “Body Shop,” relegated to a space that is
deemed unholy.
I have claimed in this chapter that SOPHIE plays with concepts of consumerism and
dialectic materialism, and thereby opens the door for fluid, viscous, and plastic relations to
subjectivity. As my engagement with the song lyrics of “Immaterial” has illustrated, the artist
references social pressures to subject individuals into historically and socially pre-determined,
and importantly linguistically fixed categories. Drawing on my thoughts on social bodies and the
very concreteness or social norms, my work queerness, plasticity, and the body in this chapter
has drawn especially on materialism. For instance, I have discussed what I have referred to as
“gender-affirming slop,” in order to illustrate that the individual human body is shaped by the
materials that surround it, from clothing to foodstuff. With this, I have once more pointed out the
dependence between the subject and its milieu, which I had already been pointing out in my
second and third chapters, where I had discussed Gregor Samsa and Beverly Sutphin in their
relationship to social pressures.
Further, I have tackled the question of escape in this chapter: Drawing on Deleuze to
trace SOPHIE’s ideas backwards to critiques already present in Kafka, with themes such as
environments of enclosure and the Schreckgestalt of social control, I have proposed thinking of
the SOPHIE as Poetics of Disobedience, a further concept that I propose with this project. With
this, I present a positive, utopian outlook, with which I differ from the gloom and death of Die
Verwandlung, which ends in Gregor’s demise. I have shown that escape, resistance, and
233
disobedience are possible within the space of queerness: Especially in the notion of queer
monstrosity, which I have linked back once more to the unholy monstrosity Gregor Samsa and
my proposed concept of Schreckgestalt from the third chapter, I have brought a discussion of
queerness and dis/ability into my analysis, with which I have further added to my elaborations on
embodiment and subjectivity. Finally, my analysis has culminated in an argument for a shift from
subjection to projection, wherein I have argued that SOPHIE gestures towards an elsewhere in
which freedom and fluidity are possible, moving beyond materialism and material reality.
234
References
Abdur-Rahman, Aliyyah. “Against the Closet. Racial Logic and the Bodily Basis/Biases of
Sexual Identity.” Against the Closet: Black Political Longing and the Erotics of Race.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2012. Print. 1-24.
Adorno, Theodor. “People are Looking at You.” Minima Moralia. Einaudi, 1974.
–––. and Max Horkheimer. 2007 (1947). “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass
Deception.” Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader, SAGE Publications Ltd, 2007, pp. 34–43,
doi:10.4135/9781446269534.n4.
Agamben, Giorgio, transl. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life.
Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. Print.
Ahmed, Sara. Strange Encounters: Embodied Others in Postcoloniality. London: Routledge,
2000.
–––. 2006. Queer Phenomenology: Orientations, Objects, Others. Durham, NC: Duke University
Press.
–––. 2010. The Promise of Happiness. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
“Ambiguity.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary, https://www.oed.com/
search?searchType=dictionary&q=ambiguity.
Anders, Günther. [1984]. Mensch ohne Welt: Schriften zur Kunst und Literatur. Munich,
Germany: C.H.Beck, 1993.
Apter, Emily. Against World Literature: On the Politics of Untranslatabiliy. London and New
York: Verso, 2013. Print.
Arendt, Hannah. “The Jew as Pariah.” Jewish Social Studies, V ol. 6, No. 2 (Apr., 1944), pp.
99-122
Barker, Meg-John, and Jules Scheele. 2016. Queer: A Graphic History. Berkeley, CA: Icon
Books.
Barthes, Roland. 1967. The Death of the Author.
–––. 1975. The Pleasure of the Text, translated by Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang.
–––. 1977. Image Music Text, translated by Stephen Heath. London: Fontana.
Bauman, Zygmunt. Strangers at Our Door. Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2016. Print.
Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. 2021. “SOPHIE, Acclaimed A V ANT-POP Producer, Dies Aged 34.”
The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 30 Jan. 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/
music/2021/jan/30/SOPHIE-acclaimed-avant-pop-producer-dies-aged-34.
Benjamin, Walter, Trans. Harry Zohn. “The Trask of the Translator” (1923). The Translation
Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, Routledge, 2012, pp. 69–82.
Bergson, Henri. Matter and Memory. New York: Zone Books, 1988.
Berman, Antoine. “Translation and the Trials of the Foreign.” Trans. Lawrence Venuti. The
Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, Routledge, 2012, pp. 284-297.
Biderman, Shai, and Ido Lewit, eds. Mediamorphosis: Kafka and the Moving Image. Columbia
University Press, 2016.
235
Blank, Hanne. “The Marrying Type.” Straight: The Surprisingly Short History of
Heterosexuality. Boston: Beacon Press, 2012. Print. 67-94.
Borges, Jorge Luis. “The Translators of the Thousand and One Nights.” Trans. Esther Allen. The
Translation Studies Reader, edited by Lawrence Venuti, Routledge, 2012, pp. 34-48.
Bruce, Iris. “Elements of Jewish Folklore in Kafka’s Metamorphosis.” The Metamorphosis.
Translated and Edited by Stanley Corngold. New York: Norton & Company. 1996.
79-125.
Buber, Martin. I and Thou. Trans Walter Kaufmann. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Burke, Seán. The Death and Return of the Author: Criticism and Subjectivity in Barthes,
Foucault and Derrida. Edinburgh University Press, 2008. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/
10.3366/j.ctvxcrgjt. Accessed 8 Jan. 2021.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble. New York: Routledge, 1990.
–––. Bodies That Matter. On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York: Routledge, 1993.
–––. The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1997. Print.
–––. “From Interiority to Gender Performatives.” Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject:
A reader. Ed. Fabio Cleto. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. pp. 361-368
–––. Giving an Account of Oneself. New York, NY: Fordham University Press, 2005.
Cervantes-Gómez, Xiomara (Vincent). 2016. “Sacred Geography: A Queer Latino Theological
Response to Orlando.” Religion Dispatches. 13 June. 2016.
Conger, Kate, Ryan Mac, and Mike Isaac. “Confusion and Frustration Reign as Elon Musk Cuts
Half of Twitter’s Staff.” NYTimes. The New York Times, Nov. 04, 2022. Accessed Jan.
12, 2023.
Corngold, Stanley. Lambent Traces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004.
Deleuze, Gilles. 1990 (1969). The Logic of Sense. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
–––, and Félix Guattari. 1983. “What Is a Minor Literature?” Mississippi Review, vol. 11, no. 3,
pp. 13–33. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20133921. Accessed 23 Nov. 2020.
–––. Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature. Trans. Dana Polan. Minneapolis: The University of
Minnesota Press, 1986. Print.
–––. Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. New York City: Penguin, 2009 [1977].
–––. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1987.
–––. 1997. Essays Critical and Clinical. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Derrida, Jacques, and Thomas. Dutoit. On the Name. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
1995.
–––. Monolingualism of the Other; or, The Prosthesis of Origin. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1998.
–––. “Des tours de Babel.” Trans. Joseph Graham. Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Vol. 1. Ed.
Peggy Kamuf, Elizabeth Rottenberg. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007.
236
–––. “What Is a ‘Relevant’ Translation?”. Trans. Lawrence Venuti. Critical Inquiry, V ol. 27, No.
2 (Winter, 2001), pp. 174-200.
––– and David Wills. “The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow).” Critical Inquiry,
V ol. 28, No. 2 (Winter, 2002), pp. 369-418.
Eco, Umberto. 1989. The Open Work. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Print.
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press.
–––. 1995. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. V ol. 2nd Vintage books ed. New
York: Vintage.
–––. 1999. Abnormal: Lectures at the Collège de France 1974-1975. New York: Picador.
“Franz Kafka an den Kurt Wolff Verlag (G. H. Meyer).” Universität Wien. Universität Wien,
https://homepage.univie.ac.at/werner.haas/1915/kw15-028.htm
Fraser, Nancy. 2014. “Behind Marx’s Hidden Abode. For an Expanded Conception of
Capitalism.” New Left Review 86.
Freud, Sigmund. “On Narcissism.” 1914.
“Geziefer.” Duden: Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition, Synonyme, Herkunft, Duden
Online. www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Geziefer.
Goodden, Christian. “Points of Departure.” The Kafka Debate: New Perspectives for Our Time,
Ed. Angel Flores. New York, NY: Gordian Press, 1977. pp. 2-9.
Gros, Frédéric. 2021. DISOBEY! A Philosophy of Resistance. Trans. David Fernbach. New York:
Verso.
Haraway, Donna J. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2016.
Halberstam, Jack. Female Masculinity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998. Print.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Plastizität des Geistes. Germany: Meiner, 1988 [1807].
Herring, Scott. Another Country: Queer Anti-Urbanism. New York: NYU Press, 2010.
Husserl, Edmund. 1973. Experience and Judgement, trans. James S. Churchill and Karl Ameriks.
Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, sections 10-11.
Jackson, Zakiyyah Iman. Becoming Human: Matter and Meaning in an Antiblack World. New
York City: New York University Press, 2020.
Jacobs, Carol. “The Monstrosity of Translation.” MLN, Dec., 1975, V ol. 90, No. 6, Comparative
Literature: Translation: Theory and Practice (Dec., 1975). pp. 755-766
Jakobson, Roman. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation” The Translation Studies Reader, ed.
Lawrence Venuti. New York and London: Routledge, 2000. pp. 113-118.
Jameson, Frederic. Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 1992.
Jeffords, Susan. Hard Bodies: Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era. New Brunswick, New
Jersey: Rutgers UP, 1994. Print.
Kafka, Franz. Die Verwandlung (1915). Stuttgart: Reclams Universal-Bibliothek, 2017. Print.
237
–––. The Metamorphosis. Translated and Edited by Stanley Corngold. New York: Norton &
Company. 1996.
–––. The Metamorphosis, Trans. David Willye. 2005. Project Gutenberg, http://
www.gutenberg.org/files/5200/5200-h/5200-h.htm
–––. The Metamorphosis. Trans. by Susan Bernofsky. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company,
2014. Print.
Kilcher, Andreas. Franz Kafka: Die Zeichnungen. Munich, Germany: C.H.Beck, 2021.
Koelb, Clayton. Kafka: A Guide for the Perplexed. Chippenham, Wiltshire: Continuum
International Publishing Group, 2010.
Lacan, Jacques. The Language of the Self: The Function of Language in Psychoanalysis,
translated by Anthony Wilden. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1968.
–––. Écrits: The First Complete Edition in English, translated by Bruce Fink. New York: Norton,
2009.
Lavietes, Matt. “Kim Petras thanks ‘incredible transgender legends’ in Grammy speech.” NBC
News. NBCNews, Feb. 06, 2023.
Le Guin, Ursula K. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story. Harper Perennial, 2017
[1973].
Liu, Petrus. “Queer Theory and the Specter of Materialism.” Left of Queer, eds. David L. Eng
and Jasbir K. Puar. Social Text (2020) 38 (4 (145)): 25–47
Madonna. “Material Girl (Official Video).” Music Video, 4:45. 1984. August 25, 2017. https://
youtu.be/6p-lDYPR2P8
Malabou, Catherine. What Should We Do with Our Brain? Trans Sebastian Rand. Fordham
University Press, 2008. Print.
–––, and Carolyn Shread. 2010. Plasticity at the Dusk of Writing: Dialectic, Destruction,
Deconstruction. Columbia University Press. https://doi.org/10.7312/mala14524.
Marx, Karl. [1844] “Estranged Labor.” Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts. Amherst, MA:
Prometheus Books, 1988.
–––. Preface to a Critique of Political Economy. Electric Book Co, 2001 [1859].
Meadows, Donella, et al. 1972. The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books.
“Mensch.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mensch.
Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 2013 (1962). Phenomenology of Perception. Taylor and Francis.
Monroe, Marilyn. “Marilyn Monroe Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.” Film Clip, Gentlemen
Prefer Blondes, 5:35. 1953. Jan. 10, 2016. https://youtu.be/knLd8bfeWtI
Muñoz, José E. Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999. Print.
–––. “Feeling Utopia.” Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity. New York: New
York University Press, 2009.
Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1997 (1876). Untimely Meditations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge
University Press.
238
Nolan, Jessica M. “Social Norms and their Enforcement.” The Oxford Handbook of Social
Influence. Eds. Stephen G. Harkins, et al. Oxford University Press, 2015.
O’Neill, Patrick. Transforming Kafka: Translation Effects. University of Toronto Press, 2014.
Print.
Pahl, Katrin. “Forging Feeling: Kleist’s Theatrical Theory of Re-layed Emotionality.” MLN 124,
2009. pp 666–682
–––. “Mourning Kafka.” Discourse, V ol. 33, No. 3, 2011. Wayne State University Press. pp.
342-366
Pedwell, Carolyn. “De-Colonising Empathy: Thinking Affect Transnationally.” Samyukta: A
Journal of Women’ s Studies, Special Issue, “Decolonizing Theories of the Emotions.” Eds
S. Gunew V ol XVI (1) (Jan 2016): 27-49.
Penrose, L. S., and R. Penrose. “Impossible Objects: A Special Type of Visual Illusion.” British
Journal of Psychology, vol. 49, no. 1, 1958, pp. 31. ProQuest, http://libproxy.usc.edu/
login?url=https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/impossible-objects-special-type-
visual-illusion/docview/1293574352/se-2?accountid=14749.
Preciado, Paul B. Can the Monster Speak? A Report to an Academy of Psychoanalysts. Trans.
Frank Wynne. Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2021.
Rosa, Hartmut. Resonance: A Sociology of Our Relationship to the World. Trans. James C.
Wagner. Medford, MA: Polity Press, 2019.
Ruddick, Sara. “Maternal Thinking as a Feminist Standpoint.” The Feminist Standpoint Theory
Reader: Intellectual & Political Controversies. Ed. Sandra Harding. New York:
Routledge, 2004. Print. 161-168.
Russell, Legacy. Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. London and New York: Verso, 2020. Print.
Samuels, Ellen. Fantasies of Identification: Disability, Gender, Race. New York: New York
University Press, 2014.
Scott, Darieck. “Fanon’s Muscles: (Black) Power Revisited.” Extravagant Abjection, 17:32–94.
New York, USA: New York University Press, 2020.
Sedgwick, Eve. “From ‘Wilde, Nietzsche, and the Sentimental Relations of the Male Body’.”
Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader. Ed. Fabio Cleto. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1999. pp. 207-220
–––. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1990.
Salamon, Gayle. Assuming a Body: Transgender and Rhetorics of Materiality, Columbia
University Press, 2010.
Smith, Sam. “Unholy (feat. Kim Petras).” Digital Recording, 2022.
Sontag, Susan. “Notes on Camp.” Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader. Ed.
Fabio Cleto. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999. 53-65
–––. “Against Interpretation.” Against Interpretation and Other Essays. New York: Farrar, Straus
& Giroux, 1966.
SOPHIE. “Immaterial.” Oil of Every Peal Un – Insides. Future Classic, Digital Recording, 2017.
239
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, 2000. “The Politics of Translation.” The Translation Studies
Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, Routledge.
Stahlberg, Michael. Faber-Castell. Commercial, 1992. https://www.luerzersarchive.com/en/
magazine/commercial-detail/faber-castell-23356.html
Straus, Nina Pelikan. “Transforming Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis.” The Metamorphosis.
Translated and Edited by Stanley Corngold. New York: Norton & Company. 1996. pp.
126-140
Tongson, Karen. Relocations: Queer Suburban Imaginaries. New York: NYU Press, 2011.
“Ungeziefer.” Duden: Rechtschreibung, Bedeutung, Definition, Synonyme, Herkunft, Duden
Online. www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Ungeziefer.
Venuti, Lawrence. 2012. “Translating Derrida on Translation: Relevance and Disciplinary
Resistance.” The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence Venuti, Routledge.
–––. 2012. “Translation as Cultural Politics.” The Translation Studies Reader, ed. Lawrence
Venuti, Routledge.
Wiegman, Robyn, and Elizabeth A. Wilson. “Antinormativity’s Queer Conventions.” Queer
Theory Without Antinormativity, eds. Robyn Wiegman and Elizabeth A. Wilson.
Differences, V olume 26, Issue 1, May 2015.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. Tractatus Logicus-Philosophicus, trans. D.F. Pears and B.F. McGuinness.
London: Routledge, 2001.
Woods, Michelle. Kafka Translated: How Translators have Shaped our Reading of Kafka. New
York and London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
240
Addendum: Franz Kafka, DIE VERWANDLUNG
PART I
When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from restless dreams he found himself in his bed,
transformed into an unholy monstrosity. He lay on his armor-like back, and when lifting his head
a little, he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections,
which the bedding was hardly able to cover, ready to slide off any moment. His many legs,
pitifully thin in relation to the rest of him, twitched helplessly before his eyes.
“What has happened to me?” he thought. This was no dream. His room, a real, albeit somewhat
small private room, lay quietly between its four familiar walls. Above the table, on which was
spread out a collection of fabric samples — Samsa was a traveling salesman — hung the picture
that he had recently cut out of a magazine and placed in a beautiful, gilded frame. It showed a
lady who, decked out in a fur hat and fur boa, sat upright and lifted towards the viewer a heavy
fur muff, into which her entire forearm disappeared.
Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Raindrops could be heard hitting
the window pane, which made him feel all melancholy. “How about I sleep a little bit longer and
forget all this nonsense,” he thought, but that was something he was unable to do because he was
used to sleeping on his right side, and in his present state could not get into that position.
However hard he threw himself onto his right side, he always rolled back to where he was. He
must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he would not have to see the fidgeting
241
legs, and only stopped when he began to feel a mild, dull pain in his side that he had never felt
