Category: Pop culture

Metamorphosis- Anatomy of mental illness

Franz Kafka

Metamorphosis is about ‘Valuing a person for who they are’. The goal is not to understand him/her, the goal is to accept them for who they are. Metamorphosis shows what will go wrong when we lessen the value of everyone as an individual person for their motivations, drives, ambitions, expectations in any structure. It can be social, financial or personal. As a reader you will hate Gregor’s Family. This will also happen with every system where people are not valued.

Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is one of the 20th centuries greatest literary masterpieces. Originally written in German as ‘Die Verwandlung’, the novella has been the centre of discussion for many critics. Ever since I discovered Metamorphosis, there was this feeling inside me to bring this into words.

The story of Metamorphosis goes like this-

Gregor Samsa- a traveling cloth salesman finds himself woken up to be transformed into monstrous vermin (generally depicted as a cockroach). He is already late for his routine job which he hates by heart but cannot quit as he is bound to the employer by his father’s debt. He is the only source of income to the family. The absence of Gregor at job makes the Chief clerk from Office to have a check Gregor’s home. To convince his serious physical condition to the Chief clerk, Gregor comes out of his room with all his insect like avatar and irregular and scary vocals. This scares the clerk, and he leaves. The serious condition of Gregor scares his family especially his mother who is always helpless in front of his father. Gregor’s father- with whom he has no personal attachments, feelings already lash out on him to forcefully get him in his room thereby injuring him during the whole scene.

Gregor’s sister Grete whom he adores helps him in the start by feeding him, clearing his room of furniture to make him crawl freely. Due to the condition of Gregor, family has no income. Now Gregor accepts his condition and adjusts himself to this repulsive yet his ‘own’ identity. He crawls on the walls, floor; loves eating rotten food, doesn’t care about hygiene. One incident leads Gregor’s father to angrily shoot apples at him causing serious injuries to his sensitive parts. Suffering to injuries, Gregor loses his appetite, his family neglects him as he is of no use. The family decides to rent a room in their house to three people who are unaware of Gregor’s presence. One incidence leads to the exposure of Gregor’s presence to the tenants causing them to leave the room and not paying for the accommodation due to serious unhealthy living conditions. This upsets family especially his beloved sister who now considers him as a burden, she asks her parents to get rid of ‘it’ (Gregor is no more ‘a being’ for her). Upon realization of no worth to the family and no self-worth, Gregor dies of starvation. The dead body discovered by their house maid gives the family relief (!) and the family disposes off the dead body.

Now the family thinks of moving to a small house for saving money and getting Grete a husband.

Metamorphosis is the best example of written surrealism. The way Kafka develops the picture of a repulsive vermin (insect) through his writing is such an experience. Some think that it is the best representation feeling of alienation, powerlessness, public humiliation, the feeling being ashamed of ourselves, the strong influence of patriarchy. Most of the people strongly believe that the story is spitting image of the influence of Kafka’s father over his entire life and his life decisions. Kafka never liked the way his father treated him, this is consistently proven to be true over his important life events and his writings. Most of the Kafka’s written works were unfinished.

I think Metamorphosis is personification of Depression. Metamorphosis is a guidebook on how to not treat a person with depression, mental illness rather how to not treat every person.

The morphism of a human into a worthless repulsive insect clearly shows the feeling of separation, alienation from society. It represents the feeling of hopelessness- ‘self-disgust’ the person feels. Man is a social animal and the people around him are directly and indirectly are influencing his development- physically, mentally and spiritually. The person having self-disgust has lost all the hope for his development. Gregor finds himself in the same condition. This is the time when he really needs extra care and support. But Gregor’s family is beyond helping him, his sister helps him in the start thus comforting him for some time and accepting himself. But he still accepts himself as an insect, not a person which shows that there is no way he will be coming back.

Gregor’s insect like unhealthy eating habits, crawling on the floor, walls, lethargy, slowed body movements, change in speech show some of the highlighting features of a person with mental disorder.

The story has many moments where Gregor’s is consistently physically abused and injured which stay with him forever. The later scenes of his family especially his sister being despised of him depict the feelings of worthlessness, emptiness, self-blame a person with mental disorder goes through. This was the moment when Gregor was only needed to be accepted by his family for who he was. He doesn’t expect to be understood. Being rejected by that last person whom we have always rooted for is the worst feeling in the world.

