Another Way of Looking at Kafka
After today’s panel presentation about seeing The Metamorphosis through the lens of ageing, I decided to write my Kafka blog post on my own (admittedly stretched) possible interpretation of the novella. Reading Kafka’s story, I couldn’t help but envision Gregor’s transformation as an analogy for mental illness and the way it was dealt with during Kafka’s time. Mental illness in general could definitely fit Gregor’s narrative, but autism makes even more sense. I did some research and found that there’s a smattering of people who agree, so bear with me. The biggest evidence to support this analogy is Gregor’s inability to communicate with anyone else, and the lack of effort to communicate on the family’s part. Think of a child with autism in the 20th century. There wasn’t much knowledge about autism during this time period, and nobody really knew how to communicate with autistic people, so they often didn’t try to communicate at all. On the other hand, autism often renders a pers...