before.
“Oh god,” he thought, “what a strenuous profession I have chosen! Traveling day after day. The
stress of a business traveler s is much greater than that in the actual business at home, and on top
of that the curse of traveling has been inflicted upon me, worries about catching train
connections on time, bad and irregular food, contact with different people all the time so that one
can never get to know anybody or become cordial with them. May the devil come and take it
all!” He felt a slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on his back towards the
headboard so that he could better lift his head; found where the itch was, and saw that it was
covered with various little white dots which he did not know what to make of; and when he tried
to feel the spot with one of his legs he drew it quickly back, because as soon as he touched it, a
cold shudder ran through him.
He slid back into his former position. “Getting up early all the time,” he thought, “makes one
stupid. A human needs to get enough sleep. Other traveling salesmen live like harem women. For
instance, whenever I go back to the guest house mid-morning to copy out the contracts, the
gentlemen are always still sitting there, having breakfast. I should try that with my boss; I would
be out on the street immediately. But who knows, maybe that would be the best thing for me. If I
did not have my parents to think about I would have quit a long time ago, I would have gone up
to the boss and told him my opinion from the bottom of my heart. He would fall right off his
desk! And it is strange anyway to be sitting up there on your desk, talking down to your
242
subordinate from up there, especially when they have to go right up close because the boss is
hard of hearing. Well, there is still some hope; once I have the money together to pay off my
parents’ debt to him —it should take another five or six years— that is definitely what I will do.
That is when I will make the big change. First of all though I need to get up, my train leaves at
five.”
And he looked over at the alarm clock ticking on his dresser. “God Almighty!” he thought. It was
half past six and the hands were quietly moving forwards, it was even later than half past, more
like quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not rung? He could see from the bed that it had been
set for four o’clock as it should have been; it certainly must have rung. Yes, but was it possible to
quietly sleep through that furniture-rattling noise? True, he had not slept peacefully, but probably
all the more deeply because of that. What should he do now? The next train left at seven; if he
were to catch that he would have to rush like mad and the collection of samples was still not
packed, and he did not at all feel particularly fresh and lively. And even if he did catch the train
he would not avoid the anger of his boss, as the office assistant would have been there to see the
five o’clock train leave, he would have put in his report about Gregor not being there a long time
ago. The assistant was the boss’s man, spineless, and devoid of empathy. What if he called in
sick? But that would be extremely awkward and suspicious, as in fifteen years with the company,
Gregor had not been sick a single time. His boss would certainly pay him a visit together with
the doctor from the medical insurance company, accuse his parents of having a lazy son, and
accept the doctor’s recommendation not to make any claim as the doctor believed that no-one
was ever ill but that many were merely work-shy. Also, would he have been entirely wrong in
243
this case? Gregor did in fact, apart from excessive drowsiness after sleeping for so long, feel
completely well and was actually even hungrier than usual.
He was still hurriedly thinking all this through, unable to decide to get out of the bed, when the
clock struck quarter to seven. There was a cautious knock at the door by the head of his bed.
“Gregor,” someone called –it was his mother– “it is quarter to seven. Were you not going to take
off?” That gentle voice! Gregor was shocked when he heard his own voice answering, which was
unmistakably his own, but which had, as if from deep inside him, a painful and uncontrollable
squeaking mixed in with it, the words could be made out at first but then there was a sort of echo
which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether they had heard properly or not.
Gregor had wanted to give a full answer and explain everything, but in the circumstances
contented himself with saying: “Yes, mother, yes, thank you, I am getting up now.” The change
in Gregor’s voice probably could not be noticed outside through the wooden door, as his mother
was satisfied with this explanation and shuffled away. But this short conversation made the other
members of the family aware that Gregor, against their expectations was still at home, and soon
his father came knocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist. “Gregor, Gregor,” he
called, “what is wrong?” And after a short while he called again with a warning deepness in his
voice: “Gregor! Gregor!” At the other side door his sister came plaintively: “Gregor? Are you
unwell? Do you need anything?” Gregor answered to both sides: “I am ready now,” and tried by
enunciating very carefully and putting long pauses between each individual word to remove
anything suspicious from his voice. His father went back to his breakfast, but his sister
whispered: “Gregor, open the door, I beg of you.” But Gregor was far from willing to open the
244
door, and was instead happy for his cautious habit, acquired from his traveling, of locking all
doors at night even when he was at home.
He wanted to first get up quietly and without getting disturbed, to get dressed, and most of all to
have breakfast, and then contemplate what to do next, because he was well aware that he would
not reach any reasonable conclusions just laying in bed. He remembered that he had often felt a
slight pain in bed, perhaps caused by laying awkwardly, but that had always turned out to be pure
imagination, and he could not wait to see how today’s imaginations would slowly evaporate. He
did not doubt the slightest that the change in his voice was nothing more than the first sign of a
serious cold, an occupational hazard for traveling salesmen.
Throwing off the covers was easy; he only had to blow himself up a little and they fell off by
themselves. But it became difficult after that, especially as he was so exceptionally broad. He
would have used his arms and his hands to push himself up; but instead of them he only had all
those little legs that were in perpetual motion, and which he was moreover unable to control.
When he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first one that would stretch itself out; and
when he finally managed to do what he wanted with that leg, all the others began to work, as if
set free, in highest, painful agitation. “Not to pointlessly loiter in bed” Gregor said to himself.
Firstly he wanted to get out of bed with the lower part of his body, but this lower part, which he
by the way had not yet seen and which he could not quite imagine, turned out to be too hard to
move; it went so slowly; and finally, almost gone wild, when he carelessly shoved himself
245
forwards with all the force he could gather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against the
lower bedpost, and the burning pain that he felt taught him that the lower part of his body might
perhaps, at present, be the most sensitive.
Thus he tried to get the upper part of his body out of bed first, carefully turning his head to the
side. This he managed quite easily, and despite its breadth and weight, the bulk of his body
eventually followed slowly in the direction of the head. But when he had at last got his head out
of bed and into the air it occurred to him that if he were to continue like this and let himself fall,
a miracle would have to happen in order for his head to not get injured. And he could not lose
consciousness now at any price; better to just remain in bed.
It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been earlier, but when he lay there
sighing, and was once more watching his legs as they struggled against each other even harder
than before, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing order to this chaos. He told
himself once again that it was not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most reasonable
thing would be to sacrifice everything, even if there was just the smallest hope to get out of bed
by doing so. At the same time though he did not forget to remind himself that much better than
rushing to desperate conclusions was calm and calmest consideration. At times like this he would
direct his eyes as clearly as he could to the window, but unfortunately little hope or joy was to be
derived from the sight of the morning fog that was even enveloping the other side of the narrow
street. “Seven o’clock already,” he said to himself when the clock struck again, “seven o’clock
246
already and still such fog.” And for a while he lay there quietly, breathing lightly as if he perhaps
expected the complete silence to bring things back to their real and natural conditions.
But then he said to himself: “Before it strikes quarter past seven I will definitely have to have got
properly out of bed. And by then somebody from the business will have come to ask what has
happened to me as well, as they open up the shop before seven.” And so he set about swinging
the entire length of his body out of bed all at the same time. If he were to fall out of bed in this
way his head, which he would keep raised sharply while falling, would most likely remain
unharmed. His back seemed to be hard, and probably nothing would happen to it falling onto the
carpet. His main concern was for the loud noise he was about to make, and which even through
all the doors would probably cause not alarm, but at least concern. But this was to be risked.
When Gregor was already sticking halfway out of the bed —the new method was more of a
game than an effort, all he had to do was rock back and forth— it occurred to him how simple
everything would be if somebody were to come help him. Two strong people —he had his father
and the maid in mind— would have been more than enough; they would only have to push their
arms under his arched back, peel him out of bed, bend down with the load and then be patient
and careful as he would swing over onto the floor, where then the little legs would hopefully get
to work. Now, aside from the fact that the doors were locked, should he really have called for
help? Despite all of his misery, he could not help but smile at this thought.
247
Soon thereafter he had already moved so far across that it would be hard for him to keep his
balance if he rocked even harder, and he would soon have to make the final decision, because in
five minutes it would be quarter past seven, — when the doorbell rang. “That must be someone
from the business,” he said to himself and nearly froze, while his little legs only danced around
all the more franticly. For a moment everything remained quiet. “They are not opening the door,”
Gregor said to himself, caught in some senseless hope. But then, as always, the maid walked
with her firm step towards the door and opened it. Gregor only needed to hear the visitor’s first
greeting and he knew who it was – the assistant manager himself. Why was Gregor the only one
condemned to work for a company where the slightest shortcoming immediately raised the
greatest suspicion? Were all employees, every last one of them, Lumpen, was there not one of
them who was faithful and devoted who would get such a bad conscience that he could not get
out of bed if he did not spend at least a couple of hours in the morning on company business?
Did it really not suffice to let one of the apprentices make enquiries —assuming enquiries were
even necessary— did the assistant manager have to come himself, and was it necessary to show
the entire, innocent family that this was so suspicious that the investigation of it was to be trusted
only to the reasoning of the assistant manager? And more because these thoughts had made him
upset than because of any proper decision, he swung himself out of bed with full force. There
was a loud bang, but a true noise it was not. His fall was softened a little by the carpet, and
Gregor’s back was also more elastic than he had thought, which made the sound dull and not too
noticeable. Only his head he had not held carefully enough and had hit it; he turned it and rubbed
it against the carpet full of anger and pain.
248
“Something has fallen in there,” said the assistant manager in the room to the left. Gregor tried to
imagine whether something similar could ever happen to the assistant manager, too, as it had to
him today; one had to admit that this was a possibility, really. But as if in gruff reply to this
question, the assistant manager took a couple firm steps in the other room, making his polished
leather boots creak. From the room to his right whispered the sister to notify Gregor: “Gregor,
the assistant manager is here.” “Yes, I know,” said Gregor to himself; but he did not dare to raise
his voice loud enough for his sister to hear him.
“Gregor,” now said the father from the room to the left, “the assistant manager has come by and
wants to know why you did not leave on the early train. We do not know what to say to him. And
by the way, he wants to speak with you personally. So please open this door. I am sure he will be
good enough to forgive the untidiness of your room.” “Good morning, Mr. Samsa,” the assistant
manager interjected kindly. “He is not well,” said the mother to the assistant manager, while the
father was still speaking through the door. “He is not well, please believe me. Why else would
Gregor ever miss a train! The boy only ever thinks about the business. I am almost angry that he
never goes out in at night; he has been in town for eight days now, but has stayed home every
night. He sits at our table and just reads the paper or studies train schedules. His idea of leisure is
doing handiwork. Within two or three evenings for instance, he carved a little frame; you will be
amazed by how pretty it is; it is hanging in his room; you will see it right when Gregor opens the
door. Anyway, I am glad that you are here, Mr. Assistant Manager; we would not have been able
to get Gregor to open the door by ourselves; he is so stubborn; and I am sure he is unwell, even
though he denied that this morning.” “I’ll be right there,” said Gregor slowly and thoughtfully,
249
but without moving so that he would not miss a single word of the conversation. “Well I cannot
think of any other explanation myself, ma’am,” said the assistant manager, “I hope that it is
nothing serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we businessmen ever become slightly
unwell, then –as you like, fortunately or unfortunately– we simply have to get over this for the
sake of the business.” “Well then, can the assistant manager come in to see you already?” asked
the impatient father, knocking at the door again. “No,” said Gregor. In the room to his right, an
embarrassing silence set in; in the room to his left, the sister began to sob.
Why would his sister not go and join the others? She had probably only just got up and had not
even begun to get dressed. And why was she crying? Because he was not getting up and letting
the chief clerk in, because he was in danger of losing his position and because then his boss
would go back to pursuing their parents with the same old demands? Now these were
unnecessary worries as of yet. Gregor was still there and had not the slightest intention of leaving
his family. For the time being he just lay there on the carpet, and no one, had they known of the
condition that he was in, would seriously have asked of him to let the chief clerk in. For this
minor discourtesy, for which a suitable excuse could easily be found later on, would not be
something that he would lose his position over. And to Gregor it appeared much more reasonable
to leave him alone for now instead of disturbing him with cries and conversations. But it was this
insecurity that besieged the others and that was the reason for their behavior.
“Mr. Samsa,” the chief clerk now called, his voice raised, “what is going on? You barricade
yourself in your room, only answer with yes and no, cause your parents great, unnecessary
250
disstress and miss –just by the way– your business duties in quite a scandalous way. I am
speaking here on behalf of your parents and of your employer, and ask of you in all sincerity for
an immediate, clear explanation. I am astonished, I am astonished. I thought I knew you to be a
calm and sensible person, and now you suddenly seem to want to start showing off with peculiar
whims. The boss did suggest a possible reason for your failure to appear this morning, it is true –
it concerned the money that was recently entrusted to you– but I truly almost gave him my word
of honor that this could not be accurate. But now I see here your incomprehensible stubbornness
and am losing any desire whatsoever to intercede on your behalf. And your position is not the
most secure anyway. I had originally intended to say all of this to you in private, but since you
cause me to waste my time here for no good reason I cannot see why your parents should not
learn of it, too. Your performance as of late has thus been very unsatisfactory; it may not the time
of year to do especially good business, we acknowledge that; but there simply is no time of year
to do no business at all, Mr. Samsa, there cannot be.”
“But Mr. Chief Clerk,” called Gregor, beside himself and forgetting all else in the excitement, “I
will open up immediately, momentarily. I am slightly unwell, sudden dizziness, I have been
unable to get up. I am still currently in bed. Just now I am feeling well again, though. I am just
getting out of bed. Be patient for just a little moment! It is not quite as easy as I thought. But I
am quite well now. How this can just descend upon a person! Just last night I was quite alright,
my parents know about it, or rather, already last night I had a small symptom of it. People should
have noticed it. Oh why did I not report this to the business! But one always thinks that they can
get over an illness without resting at home. Mr. Chief Clerk! Spare my parents! There is no basis
251
to any of the things that you are accusing me of; no one ever said a word to me about any of this.
You might not have read the latest contracts that I sent in. By the way, I will leave with the eight
o’clock train, these few hours of rest have strengthened me. Please do not wait up for me, Mr.
Chief Clerk; I will be in the office myself momentarily, and please be so good as to report this
back to the boss and give him my regards!”
And while Gregor hastily rushed out these words and hardly knew what he was saying, he had –
probably because of the practice that he had had in bed– easily approached the nightstand and
was now trying to pull himself up on it. He truly wanted to open the door, truly wanted to let
