Powerlessness & Choice

What do Camus, Akhmatova, Kafka and Goethe have in common? If your only thought happens to be strange names then you’re not in the right place. Or perhaps you are. Perhaps, what you need is a little adventure? A transformation of sorts perhaps?

Story Time

Cinderella didn’t have to end with her living happily ever after with the Prince. It ended that way because she made the choice to come out and make herself known. Metamorphosis by Kafka, a story that experienced its own sort of transformation was also set off by a choice, one that was brought on by a bit of loss. The character, Gregor finds himself in a bit of a difficult situation, not unlike our fairytale heroine Cinderella; he is tired of slaving away for others and having to pay back debts that are not his own has gotten to be a bit of a strain on him. Instead of finding his happy ever after with a princess, however, Gregor wakes up to find that he has transformed, not into a beautiful person with a pumpkin carriage but a bug. This loss of physical humanity that Gregor undergoes leads him down a path of more and more loss until eventually his own life is cut short. However, it also brings about the revival of his family. One could say that in this instance, the transformation story was really of his family. One could also say that this supernatural transformation could have been altered. Had Gregor chosen to put himself out there like Cinderella and made himself known, would he perhaps have still lost his humanity? Would Cinderella have remained with her stepmother and stepsisters had she remained in her room where she belonged? While these answers are unknown and potentially unfounded, the lessons they bring about are not.

What Lesson? How to Teach It?

The first thing you need to do when reading Metamorphosis is to have an open mind. Thankfully, this is something that popular culture has made very easy for high school children to do. With shows like Supernatural depicting transformation and giving glimpses into the battle of good versus evil (of God versus the devil in some cases), it is very easy to imagine what it might be like to one day wake up as one thing when you’d gone to bed as something else entirely. What might be hard to imagine, however, is how to digest it. Reading alone, especially skimming will not help a person truly get to know a story. A child, no matter the age must be brought into it and should dwell in it for a while. This can be done by asking prompting questions such as:

What Bible story does this make you think of?

Do you think Gregor’s transformation happened because he gave his troubles to the devil?

Would there perhaps have been an alternate ending had Gregor or his family held onto his humanity a little longer?

“Devil Take It All.”

These words uttered by Gregor at the very start of the story are the first domino hitting the second. These words start the true process of transformation.