Find yourself, I'm not going to help you

Siddhartha is a book about a man who has a similar story to that of the buddha, he leaves hinduism to pursue asceticism and meditate all the time. He begins to look for the answer to the one question, the big, important question that can't be taught from teachers. He wants to find himself. He goes to the buddha at first for guidance, but he finds that the buddha can't tell him because the only way Siddhartha can find what he is looking for, is to look to himself. He is trying to find the self. He says that each with their own way, they finds escape from the self. The drunk escapes from himself in drinking, the ascetic in meditation, etc.

Also on his journey, Siddhartha learns to live without possessions. For three years he lived with nothing but a loincloth, and he didn't even realize it until the merchant asks him how he can live without possessions- "'I have never thought about it, sir. I have been without possessions for nearly three years and I have never thought on what I should live"(Hesse 64). I am way too bloody sentimental about things to be like that. It would be cool, traveling the land with nothing but what I can carry, but I'm very attached to possessions. Minimalism is a good practice but is very difficult for many people. I don't see how Siddhartha does it so easily.

Ihr Leben ist Mir Wurst

The Modernist era took place from the late nineteenth century to the mid twentieth century. It was an era of total war, depression, and work. There were so little limits in the workplace that people believed that they would simply work themselves to death. Life expectancy was short, around age forty. Vampires were rampant. Not necessarily the blood sucking, pale, seductive type of vampire, but a subtle vampire. These types of vampires exist in real life; they work much slower, and can appear in any form. These are the vampires of empathy. They seek out a young, hardworking individual who cares about anothers well being, and they feed. This Vampirism is exemplified in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. The Story takes place in modernist Prague, where Gregor, the main character as prey, turns into a bug. As a bug he becomes useless to his family, the vampires, and he becomes a burden to them. Gregor has worked to pay off his parent’s debt for five or six years and he reckons it will be about five or six years more before it’s paid off. He has dedicated most of his adult life to working for his parent’s livelihood, and even more he wants to pay for his sister’s education at a school where she can play the violin. Gregor is the young, empathetic individual, and the parents are the Vampires.

Gregor’s father is an evil prick. If anyone in the story were the most vampiric, it would be him. He is the cause of Gregor’s work dilemma, he is lazy, and he hurts Gregor multiple times when he is in his bug state. His father, although capable of work, doesn’t do anything to help Gregor in his situation. In fact, he just sits around on his gluttonous butt and reads newspapers. “For his father breakfast was the most important meal time in the day, which he prolonged for hours by reading various newspapers”(Kafka 7). Anyone who spends hours reading newspapers and eating breakfast has a problem. Mr. Samsa, as demonstrated later in the book, can work. What a normal, empathetic person would do is work as hard as they can to fix their debt and maybe, maybe accept some financial help from their son. Mr. Samsa is just feasting on Gregor until his imminent demise. Gregor doesn’t even have time for a social life, he can’t meet a lady. He framed a magazine cutout of a lady. When he finally is forced to work for subsistence, Mr. Samsa sits in the armchair ‘exhausted’ from working all day, too lazy to even take off his uniform. “With a sort of stubbornness the father refused to take off his servants uniform even at home, and while keeping his sleeping gown unused on the coat hook, the father dozed completely dressed in his place[the armchair], as if he was always ready for his responsibility and even here was waiting for the voice of his superior.”(Kafka 19) Gregor has been doing this for years, Mr. Samsa starts working for a couple weeks and suddenly he’s so exhausted and dramatic. He is so used to being a vampire to Gregor that he has gotten too lazy for work.

On the other hand, the rest of the family also takes advantage of Gregor, just in a quieter manner. To thank Gregor for his lifetime of hard work, they shut him in a room for the last year of his life. Even worse, they keep him out of their meals. When people dine together, there is something of a special relationship between them. In rugby, the home team has big picnics after matches with their opponents to show that they respect them.  “in the real world, breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace, since if your breaking bread you’re not breaking heads” (Foster 8) A communion is the intimate sharing of thoughts or feelings. Foster says that whenever people eat together, its communion. Communion doesn’t only happen in churches with small pieces of bread and teaspoonfuls of wine. Communion is the gathering of a people and a sharing of something in mutual respect. When Gregor’s family leaves him out of their meals, they show that they have lost their respect for Gregor’s character, and yet Gregor still loves them. He would still come back and work for them had he not been a bug. Gregor’s meals are instead spent in his room, sucking on cheese or what have you, where his thoughts and feelings are left to fester in his head. His family is so distant from him that Kafka refers to them as ‘The Father’ and ‘The Sister’. “With his left hand, his father grabbed a large newspaper from the table and, stamping his feet on the floor, he set out to drive Gregor back into his room by waving the cane and the newspaper.”(Kafka 8) Gregor’s father is so distant from his son that he can’t even herd him back into his room with his hands. He has to grab utensils to separate him and Gregor.