himself be seen and to speak with the chief clerk; he was eager to find out what the others, that
were now being so insistent to see him, would say when they did. If they were shocked then
Gregor would cease to carry any responsibility and could rest. If they were, however, to accept
everything quietly, then he, too, would have no reason to be upset and could, if he hurried,
indeed be at the train station at eight o’clock. At first he slid off the smooth nightstand a few
times, but then at last he gave himself one last swing and stood there upright; he no longer paid
any attention to the pain in the lower part of his body, despite its burning. Now he let himself fall
against the back of a nearby chair and held tightly to the edges of it with his little legs. With this
he had gained power over himself, and fell silent so that he could listen to the chief clerk.
“Did you understand a single word of that?” the chief clerk asked the parents, “surely he is not
trying to make fools of us.” “For god’s sake!” the tearful mother cried out, “he may be seriously
ill and here we are tormenting him. Grete! Grete!” she then cried. “Mother?” the sister called
252
from the other side. They were communicating across Gregor’s room. “You have to go for the
doctor immediately. Gregor is ill. Quick, the doctor. Did you hear Gregor speak just now?” “That
was the voice of an animal,” said the chief clerk, noticeably quiet in contrast to the mother’s
cries. “Anna! Anna!” the father called across the entrance hall into the kitchen, and clapped his
hands, “a locksmith is to be called here, now!” And thus the two girls, their skirts swishing, ran
out through the entrance hall –how did the sister get dressed so quickly?– wrenching open the
front door. A sound of the door banging shut again was not to be heard; they must have had left it
open, as is common in apartments where something terrible has happened.
Gregor, by contrast, had become much calmer. So they could no longer understand his words
anymore, although they seemed clear enough to him, clearer than before, maybe because of his
ears adapting. But at least they now believed that there was something not quite alright with him,
and were willing to help him. The confidence and wisdom of these first responses to his situation
made him feel better. He once again felt included among men and expected from both, the doctor
and the locksmith –without really distinguishing one from the other– great and surprising
achievements. To make his voice as clear as possible for the impending crucial discussions, he
coughed a little, but attempting do this not too loudly as even this sound might well sound
different from a human cough, which he was no longer sure he could judge for himself. In the
other room, meanwhile, it had become entirely quiet. Perhaps his parents were sitting at the table
with whispering with the chief clerk, perhaps they were all listening pressed against the door.
253
Gregor slowly pushed his way over to the door with the armchair, once there let go of it, threw
himself onto the door, holding himself upright against it –the clenched ends of his legs had a
little adhesive– and rested there for a little while to recover from the effort. Then he set about
using his mouth to turn the key in the lock. It seemed, unfortunately, that he had no proper teeth
–what was he going to grasp the key with?– but his jaw was admittedly very strong, with which
he got the key in motion and ignored the fact that he was undoubtedly causing himself some kind
of damage, as a brown fluid came out of his mouth, flowed over the key and dripped onto the
floor. “Listen,” said the chief clerk in the adjoining room, “he is turning the key.” This was great
encouragement for Gregor; but they all should have been cheering him on, the father and the
mother as well: “Good job, Gregor,” they should have cried, “have at it, have at the lock!” And
with the idea that they were all excitedly following his efforts, he mindlessly bit on the key with
all of his strength. Following the turning of the key he danced around the lock, now only keeping
himself upright with his mouth, and hung onto the key, or then pushed it down with the entire
weight of his body as needed. The clear sound of the lock snapping back positively invigorated
Gregor. Regaining his breath he said to himself: “So, I did not need the locksmith,” and pressed
his head on the handle to open the door entirely.
Because he had to open the door in this way, it was already pretty wide open and he not yet to be
seen. He had first to slowly turn himself around one of the double doors, and he had to do it very
carefully if he did not want to crudely fall flat on his back right before entering the room. He was
still occupied with said difficult movement and did not have time to pay attention to anything
else when suddenly he heard the chief clerk exclaim a loud “Oh!” –it sounded like when the
254
wind howls– and now he also saw how he, being the one closest to the door, pressed his hand
against his open mouth and slowly retreated as if driven away by an invisible, steadily pushing
force. The mother –despite the presence of the chief clerk she stood here with her hair still
unkempt, bristled from the night– first looked over at the father with her hands folded, then
walked two steps towards Gregor and sank down onto the floor into her skirts that were
spreading themselves out around her, her face disappearing entirely down onto her chest. The
father, looking hostile, clenched his fists as if wanting to shove Gregor back into his room, then
looked around the living room with uncertainty, covered his eyes with his hands, and wept so
that his powerful chest was shaking.
Now Gregor did not go into the room at all, but leaned against the inside of the other door which
was still held bolted in place, so that only half of his body could be seen, and above it his
sideways-tilted head, with which peered over to the others. Meanwhile it had become much
brighter; clearly visible across the street lay part of the endless, grey-black building –it was a
hospital– with its regular windows harshly piercing the façade; the rain was still falling, but only
with large, individual droplets that were being thrown down to the ground one at a time. The
breakfast dishes lay on the table in vast amounts because for the father, breakfast was the most
important meal of the day, which he dragged out for several hours while reading a number of
different newspapers. On the wall right across hung a photograph of Gregor from his time in the
military which depicted him as a lieutenant, in which he, sword in his hand, smiling carelessly,
demanded respect for his composure and uniform. The door to the entrance hall was open and, as
255
the front door of the apartment was also open, the landing outside and the first of the downward
stairs were visible.
“Well,” said Gregor, well aware that he was the only one who had kept calm, “I will get dressed,
pack up my samples and get going. Do you, do you want to let me go? Well, Mr. Chief Clerk, as
you can see I am not stubborn and I like to work; traveling is arduous, but I could not live
without traveling. Where are you going, Mr. Chief Clerk? Into the business? Yes? Will you report
everything accurately? It may be possible for someone to be temporarily unable to work, but that
is just the right moment to remember previous achievements and consider that later on, after the
removal of hurdles, they will return to work with all the more diligence and concentration. I am
so very indebted to the boss, you are well aware of this. On the other hand I am responsible for
my parents and the sister. I am trapped in a difficult situation, but I will work my way out of it
again. But do not make things any harder for me than they already are. Do take my side at the
office! The traveler is not loved, I know. People think that he makes a lot of money and has a
great time doing it. People have no outward reason to reflect upon this prejudice. But you, Mr.
Chief Clerk, you have a better view of these matter than the rest of the staff does, yes even, if I
may say this in confidence, a better view than the boss himself, who, due to him being an
entrepreneur, may easily err in his judgement in a way that is unfavorable for the employee. You
are also well aware that the traveler, who spends almost the entire year away from the office, can
easily fall victim to gossip, chance, and groundless accusations, against which to defend himself
is truly impossible because most of the time he does not hear about them at all, and when he
does, he only ever hears of them upon his return back home, exhausted from a trip, when he feels
256
the harmful consequences of what has been said about him, no longer able to see clearly what
has caused them in the first place. Mr. Chief Clerk, do not leave before you say at least a single
word to acknowledge that you agree with me at least a little bit!”
But the chief clerk had already turned away as soon as Gregor had started to speak, and only
stared back at him from behind a shrugged shoulder, his lips pouting, as he left. During Gregor’s
speech he did not keep still for one moment but retreated, not taking his eyes off Gregor, steadily
towards the door, moving very gradually, as if there was some secret prohibition against leaving
the room. When he had reached the entrance hall, he took the last step out of the living room
with a movement so sudden that it seemed as if he had burned the sole of his foot. Then in the
hall, he stretched his right hand far out towards the staircase as if out there, some heavenly
redemption was waiting to save him.
Gregor realized that he could under no circumstances let the chief clerk get away in this mood, as
this would put his position in the business into extreme danger. The parents did not understand
all of this very well; over the last years, they had reached the conclusion that this job would
provide for Gregor for his entire life, and besides, they were so preoccupied with the present
worries that they had lost all foresight for the future. But Gregor did have this foresight. The
chief clerk had to be held up, calmed, convinced, and finally won over; the future of both Gregor
and his family depended on it! If only the sister were here! She was smart; she was already
crying when Gregor was still laying quietly on his back. And surely the chief clerk, lover of
women that he was, could have been persuaded by her; she would have closed the front door and
257
would have talked him out of his shocked state in the entrance hall. But his sister was not there,
Gregor himself had to act. And without considering that he was not yet fully aware of how he
could move about in his present state, without considering that maybe –yes perhaps most likely–
his speech had not been understood, he let go of the door; pushed himself through the opening;
tried to walk over to the chief clerk who was ridiculously holding on to the banister with both
hands; but fell immediately, searching for something to hold on to and letting out a little scream,
over and landed on his numerous little legs. This had hardly happened when, for the first time
this morning, he began to feel a sense of bodily wellbeing; the little legs had the solid ground
under them; they completely obeyed him, he noticed positively; they were even eager to carry
him where he wanted to go; and he soon believed that an end to all sorrows was impending. But
in the same moment when he, swaying from side to side while holding back the urge to move,
crouched there on the floor not far from his mother when she, having seemed quite engrossed in
herself, suddenly jumped up with her arms outstretched and her fingers spread, shouting: “Help,
for god’s sake, help!,” held her head tilted as if wanting to see Gregor better, but hurried, in
direct contrast to this, backwards; had forgotten that behind her, the fully set table was; sat down
quickly, once she had reached it, absent-mindedly right on top of it; and did not seem to notice
that beside her, a gush of coffee was pouring down onto the carpet from the jug that had been
knocked over.
“Mother, mother,” Gregor said gently, looking up at her. He had completely forgotten the chief
clerk for a moment; he could, however, not help himself snapping in the air with his jaws several
times at the sight of the flowing coffee. This made the mother scream anew, she fled from the
258
table and fell into the arms of the father who was hurrying towards her. But Gregor did not have
time for his parents now; the chief clerk was already on the stairs; his chin on the banister, he
looked back one the last time. Gregor made a run to catch up with him; the chief clerk must have
been suspecting something, because he leapt over several steps at once and disappeared; “Phew!”
he still shouted, resounding all around the staircase. Unfortunately, this flight of the chief clerk
seemed to completely confuse the father, who had been relatively self-controlled until now,
because instead of running after the chief clerk, or at least or at least not impeding Gregor as he
ran after him, he now seized the chief clerk’s cane, which had been left behind in a chair along
with his hat and overcoat, in his right hand, picked up a large newspaper from the table with his
left, and, stamping his feet, used them to drive Gregor back into his room. None of Gregor’s
pleas helped, none of his pleas were understood, however much he humbly turned his head, his
father merely stamped his feet all the more strongly. Across the room, the mother had pulled
open a window despite the chilly weather, and leaning far out of it she pressed her hands to her
face. A strong draft of air flew in from the narrow street towards the staircase, the curtains flew
up, the newspapers on the table fluttered, and some single pages were blown out onto the floor.
The father pushed relentlessly and made hissing noises like a savage. Gregor, however, had not
yet gotten any practice in moving backwards, it only went very slowly. If only Gregor had been
allowed to turn around, he would have been back in his room momentarily, but he was afraid of
making the father impatient by taking the time to turn around, and at any moment there was the
threat of a lethal blow to his back or head from the cane in the father’s hand. Finally, however,
Gregor had no other choice because he realized with horror that he was quite incapable of going
backwards in a straight line; thus he began, as quickly as possible and with frequent anxious
259
glances at his father, to turn himself around. It went very slowly, but perhaps the father was able
to see his good intentions as he did nothing to hinder him, in fact now and then he used the tip of
his cane to give directions from a distance as to which way to turn. If only the father would stop
that unbearable hissing! Gregor was losing his mind over it. He was nearly finished turning
around when he, still listening to this hissing, made a mistake and turned back again a little bit.
But when he finally had his head in front of the doorway, it became clear that his body was too
broad to just get through it. In his current condition, it obviously did not occur to the father to
open the other of the double doors so as to make for a wide enough space for Gregor to pass
through. His snap idea was merely to get Gregor back into his room as quickly as possible. He
never would have allowed the elaborate procedures that Gregor took to get himself upright, so as
to maybe get himself through the doorway. What he did, making more noise than ever, was to
drive Gregor forwards all the harder, as if there was nothing in the way; it no longer sounded to
Gregor like the voice of just one single father behind him; things were truly unpleasant now and
Gregor pushed himself –with no regard for what might happen– into the doorway. One side of
his body lifted itself, he lay at an angle in the doorway, one of his sides scraped all sore, leaving
behind ugly marks on the white door, soon he was stuck fast and was no longer able to move at
all by himself, the little legs along one side hung quivering in the air while those on the other
side were pressed painfully against the ground – when the father gave him a hefty shove from
behind which was truly freeing and sent him flying, bleeding heavily, deep into his room. The
door was slammed shut with the cane, then, finally, all went quiet.
260
PART II
Only at dusk did Gregor awake from his heavy, unconsciousness-like sleep. He no doubt would
have awoken not much later without disturbances, for he felt properly rested from sleeping in,
yet it seemed to him like he had been woken by a fleeting step and a careful closing of the door
leading to the anteroom. The glow of the electric streetcar here and there lay pale on the ceiling
and the upper parts of the furniture, but below where Gregor was, it was dark. He pushed himself
slowly, clumsily groping with his antennae, which he only now began to appreciate, towards the
door, so as to check what had happened there. His left flank seemed one long, uncomfortably
tense scar, and he had to downright hobble on his two rows of legs. One tiny leg had, by the way,
been badly injured by the incidents from earlier in the day – it was almost a wonder that only one
of them had – and was lifelessly dragging behind.
Only at the door did he notice what had actually lured him there in the first place; it had been the
smell of something edible. For there stood a bowl filled with sweetened milk, in which swam
small slices of white bread. He had almost laughed with glee, for he was even more hungry than
he had been in the morning, and soon he dipped his head into the milk almost above the eyes.
But soon he pulled it back disappointedly; not only was eating causing him trouble because of
his delicate left side – and he was only able to eat then the entire body collaborated pantingly –,
thus the milk, which was usually his favorite drink and had thus surely been put there by his
sister, did not taste well to him at all, yes he turned away from the bowl almost reluctantly and
crawled back into the center of the room.
261
In the living room, as Gregor saw through the door crack, the gas had been lit, but while the
father used to normally read the afternoon paper to the mother and sometimes also the sister with
raised voice, not a sound could be heard now. Well maybe this reading, of which his sister
38
always told and wrote him, had become out of practice anyway. But all around it was so quiet,
too, although surely the apartment was not empty. “What a quiet life the family was leading,”
Gregor told himself and felt, while stiffly looking into the darkness before him, big pride about
the fact that he had been able to acquire such a life in such a beautiful apartment for his parents
and his sister. But how if now all quiet, all wealth, all contentment was to come to a horrible
39
end? So as not to get lost in such thoughts, Gregor rather set himself into motion and crawled up
and down the room.
Once during the long evening the side door, and once the other one was opened to a small
crevice and quickly closed again; somebody seemed to have the urge to come in, but then also