Finally, Gregor loses hope and leaves the life by starvation. The reaction and decisions made by his family later show no attachment to him thus making the death of Gregor more pronounced and evident (which is wrong on so may levels!) The end of story cares more about nobody caring about him.

I will again highlight that Metamorphosis is a guidebook for every person on how to not treat a person going through mental conditions. They may be expressive about it to you, or they may not give even single hint of this condition which becomes a challenge. It’s not like every sad looking person going through it. History has some of the great examples where person who always used to look happy were victim of it.

The main takeaway from Metamorphosis is ‘Valuing a person for who they are’. The goal is not to understand him/her, the goal is to accept them for who they are. Metamorphosis shows what will go wrong when we lessen the value of everyone as an individual person for their motivations, drives, ambitions, expectations in any structure. It can be social, financial or personal. As a reader you will hate Gregor’s Family. This will also happen with every system where people are not valued.

Any system where people are kept first will always thrive and sustain till the end, because it is always about you and people around you.

On personal level it is more about treating people on same levels, being there when they are feeling low, caring for them, accepting them.

Metamorphosis- A must read for everyone.

Franz Kafka Monument in Prague- “Description of a Struggle”

Image Credits: Franz Kafka Monument in Prague by Myrabella

Everything at once

The anthem of innocence and ambition

Songs and long roads is the match made in heaven. This pair is like boat with a sail to reach to destinations of new experiences, discoveries and revelations. There is a reason why some very deep meaning songs from movies are shot while our protagonist(s) are traveling. I experienced such moment once while traveling by bus. The bus was obediently tracing the road lines. I had this playlist going between the ears to just to fill the void of mindlessness. The volume was on high, and the forceful background noise of the air whirling through the window wanted to become the part of song’s composition. Suddenly, I stumbled upon a song, and this song hit me in a different way. Though I had ‘heard’ the song many times, this time- I ‘listened’ to the song. It was like the song talked back to me; I understood the true meaning this song, that was a moment of revelation for me.

If you truly are a song listener (I mean who isn’t ?!), there are these moments in life where we actually, truly understand the lyrics and the real meaning behind the song- the real intention for the creation of the song. This is about a song called ‘Everything at once’ written and sung by Lenka. It is available on YouTube and was featured in Windows 8 commercials. Here goes the lyrics (generic lyrics copy/paste incoming, just for the sake of building a foundation for explanation) –

As sly as a fox, as strong as an ox
As fast as a hare, as brave as a bear
As free as a bird, as neat as a word
As quiet as a mouse, as big as a house

All I wanna be is everything once

As mean as a wolf, as sharp as a tooth
As deep as a bite, as dark as the night
As sweet as a song, as right as a wrong
As long as a road, as ugly as a toad

As pretty as a picture hanging from a fixture
Strong like a family, strong as I wanna be
Bright as day, as light as play
As hard as nails, as grand as a whale

All I wanna be is everything at once

As warm as the sun, as silly as fun
As cool as a tree, as scary as the sea
As hot as fire, cold as ice
Sweet as sugar and everything nice

As old as time, as straight as a line
As royal as a queen, as buzzed as a bee
As stealth as a tiger, smooth as a glider
Pure as a melody, pure as I wanna be

All I wanna be Is everything at once

-Written by Kripac Lenka Eden

At first, it seems like our songwriter has donned the costume of a child who just wants to become everything she fancies. She wants to be like fox, ox, hare, bear, bird, and a whole zoo simultaneously! The house and mouse seem like meant to be used as a rhyme to maintain the auditory meter of the verse. As the imagination allows, the songwriter wants to be everything. Starting from living things like mean wolf, ugly toad to the non-living and literally lifeless things like- picture hanging on the fixture, straight line, glider.

I think there is more to this song than just a simple sentence structure and rhymes. Every quality our songwriter wants to possess in the song is linked to the best example the nature, our surrounding can provide. What is anything else slyer than a fox could ever be? Sheer strength of an ox – a bull, fastness of a rabbit, the wildness, daring of a bear to face every opponent present in front with confidence- who could be a better representative than them?

In first two verse, we can see that the starting two lines reflect a negative, dark and gory expectations of the songwriter. These darker intentions suddenly follow the light-hearted and more positive aspirations she wants to follow. As in slyness, strength, swiftness, braveness, meanness, sharpness, depth of a bite, darkness- they indicate the hunger for power authority, control and maybe destructive, dominating intentions; but followed by these mentions things like – real freedom that only a bird can experience, structuredness of the word, quietness, acceptability, the ability to accommodate every necessity like a house, melody of a song- further clarify the intentions of the songwriter. It’s not just about good and bad, she wants to go beyond what is good and bad. That is the reason she feels no shame to become as ugly as Toad, become long and boring like a road.