            Existentialism is the idea that existence overrules essence. People exist as an individual and no matter how much society shoves them into a slot; they’ll never fit into it. Gregor spends most of his life being jostled into a slot by his family, his job, and the modernist era. When he turns into a bug, he is liberated in some way, he doesn’t have to provide for his family anymore, even if he would like to. “Was he really eager to let the warm room… be turned into a cavern in which he could, of course, then be able to crawl about in all directions without disturbance”(Kafka 15)

Gregor feels like it is wrong to live outside the generic rules that he had lived by all of his life, but his existence wants to take over and do what he wants to do rather than what he thinks he needs to do. Gregor wants to be just what his parents want him to be, which is what the era teaches him to do. To be a manufactured product suited for the workplace and only for the workplace. And Gregor has been so affected by this ‘Modern’ era that his first reaction when he realizes he is a bug is to get to work. When his manager comes to see what the problem with him is, Gregor keeps lying to try to cover up his quite serious medical condition. “’I’m opening the door immediately, this very moment. A slight indisposition, a dizzy spell, has prevented me form getting up. I’m still lying in bed right now. But I’m quite refreshed once again.’” (Kafka 5) yet the manager doesn’t seem to care that Gregor is even sick, he later goes on to accuse Gregor of selfishness. That was his first missed day of work ever.

            Modernism, existentialism, communion, and vampirism are all factors in The Metamorphosis’s plot. Kafka cleverly paints a portrait of society during that era. That idea of subsistence till death affected everyone in that era. Thus people strived to exist in their own being. And although it is a very depressing thought, some people think their only liberation is death. “He remained in this state of empty and peaceful reflection until the tower clock struck three in the morning. In front of the window he witnessed the beginning of the outside growing generally lighter”(Kafka 25) Kafka describes the atmosphere around Gregor to be lighter and more peaceful. Gregor is liberated in death.

I Just Want My Pancakes

Communion is the intimate sharing of thoughts and ideas, especially spiritual thoughts or ideas. Communion is made popular by the christian church. But it has since taken a broader meaning

“whenever people eat or drink together, its communion”(Foster 8). When there is a description of a meal in a piece of literature or a scene in a movie or show, its always more than that. For example, in Breaking Bad, the hit TV show, it is highly disputed why Walt, Skyler, and Walt Jr. eat breakfast all the time. I think Gilligan, the producer, uses the breakfast to gauge the gravity of the situation. If Walt Jr. turns down breakfast, tension is at an all time high, the boy loves his breakfast. If Skyler only pours cereal, (hopefully not the dreaded non crunchy raisin bran), she and walt are at odds once again. And if Walt makes an extravagant feast of a breakfast, he is either distracting Walt Jr. from something or he is rubbing it in Skyler's face that he is living in the house again. If the whites are eating together, it is shown that they have settled things, as much as they can be on Breaking Bad. Meals, although sometimes they are just meals, often mean more than that. Dining together can be a symbol of peace and friendship, as Foster so eloquently describes “in the real world, breaking bread together is an act of sharing and peace, since if your breaking bread you’re not breaking heads” (Foster 8) Rarely is it that one kills a guest at their table, they only did it to Rasputin because he was impossible to kill.

Foster, in his third chapter of How to Read Literature Like a Professor , explains that not all vampires are blood sucking. some, much like Gregor's father in The Metamorphosis, are merely older men preying on the little innocent thing, sucking all life, nourishment, and money from them until they die. “it’s [vampirism] also about things other than literal vampirism: selfishness, exploitation, as refusal to respect the autonomy of other people, just for starters”(Foster 16) Foster explains that vampires can be anyone. There is a particular formula for vampires that apply to most of them correctly. that formula includes an older being, too lazy or unwilling to find their own nourishment; a young being, willing to work and seriously compassionate, and they always see laziness as disability; and the older being must take advantage of the younger.  “the essentials of the vampire story, as we discussed earlier: an older figure representing corrupt, outworn values; a yound, preferably virginal female; astripping away of her youth, energy, virtue; a continuance of the life force of the old male; the death or destruction of the young woman” (Foster 19) Foster says that the vampires rampant greed and lust will eventually lead to the downfall of the young being. This directly applies to Gregor's story, he is young, he provides, he dies.