too many worries. Gregor now rested immediately by the living room door, intent on bringing
the hesitating visitor into the room after all, or to at least find out who it was; but now the door
was not opened again, and Gregor waited in vain. Earlier, when the doors were locked,
everybody had wanted to come into his room, now that he had opened one door and the other
ones had apparently been opened during the day, no one came anymore, and the keys were now
all in the outside locks.
Note the possessive pronouns in this passage.
38
Singular in original.
39
262
Only late at night the light in the living room was extinguished, and now it was easy to determine
that the parents and the sister had stayed up this late, for as one could hear clearly now, all three
removed themselves on tiptoes. Now, surely, no one would come into Gregor’s room until
morning; he therefore had a long time to think uninterrupted how he was to reorder his life. But
the high empty room, in which he was forced to lay flat on the floor, frightened him without him
being able to determine the cause, for it was his room, which he had been occupying for five
years now – and with a half unwitting turn and now without a slight shame, he hurried under the
couch, where he, even though his back was pushed a little and even though he could no longer
lift his head, immediately felt very homely and only regretted that his body was too wide to fit
entirely under the couch.
He stayed there all night, which he spent in parts half asleep, from which hunger startled him
time and time again, and in parts with worries and unclear hopes, all of which led to the
conclusion that he would or the time being act quietly and would through patience and greatest
thoughtfulness have to make the inconveniences bearable to the family, which his present state
was forcing him to cause.
Early in the morning, it was still almost nighttime, Gregor had the opportunity to test the strength
of his recently made decisions, for over in the anteroom the sister, almost fully dressed, opened
the door and peered inside nervously. She could not immediately find him, but when she did
notice him under the couch–– God, he had to be somewhere, he could not have flown away––
she was startled so intensely that she, unable to contain herself, slammed the door shut from
outside. But then, as if regretting her behavior, she immediately opened he door again and
263
entered, as if toward someone seriously ill, or perhaps even a stranger, on her toes. Gregor had
pushed his head out to the rim of the couch and was watching her. Was she going to notice that
he had left the milk untouched, and in fact not for a lack of hunger, and was she going to bring
another meal, one that was more befitting to him? If she did not do it by herself, he would rather
starve than make her aware of it, although truly, he felt a monstrous urge to shoot out from
40
under the couch, throw himself at his sister’s feet and ask her for something good to eat. But the
sister immediately and with astonishment noticed the still-full food bowl, around which only a
little bit of milk had been spilled, she picked it up right away, though not with her bare hands, but
with a cloth, and carried it out of the room. Gregor was extremely curious what she would bring
instead, and he came up with the most diverse ideas. But he never would have guessed what the
sister was actually doing in her kindness. She brought him, so as to test his taste, a whole array,
all spread out on an old newspaper. There were old, half-moldy vegetables; bones from supper,
surrounded by solidified white sauce; some raisins and almonds; a cheese which Gregor had
declared inedible two days ago; an old slice of bread, a buttered slice of bread, and a buttered and
salted slice of bread. She added to all of this the food bowl, perhaps once and for all Gregor’s,
into which she had poured water. And with delicacy, for she knew that Gregor would not eat in
front of her, she retreated most hurriedly and even turned the key so that only Gregor would
understand that he could get as comfortable as he wanted to. Gregor’s little legs were whirring,
now that it was time to eat. His wounds, by the way, had to have entirely healed already, he felt
no more sense of impediment and remembered how more than a month ago, he had cut into his
finger just a tiny bit with a knife, and how this wound had still been hurting just the day before
yesterday. “Should I have less sensitivity now?” he thought and was already sucking on the
Again “ungeheuer” as an adjective in the German original.
40
264
cheese greedily, towards which he had gravitated immediately and urgently. In quick succession
and with eyes that were watering with satisfaction, he consumed the cheese, the vegetables, and
the sauce; the fresh food items, on the other hand, did not appeal to him, he could not even stand
their smells and even pulled the things that he wanted to eat a bit farther away. He was already
long finished with everything and just lazily laid in the same spot when the sister, to signal that
he should retreat, slowly turned the key. This immediately startled him, even though he was
almost slumbering, and he hurried back under the couch. But it cost him great willpower to stay
under the couch for even the short time during which the sister was in the room, for his rump had
rounded a little with all the rich food, and he could hardly breathe in this tightness. During little
choking attacks he watched with bulging eyes how the unsuspecting sister swept up with a
broom not only the scraps, but also those foods that had been left untouched by Gregor, like they
had become useless, and how she hastily poured everything into a tub, which she closed up with
a wooden lid before carrying everything outside. She had hardly turned around when Gregor
pulled himself out from under the couch and stretched and swelled.
This was now how Gregor got his daily meals, once in the morning, when the parents and the
maid were still sleeping, and once after the regular lunch because then the parents went to take
little nap and the maid was sent off by the sister with some errand. Surely they also did not want
Gregor to starve, but perhaps they could not have handled learning of his eating through more
than hearsay, perhaps the sister wanted to spare them some sorrow, for indeed they were
suffering enough already at the moment.
265
What excuses had been used on this first day to get the doctor and the locksmith to leave the
apartment, Gregor was not able to find out , for since he could not bee understood nobody,
including the sister, considered that he might be able to understand the others, and thus he had to
contempt himself to hearing only her sighs and appeals to the holies whenever the sister was in
his room. Only later, when she had gotten used to everything a little – of course one could never
speak of being fully used to this –, Gregor sometimes caught a remark that was meant in a
friendly way, or could be interpreted as such. “Today he really liked it,” she said when Gregor
had properly cleaned up his food, while in the opposite cases, which occurred increasingly often,
would say almost sadly: “Now everything was left untouched again.”
While Gregor could not receive any immediate news, he was still able to listen in on some
information from the other rooms, and as he now heard voices , he ran to the respective door
41
right away and pressed up against it with his entire body. Especially at first there was not a single
conversation that was not, even if only secretly, about him. For two days, deliberations could be
heard during all meals about how to act now; but also in between meals that same topic was
discussed, for there were always at least two family members at home, as no one seemed to want
to stay home along, and the apartment could absolutely not be left entirely. Additionally the maid
had right on the first day — it was not entirely clear what and how much she knew of what had
happened — pleaded the mother on a bended knee to be let go immediately, and when she bid
farewell fifteen minutes later, she teared up as she thanked for her discharge, as if for the greatest
good deed that could have been done for her, and gave, without having been asked to do so, a
horrible vow not to tell anyone even the slightest bit.
Ambiguous in original whether these are actual voices that can be heard inside the apartment, or voices
41
inside Gregor’s head.
266
Now the sister, together with the mother, had to cook as well; though this did not cause a lot of
work, for hardly anything was eaten. Time and time again Gregor heard how one person in vain
asked another to eat and received no answer other than “thanks I have enough” or something
along those lines. Perhaps hardly anything was drunk as well. A few times the sister asked the
father whether he would want to have beer, and offered kindly to fetch it herself, and when the
father remained silent she said, so as to take any worries, she could also send the janitor to get
42
it, but then the father finally said one big “No” and there was no more talk of it.
Already over the course of the first day, the father laid out the financial circumstances and
prospects in their entirety to the mother as well as the sister. Here and there he got up from the
table and removed some receipt or some expense journal from his little chest safe, which he had
rescued from the collapse of his business that had happened five years ago. One could hear him
opening the complicated lock, and then close it again after removing what he had been looking
for. These explanations by the father were among the first positive things that Gregor got to hear
during his captivity. He had assumed that the father had had nothing left from said business, for
at least the father had not said anything to the contrary, although Gregor also had not asked him
about it. Gregor’s worry back then had only been to do everything to let the family forget as
quickly as possible the entrepreneurial misfortune which had led everybody into an utter
hopelessness. Henceforth he had begun to work fervently back then and had over night changed
from a minor assistant into a traveling salesman, who of course had entirely different ways of
The Hausmeisterin (female janitor) is mentioned only this one time throughout the story. I thus did not
42
specifically include special emphasis on her female gender in my translation, though this position remains
of note, perhaps for later inquiry.
267
earning money, and whose successes turned to immediate cash which could then be put on the
table of the astonished and delighted family, due to him working for commissions. These had
been beautiful times and never again had they returned, at least in this splendor, although Gregor
later earned so much money that he was able to carry the expenses of the entire family, which he
then did. Thus one had gotten used to, the family as much as Gregor, one thankfully accepted the
money which he enjoyed providing, but a special warmth would no longer emerge. Only the
sister had still remained close to Gregor and it was his secret plan to send her who, unlike
Gregor, loved music dearly and knew how to touchingly play the violin, to the Conservatory next
year, despite the large costs that this would create, and which one would be able to come up for
in one way or another. During Gregor’s short stays in town, the sister’s regularly mentioned the
Conservatory in their conversations, though always only as a wonderful dream whose realization
was unthinkable, and the parents did not like to hear even these innocent mentions; but Gregor
thought of this full of sincerity and intended to proclaim his intentions on Christmas eve.
Such thoughts, wholly useless in his present state, went through his head as he was sticking there
on the door upright, listening. Sometimes he could no longer listen due to general tiredness and
let his head bang against the door carelessly, but then went right back to holding it steady, for
even the little sound that he had caused with this had been heard next door and let everyone fall
silent. “What he might be up to now,” the father said after a while, apparently turned towards the
door, and only then did the interrupted conversation gradually resume.
Gregor now learned extensively — for the father used to repeat himself plentifully in his
explanations, in part because he had not dealt with these matters for a long time now, in part also
268
because the mother did not quite understand everything the first time— that despite all
unfortunate, indeed a small fortune was still left over from those old days, which had in the
meantime also grown a little bit, due to the also untouched interest gains. In addition the money
that Gregor had been bringing home month after month — he had only been keeping a few
pennies for himself— had not been used up in its entirety, and had accumulated into a small
asset . Gregor, behind his door, was nodding eagerly, happy about this unexpected caution and
43
frugality. Of course he could have used this surplus money to pay off the deed that the father had
taken out with the boss, and the day when he could have gotten rid of this profession would have
been far closer, but now things were undoubtedly much better the way the father had arranged.
But this money was by no means enough to let the family live only off the interest gains; it might
perhaps suffice to sustain the family for one, maybe two years, not more. Thus it was merely a
sum that should not really be touched, and that had to be retained for an emergency; the living
expenses had to be earned therefore. But while the father was healthy, he was also an old man
who had not worked at all in five years and who in any case should not strain himself too much;
he had gained a lot of fat, which had made him quite ponderous, in those five years, the first real
vacation in his laborious, yet unsuccessful life. And the old mother was not supposed to earn
money, who was suffering from asthma , who was already exhausted from wandering the
apartment, and who spent every other day on the couch by the open window due to her breathing
difficulties? And the sister was supposed to earn money who was still a child of only seventeen
years, and who so deserved her previous way of life, which had consisted of dressing nicely,
sleeping in, helping with the household, joining in on the few, meager pleasures, and mainly play
“Kapital” in the original, which of course echoes Marx.
43
269
the violin? Whenever the conversation turned towards the necessity of earning money, Gregor
would let go of the door and throw himself onto the cool leather couch right next to the door, for
he was flushed with shame and grief.
He often lay there through entire, long nights, not sleeping for a single moment and pawing at
the leather for hours. Or he did not shun the trouble of pushing an armchair over to the window,
then climb up to the windowsill and, braced into the armchair, lean outside the window,
apparently only due to some memory of the freeing feeling that had once been evoked for him by
looking out the window. For indeed he could see things worse that were just at a slight distance
from one day to the next; the hospital across the street, whose constant view he used to curse, he
could now no longer see at all, and had he not known that he lived in the quiet, though entirely
urban Charlottenstraße, he would have been convinced to see nothing but a barren waste outside,
where the gray sky and the gray earth became one and the same. The attentive sister had to see
the armchair by the window only twice until she began moving the armchair right back over to
the window after she had tidied up the room, occasionally even leaving open the inner section of
the window.
If only Gregor had been able to talk to the sister and thank her for all that she had to do for him,
he could have bore her service more easily; but as it was, he suffered under it. The sister, of
course, sought to gloss over the embarrassment of the entire situation, and the more time passed,
the better she was able to do so, although Gregor understood things a lot better in time. Already
her entrance was terrible for him. She had hardly entered when she, without taking the time to
close the door, as much as the normally made sure to spare everyone else the sight of Gregor, ran
270
right over to the window, which she tore open with hurried hands as if she were gasping for air
and stayed, no matter how could it might be, right by the window for a little while, breathing
deeply. Twice daily she startled Gregor with this running and rummaging; the entire time he
shivered under the couch, knowing all too well that she surely would have liked to spare him
from this, if only she were able to be inside the same room with Gregor with the windows
closed .
44
One time, perhaps a month had passed since Gregor’s transformation and it was no longer a
special reason for the sister to be astonished at Gregor’s looks, she came a little earlier than usual
and happened upon Gregor as he was looking out the window, immobile and thus raised quite
intimidatingly. It would not have been unexpected to Gregor had she not entered, since with his
position, he made it impossible to open the window right away, but not only did she not enter,
she even recoiled and closed the door; a stranger could almost have thought that Gregor had lied
in waiting for her, wanting to bite her. Of course Gregor went right to hiding under the couch, but
he had to wait until lunchtime until the sister returned, and she seemed a lot more agitated than
usual. From this he gathered that the sight of him was still unbearable for her, and that it would
continue to be unbearable, and that she had to exert a lot of energy not to run away at the sight of
even just a small portion of his body, standing out from under the couch. To spare her from
having to see this as well, one day he carried the bed sheet — this task took him four hours to
complete — over to the couch on his back, and arranged in a way so that he was now covered
completely, so that the sister, even if she bent down, would not see him. Were she to think this bed sheet
Note here Gregor’s speculation about Grete’s attitude and motivation. This passage begs the question
44
whether what is presented her, from Gregor’s point of view, is what is actually happening, or whether
perhaps Grete is being overly dramatic while Gregor is making excuses for her.
271
unnecessary, then she could have removed it, for it was obvious enough that it did not give Gregor
pleasure to close himself off entirely, but she left the bed sheet as it was, and Gregor even believed to
have spotted a thankful expression while once carefully lifting the bed sheet a tad with his head, so as to
see how the sister was receiving the new setting.
For the first fourteen days, the parents could not bare to come into his room and he often heard how they
fully recognized the sister’s present labor, while in the past they had oftentimes been angry with her
because she had seemed to them like a useless girl. But now the both of them, the father and the mother,