Pretty picture hanging on fixture is a metaphor for the combination of that urge to demonstrate the unconventionality, beauty, masterpiece-ness through picture which just sits or hangs on the fixture which has no greater design intention- I mean fixture has only one purpose- it is there to hang/support the picture. This example is an important bridge between most of the routine, repeating, boring things and most of the extraordinary, unconventional, out of the box things in the life.

What an example of family to standardize the strength! The true relations are stronger than steel and mightier than gods. She doesn’t want any limitations to this strength. A day is fundamental definition of bright otherwise that would have been called night (!?) The lightness of play shows joy and spirit of playful moments in our life.

She brings mere small nail to show how hard she wants to become. Tiny yet hard, which never breaks to any impact or pressure. From this tininess she moves to the grandness of whale. I think this needs no further explanation.

Till we reach the last verse, it feels like the boundaries between positive and negative, good and bad are getting blurred. The irrelevant use of sun and fun, tree and sea, may seem some verbal adjustments done to complete the rhyme, but it indicates that, the songwriter doesn’t want to think what makes sense according to normal standards- she is just expressing whatever she desires, whatever she feels.

Warmth of the Sun shows parental, serious and caring nature she wants to have, and silliness will bring more flavor, joy a new dimension to this warmth. She wants to possess the openness, the role of provider from the tree.

The use of sea for the scary nature truly highlights the innocence and truthfulness of a child. What is a child afraid of? A child is generally afraid of darkness, harshness, roughness. What is an adult afraid of? An adult, a grown up is afraid of uncertainties, indecisiveness, tensions, indefiniteness, unpredictability. The sea stands as the great and unique example for fear of the unknown. People say that we have explored stars, galaxies in deep space but most depths of our oceans, seas are still unexplored, unknown. We as a human are not comfortable with everything that we are unfamiliar, unknown of. The songwriter or our child bears no shame in admitting that. Accepting what we fear has already created an opportunity to face them, I think that is the power of innocence, because innocence always brings a best friend with it and that best friend’s name is ‘The Truth’.

The use of ‘Oldness of time’ to me seems like a home-run. All the things dead and alive, beautiful and ugly, good and bad, young and old- all of them are witnessed by the Time. This has also given the time ‘that’ wisdom. Our songwriter wants that gift of wisdom through oldness; and here she also questions beginning of the time indirectly. She is literally questioning the fundamentals of life. That is clearer in straight-ness of line because what could be straighter than a line! (:D) Sugar is the basic definition of sweetness and niceness. She desires to experience the extremities which are called upon through ‘Fire and Ice’. It’s like axioms are getting established in this verse!

Queen’s royalty indicates the sophistication and controlled behavior to ensure higher value delivery from the people surrounding her, but ‘buzz’ness of bee shows that she wants to be just more than sophisticated- she wants to remain excited for everything too. Stealth and smoothness show the subtlety, refined nature she wants to have in life.

For the final argument, she makes a universal and all-inclusive statement that she wants to be as pure as possible. Her ambition for purity brings down all the boundaries and blends the differences/extremities and common denominator of the qualities she has expressed. She doesn’t want to separate each feeling, justify each feeling to an animal or thing- she wants to create her own point of view, her own standard. Authenticity is the one thing the songwriter desires to have from all the things she wants to become.

That is what children are. They are innocent- guileless- no tricks involved. If a child is angry, he/she will never hide that feeling (you will find it on their nose- no GPS needed!). Their laughter is contagious enough to melt a rock. Their questions are clear and fundamental. I think these things gets lost while we are growing up. We as a child had these all feelings, ambitions but with time, company of people, incidences- some of them got amplified and some got dumped down. Today we are identified by what became amplified and stayed with us. The songwriter wants to bring back that everything which makes us a human. We are a mixture of feelings, experiences and learnings.

This song is a calling for that child in you.

Or maybe this not that great song, it’s just a child blabbering out what she learned today in kindergarten. Maybe it is just my overthinking. But it still proves the point. I play this song in my mind as if some kid is singing it with that characteristic childish lisp!

An adult scientist is a kid who never grew up

Neil deGrasse Tyson