Non-Conformist Beliefs

Gregor dies in the end. His father kills him, just like he has been hurting him for the past month that Gregor has been alive. Gregor has been shut up in that one room. the only four corners he can exist in. When he attempts to escape, his father pushes him back it, violently, as if he isn't their son anymore. This could be interpreted to be like the way Gregor would only be at work or home, never enjoying comforts, while his parent's debt pushes him in to the 'room' of work. This could be connected to existentialism because existentialists, the way I interpret it, believe in the existence of the individual over the essence of life. The individual can't fit into a generic slot like society and others try to make them. Gregor turning into a bug is showing that, however much he wants to, he can't fit into the mold that his family, his job, and the world wants him to fit in. Gregor is an independent thinker and nothing should hold him down.

Its not that Gregor doesn't want to work and provide for his family. He is very empathetic, which is the human thing about Gregor. I would argue that, although he is a bug, Gregor is the most human character in the story. The rest of the family, the manager, and the lodgers don't show any empathy, except for grete in some cases. The manager shows no concern for Gregor's life or well being, he just sees him as a broken machine. The lodgers see Gregor and exclaim that everything about their house and family sucked, even though they get above and beyond service. The father sees Gregor as vermin that only stays around for the shred of hope that it might turn back into human.

Lone Breadwinner

Gregor's family is incredibly rude and insensitive. Their son has been turned into a massive bug and all they do about it is keep him in a small room and barely feed him. His father, the most evil of all, went as far as to throw stuff at him and hurt him. “Gregor stood still in fright. Further running away was useless, for his father had decided to bombard him[With Fruit]” (Kafka 18) merely because Gregor  prevented them from taking a picture he wanted to keep, his father chased him around a living room throwing apples at him, and injured him with one lodged in his back. Kafka cleverly refers to his family as 'the father' and 'the mother' and so on for most of the essay in a very impersonal tone. The only time he uses proper nouns such as 'Grete' and 'Mr. Samsa' are when Gregor was dead or when Grete is being somewhat nice to Gregor. It just exemplifies that his family is rude and takes Gregor seriously for granted. “For his father breakfast was the most important meal time in the day, which he prolonged for hours by reading various newspapers”(Kafka 7),The father is so uncaring that even though his poor son is being kind enough to pay off his debt from his failed business, he does absolutely nothing and spends hours reading the news and eating breakfast. Gregor being the only breadwinner, his father gets out of practice in work and sleeping schedule. So when Gregor becomes indisposed, "With a sort of stubbornness the father refused to take off his servants uniform even at home, and while keeping his sleeping gown unused on the coat hook, the father dozed completely dressed in his place[the armchair],”(Kafka 19) He is so dramatic about it too, he lets the mother and Grete coddle him and flatter him for half an hour in order to get him to go to bed. Like a toddler.

           The time setting plays a huge part in the story as well. The Metamorphosis takes place in the same era that Kafka lived, around WWI and the Great depression. This 'modernist' era is one where unlimited capitalism is rampant and, for the average citizen, work is all there is. People would live short lives in which they worked only to subsist. Gregor, surprisingly optimistic, has to pay off his parents debt on top of his living expenses. Even when he is turned into a bug, he feels the urge to work, “Anyway, I haven’t completely given up that hope yet. Once I've got together the money to pay off my parents debt to him--- that should take another five or six years- ill do it for sure. Then Ill make the big break[quitting his job]. In any case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock”(Kafka 1). Five or six years is one eighth of the average life in that time period,  Gregor spends most of his life paying off his parents debt. And he is forced to work in an awful job with awful hours with a family that takes him for granted, yet he is still optimistic. He hasn't taken a sick day or a day off in all the years he has worked, and yet when he is an hour late to work the manager comes to his house and says “However, now I see your unimaginable pig headedness, and I am totally losing desire to speak up for you in the slightest. And your position is not at all the most secure” (Kafka 5). He threatens a minor traveling salesman with his job because he has turned into a bug and can get out of bed. With no laws protecting working conditions and hours, companies can expect extreme things from employees. And yet, Gregor takes every bit of it without objecting in the slightest. “’I’m opening the door immediately, this very moment. A slight indisposition, a dizzy spell, has prevented me form getting up. I’m still lying in bed right now. But I’m quite refreshed once again.’” (Kafka 5) He makes excuses for himself and apologizes intensely rather that simply telling the manager that he is a bug. Because he know that his family, friends, and coworkers would be upset and embarrassed that he had been turned into a bug. If you are worried your friends will be embarrassed that they know you, because you've been turned into a bug, there is something wrong with society. A mere sickness or indisposition causing shame is sad.