would oftentimes wait outside Gregor’s room while the sister tidied up in there, and hardly had she
excited when she had to report in great detail how it looked inside the room, what Gregor had eaten, how
he had acted this time, and if perhaps a little improvement was noticeable. The mother, by the way, was
planning on visiting Gregor relatively soon, but the father and the sister at first kept her from doing so by
appealing to reason, which Gregor listened to attentively, and which he fully approved of. Later, however,
she had to be kept back forcefully, and as she screamed “So let me go see Gregor, for he is my
unfortunate son! Don’t you understand that I have to go see him?”, Gregor thought that perhaps it might
be good after all if she came in, of course not every day, but perhaps once a week; for she understood
everything a lot better than the sister who, despite her bravery, was only just a child and who had
ultimately taken on such a difficult task perhaps just out of childish recklessness.
Gregor’s wish to see the mother soon came true. During the day Gregor did not want to show himself by
the window our of consideration for his parents, he could not crawl a lot on the few square meters of floor
space, he could already hardly bear laying quietly during nighttime, eating soon did not provide him the
smallest bit of pleasure, and thus he took to crawling all over the walls and the ceiling decoration for
entertainment. He especially liked hanging up by the ceiling; it was entirely different from laying on the
floor; one could breathe more freely; there was a slight swing going through the body, and it could happen
272
that, in this almost happy entertainment that Gregor was feeling up there, Gregor, to his own surprise, let
go and slammed onto the floor. But now of course he had his body under control much differently than
before and did not injure himself even in such a great fall. The sister now immediately noticed this new
form of entertainment that Gregor had found for himself — for he was here and there leaving traces of his
adhesive glue as he crawled — and thus made up her mind to allow for Gregor to crawl as much as
possible and get rid of the furniture that was keeping him from doing so, mainly the cabinet and the desk.
But now she was not able to do this on her own; she did not dare to ask the father for help; the maid
45
surely would not have helped her, for this about-sixteen-year-old girl was bravely hanging on since the
former cook had been let go, but had asked for the privilege of being allowed to keep the kitchen
constantly locked, and to open it only when specifically called to do so; thus the sister had no other choice
than to fetch the mother while the father was out of the house. The mother approached with calls of
excited joy, but fell silent at the door to Gregor’s room. Of course the sister first checked whether
everything inside the room was in order; only then did she let the mother enter. In a rush, Gregor had
dragged the bed sheet deeper and into more folds, it truly did look like a bed sheet that had been
46
casually thrown over the couch. This time, Gregor neglected spying from under the bed sheet as well; he
did without seeing the mother this time already and was happy that she had come this time after all.
“Come on, he cannot be seen,” said the sister, who seemed to be leading the mother by the hand. Now
Gregor could hear how the two week women were pushing the at any rate heavy old cabinet off of its
place and how the sister constantly did the hardest part of the work herself without listening to the
warnings of the mother, who was afraid that she might overexert herself. It took very long. After about
fifteen minutes of work, the mother said that the cabinet should be left here after all, for it was not only to
heavy, they would not finish before the father’s arrival and would block Gregor’s way entirely with this
cabinet in the center of the room, it was also not at all sure that the removal of the furniture was doing
I have tried to reproduce the repeated use of the term Nun (now) from the German in this and the
45
preceding sentences.
Doubling of Leintuch (bed sheet) in this sentence.
46
273
Gregor any favors. To her, the opposite seemed the case; the sight of the empty wall was downright
weighing down her heart; and why would not Gregor, too, feel this way, for he had long gotten used to the
furniture in his room and would therefore now feel left alone inside the empty room. “And is it not the
case,” the mother concluded quietly, as she was almost whispering as if to avoid that Gregor, whose exact
location she did not know, would only so much as hear the sound of her voice, as she was convinced that
he was unable to understand the words, “and is it not the case that, in removing the furniture, we show
that we have abandoned any hopes for improvement and inconsiderately leave him to himself? I believe it
would be best we tried to keep the room exactly the way that it was before, so that Gregor, once he returns
to us, will find everything unchanged and will thus be able to more easily forget what has happened in the
meantime.”
Upon hearing these words from the mother, Gregor realized that his lack of direct human address,
combined with the uniform life in the midst of the family, must have confused his mind, for he could not
explain to himself any other way that he could seriously have asked for his room to be emptied out. Did
he really have the desire to let the warm room, made cozy with inherited furniture, be turned into a cave,
wherein he would then admittedly be able to crawl all over without interruption, albeit this might also
mean a simultaneous, quick forgetting of his human past? For he was already now close to forgetting, and
had only been shaken up by the long-unheard voice of the mother. Nothing was to be removed, everything
had to stay, he could not surrender the good impact that the furniture had on his constitution; and if the
furniture kept him from engaging in the senseless crawling about, then this was no damage, but a great
advantage.
But the sister, unfortunately, had a different opinion; she had gotten used to, albeit not entirely without
reason, to act as an expert towards her parent whenever discussing matters relating to Gregor, and thus the
mother’s advice was now enough reason for the sister to insist not only on the removal of the cabinet and
274
the desk, as she had thought initially, but of all furniture, save for the indispensable couch. Of course it
was not only childish disobedience and the self confidence that she had recently gained, as unexpectedly
as hard-earned, that led her to this insistence; indeed, she had seen for a fact that Gregor needed a lot of
space to crawl, not using the furniture one bit, as far as one could see. But perhaps the girl’s rapturous
sense of adolescence played a part in this, looking everywhere to be satisfied, and which led Grete to now
want to make Gregor’s situation even scarier, so as to be able to then do even more to help him. For no
other human except Grete would ever dare to enter into a room where Gregor reigned the empty walls in
solitude.
And so she did not let the mother, who in this room as well seemed insecure out of uneasiness, allow her
to move away from her decision, and who soon went quiet and helped the sister in carrying out the
cabinet with all her strength. Well, the cabinet Gregor could do without if need be, but surely the desk had
to stay. And hardly had the women left the room with the cabinet, which they were pushing against
groaningly, did Gregor push out from under the couch, so as to assess how he might carefully and
possibly thoughtfully intervene. But unfortunately it happened to be the mother who returned first, while
Grete was hugging the cabinet in the other room, swinging it back and forth without actually moving it.
But the mother was not used to the sight of Gregor, and it could have sickened her, thus Gregor hurriedly
staggered backwards to the other end of the couch, but could not stop the bed sheet from moving a little at
the front. This was enough to raise the mother’s attention. She startled, stood still for a moment, and then
walked back to Grete.
Though Gregor kept telling himself that nothing unusual was happening, that it was just some furniture
being moved around, this walking back and forth of the women, as he soon had to admit to himself, their
little calls to one another, the scratching of the furniture on the floor, pressed on him like one big bustle,
nourished from all sides, and he had to, as tightly as he was pulling head and legs towards himself and
275
pressing his body onto the floor, inevitably admit to himself that he would not be able to endure all of this
much longer. They were clearing out his room; taking everything that was dear to him; the cabinet that
contained his fretsaw and the other tools, they had already removed; were now already prying loose the
desk thad had dug itself tightly into the floor and at which he, as a student at commerce school, as a pupil
of secondary, yes already at primary school, had written his assignments, – now he truly had no more time
to explore the good intentions of these two women, the existence of which he, by the way, had almost
forgotten, for out of exhaustion, they had begun to work quietly, and only their heavy footsteps could be
heard.
And thus he broke out — the women were just leaning against the desk in the other room to rest for a
moment — , changed the direction of his movements four times, he really did not know what to save first,
when he noticed the image of the fur-clad woman hanging conspicuously on the otherwise empty wall,
hurriedly crawled up and pressed himself against the glass, which held him tight and felt soothing against
his hot abdomen. At least this picture, which Gregor was now covering entirely, nobody would be able to
take from him. He turned his head towards the living room door, so as to watch the two women return.
They had not granted themselves much of a rest and were already returning; Grete had her arm wrapped
around the mother and was almost carrying her. “So what shall we carry now?” said Grete, looking
around, When her gaze caught that of Gregor's on the wall. Perhaps only because of the mother’s
presence she kept her composure, bent her face towards the mother so as to keep her from looking up, and
said, though shaking and thoughtlessly: “Come on, shall we not go back into the living room for a
moment?” Grete’s intention was clear to Gregor, she wanted to take the mother to safety and then chase
him off the wall. Well, she could at least try! He sat on his image and would not give it up. He would
rather jump right into Grete’s face.
276
But Grete’s words had especially unsettled the mother, she stepped to the side, caught sight of the huge
brown stain on the flowered wallpaper, called, before becoming aware what she was seeing was actually
Gregor, with glaring, coarse voice: “Oh god, oh god!” and collapsed, her arms wide like she was
surrendering everything, across the couch and did not move. “You, Gregor!” called the sister, her fist
raised and her gaze stern. These were the first words since the metamorphosis that she had directed
immediately at him. She ran into the other room to get some kind of potion, so as to awaken the mother
from her unconsciousness; Gregor wanted to help as well — there was still time to save the picture —;
but he was stuck tightly to the glass and had to pry himself loose with force; he then ran into the other
room as well, like he could give the sister some kind of advice like in the past; but then could only stand
behind her passively; while she was rummaging around in various little bottles, she was still startled when
she turned around; one bottle hit the floor and burst; a fragment injured Gregor’s face, some pungent
medicine flowed around him; Grete was now gathering, without staying around any longer, as many little
bottles as she could possibly carry, and ran over to the mother with them; she slammed the door shut with
the foot. Gregor was now contained from the mother who, because of him, was possibly close to death; he
could not open the door if he did not want to scare away the sister, who had to remain with the mother;
now there was nothing for him to do but wait; and, besieged by self-reproaches and worries, he now
began to crawl, crawled over everything, walls, furniture, and ceiling and finally fell, full of desperation,
when the room had already begun spinning around him, right onto the large table.
A little while passed, Gregor lay there weekly, all around it was quiet, which perhaps was a good sign.
Then the bell rang. The maid was of course locked inside the kitchen and thus Grete had go to and open.
The father had returned. “What has happened?” were his first words; Grete’s look apparently had told him
all he needed to know. Grete replied with muffled voice, apparently she was pushing her face onto the
father’s chest: “The mother lost consciousness, but she is already doing better. Gregor has escaped.” “I
expected as much,” said the father, “I kept telling you so, but you women do not want to listen.” It was
277
clear to Gregor that the father had taken Grete’s overtly short message poorly and now assumed Gregor to
be guilty of some sort of violent act. Thus Gregor now had to try and calm the father, for he had neither
time nor ability to clarify things for him. And thus he escaped over to the door of his room and pressed
against it, so that the father would be able to see right upon entering the anteroom that Gregor had the best
intentions to return into his room immediately, and that it was not necessary to drive him back, but rather
that the the door merely needed to be opened, and immediately he would disappear.
But the father was in no mood do notice such subtleties. “Ah!” he called right upon entering in a tone of
being both angry and happy. Gregor moved his head back from the door and lifted it towards the father.
He really had not imagined the father as he was standing there now; though he had lately, due to all the
newfound crawling around, neglected paying attention to the going-on inside the rest of the apartment,
and thus should have been ready to come upon changed conditions. However, however, was this still the
father? The same man who had been buried tiresomely in his bed, when in the past Gregor would venture
out for business travel; who would receive him on the evenings of his return in a night-frock, lounging in
the armchair; who as not properly able to get up, but would only lift his arms as a sign of joy, and who, at
those rare walks on a few Sundays per year and on the highest holidays would, between Gregor and the
mother, who were already walking slowly, still work himself forward even a bit slower, wrapped into his
old overcoat, carefully placing his walking cane and, whenever he wanted to say something, almost
always stood still and gathered his company around himself? But now, he was properly erect; dressed in a
stiff blue uniform with gold buttons, as was worn by servants in banking establishments; above the
jacket’s tall, stiff collar of the uniform protruded his strong double chin; under his bushy eyebrows, the
gaze from his black eyes shone out fresh and attentive; the usually disheveled white hair had been
combed down and parted into a painstakingly correct, shiny style. He threw his cap, which featured a gold
monogram, perhaps that of a bank, across the entire room over onto the couch and walked, the ends of his
long uniform jacket whipped back, hands in his pockets and with a stern face, over towards Gregor.
278
Apparently he did not know himself what he was planning to do; at least he was lifting the feed unusually
high, and Gregor was amazed at the giant size of his boot-soles. But he did not spend much time on them,
for he still knew from the first day of his new life that the father thought only the greatest amount of
harshness appropriate for him. And thus he ran away from the father, hesitated, whenever the father stood
still, and hurried along already if he only so much as made a move. They rounded the room several times
this way, without anything decisive occurring, yes even without any of this having the appearance of a
chase due to its slow speed. Therefore Gregor for the time being remained on the floor, for he feared that
the father might consider an escape onto the walls or the ceiling particularly malicious. Though Gregor
had to admit to himself that he would not be able to walk like this for very long, since for every step the
father took, he had to carry out a plethora of little movements. Shortness of breath began to set in, just
like in the past, when he had not had a particularly trustworthy lung. Now, as he was stumbling about,
trying to gather his strength to go on, hardly keeping his eyes open; in his stupefaction could not think of
any other escape than to keep on walking; and had almost forgotten that the walls were available to him,
which were here, however, covered up with delicately carved furniture, full of edges and spikes — when
suddenly right next to him, hurled casually, something landed and rolled in front of him. It was an apple;
right away, a second one followed; frightened, Gregor stopped in his tracks; going on walking was
useless, as the father had decided on bombarding him. From the fruit bowl on the credenza, he had filled
his pockets and was now throwing, without aiming particularly acutely, apple after apple. These small
around apples rolled around the floor as if electrified, bumping into one another. A weakly-thrown apple
grazed Gregor’s back, though it slid off without any damage. Another one, however, following right after,
entered into Gregor’s back, as it were; Gregor wanted to drag himself forward, as if the shocking,
incredible pain could vanish with a change of place; but he felt like nailed to the spot and stretched out,
all senses utterly confused. Only in the last moment could he still see the door to his room being ripped
open, the mother, in a shirt, for the sister had undressed her to give her room to breathe during her
unconsciousness, hurrying out in front of the screaming sister, how the mother then ran towards the
279
father, losing for the floor one after the other of her haphazardly reapplied skirts, and how she, stumbling,
rushed towards the father and, hugging him, wholly uniting with him — now Gregor’s vision began to
fade — began to plead for Gregor’s life, her hands on the back of the father’s head.
280
PART III
Gregor’s heavy wounding, from which he suffered for more than a month – the apple remained,
since no one dared to remove it, stuck in the flesh as a visible reminder – seemed to have
reminded even the father of the fact that Gregor, despite his current sad and revolting figure, was
still a member of the family, that one could not treat him like an enemy, but towards whom it was
the precept of family duties to accept any aversions and to tolerate, nothing but tolerate.
And although Gregor had lost his mobility due to his wound probably forever and for now
needed long, long minutes like an old invalid to cross his room – crawling up high was
