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| Antigone vesrus anti-Antigone |
«The central figure in Kafka’s story Die Verwandlung (the “Metamorphosis”) written in 1911 is not Gregor Samsa, who metamorphoses overnight into an enormous insect-like creature (“ein ungeheueres Ungeziefer”), but his sister Greta. She actively intervenes in the storyline and her actions bring about its real turning points and twists—i.e., transformations. The grotesque metamorphosis occurs at the moment when Greta Samsa stops treating her brother as a human being, ridding herself of doubt and indecision over whether he is a human being or an animal, and his presence becomes unbearable to her. At this moment Greta abandons her brother and renounces him as a human being: it is no longer her brother lying in the adjoining room, but some king of freakish monster (“ein Untier”). It is only logical that Greta Samsa, a modern anti-Antigone, does not bury her brother herself, but leaves it up to the charwoman to make sure his remains are cleaned up (“wegschaffen”) and disappear from the face of the earth. A person did not pass away, rather an animal died, perished, croaked. The servant woman says of the dead Gregor Samsa: “ … es ist krepiert, da liegt es, ganz und gar krepiert!” When relations between people become so depersonalized that they consider each other to be pestilent insects, it would be grotesque to bury the remains of the people-non-people, these human insects, because it corresponds to their state—i.e., their grotesque transformation, that a funeral cannot be arranged for them—but they will be cleared away with banal utensils, a broom, a shovel and a rag, and disposed of prosaically. “Es” and “krepieren”—these are the appropriate expressions for dealing with grotesque metamorphosis.
But because people, even in their inhuman form, are endowed with consciousness and language, they must justify their actions in some manner—to themselves and to others. And Greta Samsa, the anti-Antigone of modern times, deliberates out loud as follows: Gregor Samsa is no longer her brother, nor a human being. If he was her brother and a human being he would show consideration for the family, would not disturb its peace and quiet, and would voluntarily clear himself away from the house.
For the family, including Greta Samsa, wishes to have peace and quiet (“seine Ruhe haben”) and everything that disturbs this peace is disgusting, repellent, must get out of the way, must be cleared away. And absolutely nothing may be allowed to unsettle this peace, not even death: death has lost its shocking power, it is powerless against the established routine, the ordinary peace which people come to rely on. Greta Samsa personifies this unshakable “peace and quiet” of modern times which cannot be upset by anything and therefore strides toward its goal—over dead bodies. The young body of Greta Samsa, her exuberant, pugnacious, and prolific youth, shakes off everything that could threaten its irrepressible growth, including her brother’s death, and there is nothing, absolutely nothing that could spoil this growth and proliferation. Not shocked by anything, unshakable by any death, the bereaved relatives of Gregor Samsa stride onward, even after the death of a brother and son they are entirely preoccupied with “prospects for the future” (“Aussichten für die Zukunft”) which are, as has now become apparent after the death of son and brother, “highly advantageous and most promising, especially in the longer term” (“überaus günstig und besonders für später vielversprechend”).
Greta Samsa, not upset by anything, not even her brother’s death, strides toward her future which is a reproduction of the past, and thus her next life will thus only be a repetition of sterility, narrow-mindedness, past routine, and she will put all her youthful energy into this sterile repetition.
That is why Kafka’s “metamorphosis” is ironic and grotesque on many levels and has many meanings. People have already been so transformed and imprisoned in banality, everyday routine, narrow-mindedness, the pettiness which they consider to be “normality” and ordinariness, that they do not have the power, the willingness or the will to liberate themselves from these degrading circumstances and thus to really and truly transform themselves. Gregor Samsa metamorphoses into an insect overnight, but this external and naturalistic transformation only emphasizes that internally and spiritually he remains within the banality and constriction of his life thus far. He has only changed form, but his self has not metamorphosed. Death is degraded and not even it has the power any longer to wrest people from this banality and narrow-mindedness.
But is the power of banality on the march, striding even over dead bodies, as personified by the figure of Greta Samsa who is the anti-Antigone of modern times, really so omnipotent that it can exclude all possibility of the tragic and in its victorious crusade through the world will sweep every possible Antigone aside?
I had to bring the situation to a head in this way to be able to make the initial question about the possibility, or impossibility, of the tragic in our times more precise and reformulate it into another question: Who if anyone can revolt against the real or imaginary omnipotence of Greta Samsa, who will defy her, the modern Antigone?»
From
Democracy and the Myth of CaveKarel Kosík