unthinkable –, this deterioration of his condition to him was made up for entirely by the
circumstance that towards the evening the door to the living room, which he used to sharply
observe one to two hours in advance, was opened so that he, laying in the dark of his room and
invisible from the living room, could see the entire family at the lit table and, so to say with
general permission and thus unlike in the past, was allowed to listen to their conversations.
Naturally, these were no longer the lively conversations from past times, which Gregor had
always thought of with some longing from inside the little hotel rooms, when he had to tiredly let
himself fall into moist sheets. For the most part, things happened very quietly now. The father
fell asleep in his armchair soon after supper; the mother and the sister told each other to be quiet;
the mother was sewing, bent far over the light, delicate laundry for a fashion shop; the sister,
who had taken up a position as a salesperson, learned shorthand and French in the evenings, so
as to maybe get a higher-ranking position someday. Occasionally, the father woke up and as if
281
not knowing that he had slept, said to the mother: “How long you have been sewing again
today!” and went right back to sleep, while mother and sister smiled at each other quietly.
With a kind of stubbornness the father refused to take off his servant uniform even at home;
while the nightgown was hanging on the coat hook uselessly, the father slumbered on his seat
entirely dressed, as if perpetually ready for service and waiting for the voice of his superior here
as well. Subsequently, the uniform, which had not been entirely new from the outset, lost its
cleanliness despite the mother’s and sister’s care, and Gregor often spent entire evenings looking
at this over and overly stained dress, glowing with its always cleaned gold buttons, in which the
old man was, highly uncomfortably and yet quietly, sleeping.
As soon as the clock struck ten, the mother sought to wake the father by quiet address and then to
convince him to go to bed, since this here was no proper sleep, which the father, who would have
to report to work at six in the morning, needed urgently. But in the stubbornness that had gripped
him since he had become a servant, he always insisted to stay at the table longer, despite
continuously falling asleep, and could then be moved only with great troubles to switch the
armchair for the bed. Mother and sister could pressure him with the little admonitions all they
wanted, quarter-hour-long he would slowly shake the head, keep the eyes shut, and not get up.
The mother plucked at his sleeve, said flattering words into his ear, the sister abandoned her task
to help the mother, but one of this caught on with the father. He only sank deeper into his
armchair. Only when the women grabbed him under the armpits did he open his eyes, look
alternately at the mother and the sister, and he used to say: “What a life this is. This is the
47
Tense shift in German original
47
282
quietude of my old age.” And, propped up by the two women he lifted himself up, laboriously,
like he himself was his biggest burden, let the women lead him to the door, waved them away
once there, and now walked on independently, while the mother most quickly dropped her
sewing supplies, the sister her quill, to run after the father and keep helping him.
Who in this over-worked and tired-out family had time to care for Gregor more than the bare
minimum? The household became more and more limited; the maid was now let go after all; a
huge bony servant with white hair that was swirling around her head came by in the mornings
and the evenings to take care of the hardest labor; everything else the mother took care of besides
her extensive sewing work. It even occurred that various family heirlooms were sold, which the
mother and the sister had used to wear with great joy at receptions and celebrations, as Gregor
found out in the evening from the general discussion of profits obtained. The biggest complaint,
however, was always that this apartment, much too big for current means, could not be left since
there was no way of imagining how to resettle Gregor. But Gregor very well understood that it
was not only consideration for him that prohibited a resettlement, for he could easily be
transported in an appropriate box with a few holes for air; what mainly kept the family from
switching apartments was instead the complete hopelessness and the thought that they were hit
with a misfortune like no one else among their relatives and acquaintances was. What the world
demanded of poor people, they carried out to the last bit, the father got breakfast for the little
bank clerk, the mother sacrificed herself for the laundry of strangers, the sister ran back and forth
behind the counter according to customers’ orders, but already, the strengths of the family did not
reach any further. And the wound in Gregor’s back began hurting anew when mother and sister,
after having brought the father to bed, now returned, let the work rest, moved close together,
283
already sat cheek by cheek; when now the mother, pointing towards Gregor’s room, said: “Close
the door over there, Grete,” and when now Gregor was in the dark again, while next door the
women mixed their tears or, entirely tearless, stared at the table.
Days and nights, Gregor spent almost entirely without sleep. Sometimes he considered taking the
matters of the family into his own hand, just like before, upon the next opening of the door; in
his mind appeared, again after a long time, the boss and the chief clerk, the [KOMMIS] and the
apprentices, the obtuse house servant, two three friends from other shops, a chambermaid from
48
a hotel in the country, a dear, fleeting memory, a saleswoman from a hat store, to whom he had
endeared himself seriously, but too slowly – they all appeared interspersed with strange or
already forgotten persons, but instead of helping him and his family, they were entirely
unapproachable and he was happy when they disappeared. But then again he was not at all in
49
the mood to care for his family, only anger about the poor maintenance filled him, and although
he could not imagine anything that he would have an appetite for, he still made plans for how to
get into the pantry in order to take what he at any rate deserved, even if he did not have any
appetite. Without spending any more thoughts on how to do Gregor a special favor, the sister
now, before running into the shop in the mornings and at noon, hastily pushed some random
meal into Gregor’s room with her foot, only to sweep it out again with the swing of a broom in
the evenings, no matter whether the meal had only been sampled or – most often the case – been
left entirely untouched. The room’s cleanup, which she not always took care of in the evenings,
could not be done any faster. Streaks of dirt lined the walls, here and there lay bundles of dust
Lack of punctuation in German original.
48
Rhyme of “sämtlich unzugänglich” in the original, poetic quality that seems to me impossible to
49
convey in English.
284
and filth. At first, Gregor would position himself upon the sister’s arrival in especially indicative
angles, so as to reflect a sort of reproach by his position. But he probably could have remained
there for weeks without the sister improving; she did see the dirt just as he did, but she had
simply decided to leave it. At the same time she made sure that cleaning Gregor’s room,
displaying a sensitivity that was new to her and that had taken hold of the entire family, remained
reserved only to her. One time, the mother had performed a deep clean on Gregor’s room, which
had involved the use of several buckets of water – all of this moisture, however, sickened Gregor
as well and he lay on the couch broad, bitter, and immovable –, but the mother was not spared
from punishment for this. For hardly had the sister noticed the change in Gregor’s room in the
evening when she, utterly insulted, ran into the living room and fell into crying convulsively,
despite the mother’s beseeching hands, which the parents – the father had of course been roused
from his armchair – at first watched with surprise and helplessness; until they, too, began
convulsing; on the right, the father accused the mother of not leaving Gregor’s room to the sister
to clean; on the left, he yelled at the sister that she would never again be allowed to clean
Gregor’s room; while the mother sought to drag the father, who was not himself from all the
excitation, into the bedroom; the sister, shaken by sobs, worked on the table with her little fists;
and Gregor hissed with anger that nobody thought to close the door and spare him from this view
and noise.
But even when the sister, exhausted from her professional work, had gotten tired of caring after
Gregor like in the past, then at least the mother would have had to take over for her, and Gregor
should not have been neglected. But now the servant was there. This old widow, who in her long
life might have withstood the worst due to her strong bone structure, had no real disgust for
285
Gregor. Without being in any way nosy, she had by chance once opened the door to Gregor’s
room and, upon seeing Gregor who, wholly surprised, had begun running back and forth even
though nobody was chasing him, had just remained standing there, hands folded in her lap. Ever
since, she did not fail to, always passingly, open the door a little bit in the mornings and evenings
and to look in on Gregor. At first she also called him towards her, with words that she perhaps
considered especially friendly, such as “Come over here, old critter!” or “Look at that old
critter!” Being addressed as such, Gregor answered with nothing, but instead remained in his
spot unmoved, like the door had not been opened at all. If only this servant, instead of letting her
disturb him at her own will, had been given the order to clean his room daily! Once in the early
morning – a heavy rain, maybe already a sig of the impending spring, splashed against the
windows – Gregor was so embittered when the servant was starting with her idioms yet again
that he, as if for an attack, although slowly and untenably, turned against her. However the
servant, instead of being afraid, only raised up a chair that was standing close to the door and as
she stood there with her mouth opened wide, it was clear that her intention was only to close her
mouth when the armchair would crash down on Gregor’s back. “So this is as far as it goes?”
50
she asked when Gregor turned back around, and calmly put the armchair back into the corner.
Gregor was eating almost nothing now. Only when he happened upon the prepared meal did he
jokingly take a bite, keep it there for hours, and then usually spat it back out. At first he thought it
was the sadness over the room’s condition that kept him from eating, but it was especially the
changes to the room that he soon became reconciled with. The custom had been adopted to put
things that did not fit anywhere else into this room, and there were now lots of such things, as
Switch from chair (Stuhl) to armchair (Sessel) in original.
50
286
one room of the apartment had been rented out to three lodgers. These serious gentlemen, – all
three had full beards, as Gregor noted once through a crack in the door – were strictly keen on
order, not only in their room but also, since they were renting here, in the entire business, so
especially the kitchen. They could not tolerate useless or even dirty stuff. Additionally, they had
largely brought their own pieces of furniture. That is why many things had become superfluous,
those that were not sellable, but that the family also did not want to thrown away. All of these
made it into Gregor’s room. Among them the ash bin and the garbage bin from the kitchen.
Things that were only momentarily useless the servant, who was always very rushed, simply
tossed into Gregor’s room; fortunately, Gregor mostly saw only the respective object and the
hand that held it. Perhaps the servant intended to retrieve the things or to throw them all out at
once, but in fact they just stayed where they had landed on the first toss, unless Gregor wound
through the rumbling junk and brought it into motion, first involuntarily, for there was no other
free space for crawling, but later with growing pleasure, though after such tours, deathly tired
and sad, he would again not move for hours.
Since the lodgers would sometimes take their supper at home in the shared living room, the
living room door stayed shut some evenings, though Gregor easily relinquished the openings of
the door, since he had not used some evenings when it had been opened but had instead, without
the family noticing, laid in the darkest corner of his room. But one time, the servant had left the
door to the living room slightly ajar, and it remained that way even when the lodgers entered in
the evening and the lights were turned on. They sat down at the upper end of the table, where in
earlier times the father, the mother, and Gregor had sat, unfolded the serviettes and took knife
and fork into their hands. Right away, the mother appeared in the door with a bowl of meat and
287
just behind her the sister with a bowl of highly-piled potatoes. The food steamed with strong
smoke . The lodgers bent over the bowls that had been placed in front of them, as if to inspect
51
them before eating, and indeed the one who was sitting in the middle and appeared to be an
authority over the other two, cut a piece of meat still in the bowl, apparently to inspect whether it
was tender enough and whether it might have to be sent back to the kitchen. He was satisfied and
mother and sister, who had been watching excitedly, began to smile with relief.
The family itself ate in the kitchen. Nevertheless the father, before going into the kitchen, came
into this room and, after taking a single bow, hat in his hand, did a round of the table. The
lodgers rose entirely and mumbled something into their beards. Once they were alone afterwards,
they ate almost entirely silent. It seemed peculiar to Gregor that from the manifold sounds of
eating, only the chewing of their teeth could be made out, as if one wanted to show Gregor with
this that teeth were required to eat, and that even the most beautiful toothless jaws were useless.
“I do have appetite,” Gregor said to himself anxiously, “but not for these things. How these
lodgers are eating, and I am perishing!”
Right on that evening –– Gregor could not remember having heard the violin during all this time
— it sounded from the kitchen. The lodgers had already finished their supper, the one in the
middle had pulled out a newspaper, given a section to each of the two others, and now they were
leaned back, reading, and smoking. Their attention was raised when the violin began to play, they
rose and, on the tips of their feet, walked over to the door of the front room, where they stood
pushed together. They must have been audible from inside the kitchen, for the father was calling:
Despite the verb “steamed” (dampfte) in this sentence, the noun used in original is “smoke” (Rauch),
51
not “steam” (Dampf).
288
“Do the gentlemen perhaps mind the playing? It can be stopped immediately.” “On the contrary,”
said the middle of the men, “would the missus perhaps like to come over to us and play here
inside the room, where it is far more comfortable and cozy?” “Oh please,” called the father, as if
he were the violin player himself. The men stepped back into the room and waited. Soon came
the father with the music lectern, the mother with the notes, and the sister with the violin. The
sister serenely prepared everything to play; the parents, who had never before rented out rooms
and were thus overdoing the politeness towards the lodgers, did not dare sitting down on their
own armchairs; the father leaned against the door, the right hand resting between two buttons of
his closed uniform skirt; the mother, however, was offered an armchair by one of the men, and
sat, since she left the chair where the man had put it by chance, at an offside corner.
The sister began to play; Father and mother, each from their side, attentively followed her hand
movements. Gregor had, attracted by the playing, ventured a bit farther put and had already
entered the living room with his head. He was hardly surprised that lately, he was considering the
others so little; before, this consideration had been his point of pride. And especially now he
would have had more reasons to hide himself, for he, because of the dust that covered everything
in his room and that was whipped up at the slightest movement, was full of dust himself; he
carried around pieces of thread, hair, food scraps on his back and all over his sides; his
indifference towards everything was much too big for him to, as he had used to do several times
a day, lay down on his back and rub against the carpet. And despite this condition he had no
inhibition to proceed a bit farther onto the spotless living room floor.
289
Indeed nobody was noticing him. The family was fully usurped by the playing of the violin; the
lodgers, on the other hand, who had initially, hands in their pockets, had lined up much too close
behind the sister’s music lectern, so that they all could have looked into notes, which surely must
irritate the sister, soon retreated to the window, talking in low voices with their heads bent,
52
where they, as the father watched anxiously, remained. By now it seemed more than obvious that
they had been disappointed in their expectation of hearing a beautiful or entertaining violin play,
that they were tired of the whole presentation and let this disturbance of their peace go on only
out of politeness. Especially the way they all blew their cigarette smoke from mouth and nose up
into the air indicated great tension. And yet the sister was playing oh so beautifully. Her face was
inclined to the side, shrewd and full of sorrow her eyes were following the staves. Gregor crept
even a bit farther out and kept his head close to the ground, so as to possibly meet her eyes. Was
he an animal, when music touched him so? It seemed to him like the road towards the longed-for,
unidentified nourishment was opening up towards him. He was determined to push forward to
the sister, to pluck on her skirts and thus indicate her to come into his room with her violin, for
nobody here appreciated the play as he wanted to appreciate it. He would not let her out of his
room, at least not for as long as he lived; for the first time, his scary figure should be useful to
53
him; he would be at all doors of his room at the same time, hissing at the attackers; though the
sister should not be made to, but stay with him voluntarily; she should be sitting next to him on
the couch, lower her ear towards him, and then he would confide in her that he had fully planned
to send her to the conservatory and that he would have said all of this last Christmas — clearly,
Christmas had passed? — had the misfortune not gotten in the way, without accepting any
Shift in tense in German original
52
Schreckgestalt in original
53
290
objections. After this proclamation, the sister would be overcome with tears, and Gregor would
raise himself up to her armpit and kiss her neck, which she, ever since she started going into the
business, had started to wear free of scarf or collar.
“Mr. Samsa!” called the middle of the men towards the father and pointed, without losing
another word, his index finger towards the slowly proceeding Gregor. The violin fell silent, the
middle lodger first looked over to his friends with his head shaking, and then looked back over to
Gregor. The father seemed to consider it more important, rather than to chase off Gregor, to first
calm down the lodgers, although these were by no means upset, and seemed more entertained at
Gregor than they had been by the violin play. He hurried over to them and sought to push them
into their room with his arms extended, while at the same time using his body to shield Gregor
from their views. Now they actually became a bit upset, it was no longer clear whether at the
father’s behavior or at the slowly dawning realization that, unknowingly, they had lived next
door to Gregor. They demanded explanations from the father, lifted their arms respectively,
pulled on their beards anxiously, and retreated only slowly towards their room. Meanwhile the
sister had overcome the forlornness which had gripped her after the suddenly interrupted play,
had, after she had been holding violin and bow in her casually hanging hands and, as though she
were still playing, had been looking into the music score, suddenly picked herself up, had
dropped the instrument in her mother’s lap, who was still sitting in her armchair, her lungs
working heavily and breathing with difficulty, and had run over into the other room, which the
lodgers were approaching more quickly already, due to the father’s urging. One could see how,
by the proficiency of the sister’s hands, the blankets and pillows of the beds flew high up in the
air and straightened themselves out. Before the men had even reached the room she was done
291
bedding down and slipped back out. The father once again seemed so gripped by his
stubbornness that he forgot any respect he might at least owe to his lodgers. He only pushed and
pushed, until, already in the doorway to the room, the second of the men stomped his foot
thunderously, thus stopping the father in his tracks. “I hereby declare,” he said, raising his hand
and looking as well for the mother and the sister, “that because of to the disgusting circumstances
both in this apartment and in this family” — with this, he quickly spat on the floor to mark his
point — “I terminate my room immediately. I will of course neither pay the slightest bit for the
days that I have lived here, rather I will have to consider whether I will come against you with
any — trust me — very easily justifiable claims.” He fell silent and looked straight ahead, as
though expecting something. Indeed, his two friends joined in right away, saying: “We give our
immediate notice as well.” Thereupon he grabbed the door handle and closed the door with a
bang.
Feeling with his hands, the father stumbled over to the armchair and dropped into it; it looked as
though he was stretching for his usual evening nap, but the strong nodding of his unrestrained
head revealed that he was far from sleeping. During all this time, Gregor had been laying quietly
on the spot where the lodgers had caught him. The disappointment from the failure of his plan,
and perhaps also the weakness caused by all his starvation, made it impossible for him to move.
With a certain finality, he anticipated an impending collapse that would come over him and
waited. Not even the violin startled him, as it escaped the mother’s trembling fingers and, falling
off her lap, produced an echoing sound.
292
“Dear parents,” said the sister and, as a preamble, slapped her hand onto the table, “things cannot
go on this way. Though you may not want to accept this, I accept it. I do not want to utter my
brother’s name in front of this monster and will therefore say only this: We have to try to get rid
of it. We have tried everything humanly possible to care for and tolerate it, I believe that nobody
can raise the slightest accusation against us.”
“She is absolutely right,” the father said for himself. The mother, who still had not been able to
get her breath back to normal, began to cough dully into her raised hand, with an insane look in
her eyes.
The sister hurried over to the mother and held her forehead. The father seemed to have been
brought to certain thoughts by the sister’s words, was sitting upright, played with his servant cap
between the plates that were still on the table from the lodgers’ supper, and every now and then
looked over to the dormant Gregor.
“We need to try getting rid of it,” the sister now said exclusively to the father, for the mother
could not hear anything due to her coughing, “it is going to kill the both of you, I can see it
coming. If somebody has to work as hard as we all do, they cannot also endure this perpetual
agony at home. I, too, cannot myself.” And she broke out into such heavy cries that her tears
flowed down over the mother’s face, from which she wiped them off with mechanical hand
movements.
“Child,” said the father pitifully and with conspicuous sympathy, “but what shall we do?”
293
The sister only shrugged the shoulders as a sign of helplessness, which now that she was crying
had gripped her over her earlier sincerity.
“If he understood us,” said the father half asking; the sister, crying, severely shook her hand to
indicate that this was unthinkable.
“If he understood us,” repeated the father and absorbed the sister’s conviction of the
impossibility of this by closing his eyes, “then perhaps an agreement with him might be possible.
But as it is –“
“It needs to go,” called the sister, “that is the only way, father. You have to try to get rid of the
idea that this is Gregor. That we believed this for so long, that is our real misfortune. But how
can it be Gregor? If it was Gregor, he would have accepted long ago that a living together of
humans and such an animal is not possible, and he would have left on his own accord. Then we
could not have a brother, but could go on living and cherish his memory. But as it is, this animal
is following us, chases away the lodgers, apparently wants to take over the entire apartment and
have us sleep out in the alley. Look there, father,” she suddenly screamed, “he is starting up
again!” And startled in a way that was entirely incomprehensible to Gregor, the sister left even
the mother, as it were pushed herself off the armchair like she would rather sacrifice the mother
than stay near Gregor, and hurried behind the father who, excited merely by her behavior, got up
as well and half-lifted his arms in front of the sister, as if to protect her.
294
But Gregor did not even think of wanting to scare anybody, especially his sister. He had merely
54
begun turning around, so as to wander back into his room, and this took a noticeable amount of
time, for, due to his miserable condition, he had to utilize his head to aid in the complicated
rotations, which for this he lifted several times and banged against the floor. He paused and
looked around. His good intentions seemed to have been recognized; it had just been a
momentary scare. Not everybody was looking at him silently and sadly. The mother lay, the legs
extended and pressed together, in her armchair, her eyes almost falling shut from exhaustion; the
father and the sister were sitting next to each other, the sister had placed her hand around the
father’s neck.
“Well, I must be allowed to turn around,” thought Gregor and resumed his work. He could not
suppress panting from exhaustion and needed to rest here and there. Nobody was urging him, by
the way, he was entirely left to his own devices. Once he had finished the rotation, he
immediately began retreating straight ahead. He was astonished at the great distance that was
separating him from his room and did not comprehend how, despite his weakness, he had
recently crossed that same distance, almost without noticing. Steadily focused on creeping
quickly, he hardly noticed that no word, no exclamation from his family interrupted him. Only
when he was already at the door did he turn his head, not completely, for he could feel the neck
stiffen, at least he could still see that nothing had changed behind him, only the sister had gotten
up. His last look brushed against the mother, who had now entirely fallen asleep.
Note the shift from the impersonal “the” to the the personal pronoun “his” sister in this sentence.
54
295
He was hardly inside his room when the door was hastily pushed shut, latched, and locked.
Gregor was so startled at the sudden noise behind him that his little legs gave way. It was the
sister who had hurried this way. She had been standing there upright and waited, had then nimbly
dashed forward, Gregor had not heard her come, and a “finally!” she shouted towards the parents
while turning the key inside the lock.
“And now?” Gregor asked himself and looked around in the dark. He soon discovered that now,
he could no longer move at all. This dud not surprise him at all, it rather seemed unnatural to him
that up until now, he had been able to move with these spindly legs. By the way, he felt relatively
comfortable. He did have pain all over his body, but it felt to him like they were slowly getting
weaker and weaker, and would finally dissipate entirely. He hardly felt the rotten apple inside his
back and the inflamed surrounding area, that was entirely covered by a soft dust, anymore. He
thought back to his family full of sympathy and love. His opinion about having to disappear was
perhaps more decisive than that of his sister. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful
contemplation until the clocktower rang in the third morning hour. He still experienced the the
beginning of morning dawning outside the windows. Then his head slumped down entirely
without his intentions, and from his nostrils emerged weakly his last breath.
When early in the morning the servant came — out of vigor and haste she slammed, no matter
how often she had been asked to avoid doing so, all doors so forcefully that all throughout the
apartment no sound sleep was possible once she had arrived —, she found nothing out of the
ordinary upon her usual short visitation with Gregor. She thought that he was intentionally laying
still to play the offended; she thought him capable of all kinds of wit. Since she happened to be
296
holding the long broomstick, she tried to tickle Gregor with it from over by the door. When this,
too, proved unsuccessful, she became aggravated and poked a little into Gregor, and when she
had shoved him from his place without any resistance, she became attentive. When soon she
understood the truth of the matter, her eyes became wide, whistled around, though she did not
loiter for long, but rather tore open the bedroom door and yelled loudly into the dark: “Would
you look at that, it has perished; there it is, completely perished!”
The Samsas sat upright in their married bed and was busy getting over their fright of the servant
before having a chance to absorb her message. But then Mr. and Mrs. Samsa left, each on their
side, the bed hurriedly, Mr. Samsa threw the blanket over his shoulders, Mrs. Samsa came out
wearing only a nightgown; thus they entered Gregor’s room. Meanwhile the living room door
had opened as well, where Grete had been sleeping since the lodgers had moved in; she was
entirely dressed, like she had not slept at all, and her pale face seemed to prove this as well.
“Dead?” asked Mrs. Samsa and looked up to the servant inquiringly, though she could verify
everything herself and determine even without verification. “I sure would say so,” said the
servant and as proof took the broom to shove Gregor’s corpse farther away. Mrs. Samsa
motioned as if to hold back the broom, but did not do so. “Now,” said Mr. Samsa, “Now we have
god to thank.” He crossed himself and the three women followed his lead. Grete, not taking her
eyes off the corpse, said: “Look how lean he was. He had not been eating anything for such a
long time. The food came back out the way they had come in.” Indeed, Gregor’s body was
entirely flat and dry, this could really be perceived only now, now that he was no longer propped
up on his little legs, and that nothing else was there to redirect the gaze.
297
“Come, Grete, into our room for a while,” said Mrs. Samsa smiling wistfully, and Grete walked,
not without looking back towards the corpse, into the bedroom behind the parents. The servant
closed the door and opened the window fully. Despite the early morning hours, there was already
some mildness mixed in with the fresh air. It was already the end of March, after all.
From their room emerged the three lodgers, looking around for their breakfast with
astonishment; they had been forgotten. “Where is the breakfast?” asked the middle of the men
the servant crotchety. But she raised a finger to her lips and then, quickly and silently, waved
over for the men to come into Gregor’s room. They did come and then stood, hands in the
pockets of their somewhat worn-down coats, around Gregor’s corpse in the now entirely
enlightened room.
Then the bedroom door opened and Mr. Samsa appeared wearing his uniform, his wife on one
arm, his daughter on the other. They were all a bit tear-swollen; Grete from time to time pushed
her face into the father’s arm.
“Leave my house right now!” said Mr. Samsa and pointed at the door, without letting go of the
women. “How do you mean?” said the middle of the men somewhat perplexed and smiled
sweetishly. The others held their hands behind their backs and were rubbing them against one
another incessantly, as if in anticipation of a great fight, which, however, would have to end in
their favor. “I mean it just the way I am saying it,” answered Mr. Samsa and walked towards the
lodger in a straight line with his two companions. At first the man just stood there looking down
at the floor, as if things were rearranging into a new order inside his head. “So then we shall go,”
298
he then said and looked up at Mr. Samsa, as if in the humility that had suddenly come over him
he required approval even for this decision. Mr. Samsa only nodded at him several times with his
eyes wide. Thereupon the man indeed walked over into the anteroom immediately with long
steps; his two friends had been taking notice and keeping their hands still for a while and now
almost jumped after him, as if afraid that Mr. Samsa could enter the anteroom before them and
get between them and heir leader. In the anteroom, all three took their hats from the clothes rack,
pulled their walking sticks from the stick holder, quietly bowed, and left the apartment. Out of,
as became clear wholly unfounded, mistrust, Mr. Samsa stepped onto the landing with the two
women; leaned against the banister, they saw how the three men descended down the stairs
slowly but steadily, disappearing into a bend of the staircase on every floor and reemerging after
a few moments; the lower they got, the more the Samsa family’s interest in them dissipated, and
when then, first towards them and then high above them, a butcher’s boy walked upstairs,
carrying a tray proudly on his head, Mr. Samsa and the women soon left the banister and they all
returned, as if relieved, into the apartment.
They decided to use the day today to rest and go for a walk; not only had they earned this break
from their work, they crucially needed it. Thus they sat down at the table and wrote three
apology letters, Mr. Samsa to his director, Mrs. Samsa to her client, and Grete to her principal.
During the writing the servant came in to say that she would go off, for her morning labor had
been finished. At first the three writers only nodded without looking up, only when the servant
still would not remove herself was there resentful looking up. “Well?” asked Mr. Samsa. The
servant stood at the door smiling, like she had a great fortune to report to the family, but would
only do so when interrogated properly. The nearly upright little ostrich feather on her hat, which
299
had been a bother to Mr. Samsa since the beginning of her employment, slowly swayed into
different directions. “So what is it that you want?” asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the servant still
respected the most. “Well,” answered the servant, her friendly laughter keeping her from
finishing her sentence right away, “well, you don’t need to worry about how to get rid of the stuff
next door. It has been taken care of.” Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down to their letters, as if
wanting to continue writing; Mr. Samsa, who realized that the servant was about to begin
describing everything in detail, decisively held this off with his hand raised. Since she was not
allowed to recount, she remembered that she was in a great hurry, and called, seeming offended:
“Farewell everyone,” spun around wildly and left the apartment, slamming the doors
horrendously.
“She will be let go at the end of the day,” said Mr. Samsa, but received a reply neither from his
wife nor from his daughter, since the servant seemed to have disturbed their freshly attained
repose. They got up, walked over to the window and remained there, holding each other tight.
Mr. Samsa turned around towards them in his armchair and quietly observed them for a little
while. Then he exclaimed: “So get over here. Let go of these old things already. And take some
care of me as well.” Right away the women obeyed, hurried over to him, caressed him, and
quickly finished their letters.
Then all three jointly left the apartment, which they had not done in months, and took the electric
streetcar to the outside of town. The train car, which they had all to themselves, was wholly
flooded by the warm sun. They discussed, leaned back comfortably on their seats, the prospects
for the future, and it turned out upon close inspection that those were not all that bad, for all three
300
were they gainfully employed, which they had not actually inquired about from each other
before, rather fortunate and promising especially for later . The greatest immediate
55
improvement of conditions would of course be easily achieved by a change of apartments; they
now wanted to take a smaller and cheaper, though in a better location and overall more practical
apartment than the one that they had now, which had been chosen by Gregor. As they were
conversing, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa, at the sight of their increasingly lively daughter, noticed almost
at the same time that, despite all the care work that had made her cheeks pale, she has blossomed
into a beautiful, lush girl. Falling silent and communicating with each other almost
unconsciously through the exchange of looks, they contemplated that now it would be time to
find her an honest man as well. And it was to them like a confirmation of their new dreams and
good intentions when at the end of their journey the daughter stood up first, stretching her young
body.
The last subordinate clause appears redundant in the German original.
55
301

Abstract (if available)

Linked assets

University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

Conceptually similar

PDF

Existential surplus: affect and labor in Asian diasporic video cultures

PDF

The Chinovnik and the Rond-de-cuir: bureaucratic modernity in nineteenth-century Russian and French literature

PDF

Radiant mushrooms of postwar Japanese media

PDF

Sick cinema: illness, disability and the moving image

PDF

The social life of nations: a comparative study of turn-of-the-century American and Chinese utopian fiction, 1888-1906

PDF

Configurations of kinship in the work of Andrei Tarkovsky

PDF

Seeing where there's nothing to see: French filmmakers and writers and everyday life in postwar social space

PDF

Magic and media: the critical concept of telepathy (1918-1939)

PDF

Witnessing silence: testimony, performance, and the poetics of the unspeakable

PDF

AIDS and its afterlives: race, gender, and the queer radical imagination

PDF

“A door, an exit, a way out”: trans*temporality in hybrid media

PDF

Alternative realisms: subjectivity-production in novels and games

PDF

Blood is the argument: discourses of blood, character, and affinity in early modern drama

PDF

Why Harry met Sally: coupling narratives and the Christian-Jewish love story

PDF

Senses of history: colonial memories, works of art, and heterogeneous community in America's Asia-Pacific since 1945

PDF

Quilting bodies: the Gee's Bend Quilters, Sanford Biggers, and Jonathan VanDyke

PDF

Conditions of literary modernities: a conceptual history of Chinese literature, 1860-1925

PDF

Becoming multiple: cyborg aesthetics and the inversion of horror

PDF

A poke in the gnosis — reimagining documentary: a phenomenological analysis of the reappropriation of meaning and the politics of disruption

PDF

Embracing the demon: the monstrous child in Japanese literature and cinema, 1946-2008

Asset Metadata

Creator Plinke, Cord-Heinrich Richard Karl (author)

Core Title The phenomenal body: abstraction, alienation, and affinity in translation

School College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program Comparative Literature

Degree Conferral Date 2023-05

Publication Date 05/17/2023

Defense Date 05/17/2023

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag abstract language,abstraction,affect,affect studies,alienation,Body,Comparative Literature,Die Verwandlung,ekphrasis,embodiment,etymology,Franz Kafka,gender,Gender Studies,German studies,Jewish Studies,Kafka,Masculinity,Materialism,metamorphosis,minor literature,new materialism,OAI-PMH Harvest,phenomenal,phenomenology,queer phenomenology,queer utopia,sensational,sensoria,The Metamorphosis,translation,Translation Studies,Verwandlung,visuality,Visualization,Yiddish

Format theses (aat)

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Lippit, Akira Mizuta (committee chair), Szabari, Antonia (committee member), Tongson, Karen (committee member)

Creator Email ch.plinke@gmail.com,cplinke@usc.edu

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-oUC113131536

Unique identifier UC113131536

Identifier etd-PlinkeCord-11866.pdf (filename)

Legacy Identifier etd-PlinkeCord-11866

Document Type Dissertation

Format theses (aat)

Rights Plinke, Cord-Heinrich Richard Karl

Internet Media Type application/pdf

Type texts

Source 20230518-usctheses-batch-1046 (batch), University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the author, as the original true and official version of the work, but does not grant the reader permission to use the work if the desired use is covered by copyright. It is the author, as rights holder, who must provide use permission if such use is covered by copyright.

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA

Repository Email cisadmin@lib.usc.edu