Alienated Workers

This is probably totally inaccurate and basically wild speculation but some of our recent discussions caused me to recall some of the readings we did of Marx in philosophy last year. Marx predicted generational conflicts due to constantly changing technology, and that these technological changes would cause what it means to be human to be very different for each generation. While some of us would disagree and would like to hold human nature to be some higher unchanging thing that is not incrementally changed by technology it is hard to deny that we do not function very differently from our previous generations. We function so differently that to them we might be seen as totally alien.
         The way this relates to the Metamorphosis is in the way that Gregor becomes happy and gains pleasure the less like a human he behaves. He is becoming something entirely different and unrecognizable to the people around him, to the point that they no longer even view him as human. It is possible that just like Marx predicts what it means to be human in the modern working environment has changed Gregor so that the family, and I think Kafka himself, find him repugnant and do not recognize this new type of human. The more Gregor tries to define himself by his old humanity and cling to his previous self identity the more pain he causes himself. But when he embraces his new nature he enjoys some of the new activities he is able to do. He has simply become something totally different from what it has previously meant to be human and should embrace his new existence.
      This doesn't hold up throughout the entire novel, as his parent and sibling do not experience similar transformations once they begin working. And I think certainly Kafka was unhappy with the existence of the modern worker and did not want to portray it as something that was only unworthy because modern workers kept expecting to be a definition of human that didn't make sense in the modern world. That said to some extent I think Marx's ideas about how the nature of humanity changes with it's environment are represented here in the way the modern working environment transforms Gregor.

Dreams In The Metamorphosis

I think it is interesting how Kafka opens the novel by assuring us that Gregor has just emerged from troubled edreams but the rest of the novel proceeds in a very surreal dreamlike fashion. I think the biggest example of this is the way so many things behave exactly the way he expects them too, even when it makes very little sense that they would do so. For example the manger showing up at his house even though he is only slightly late at that point. Furthermore no one ever questions the means by which Gregor has been transformed and tries to get a doctor or scientist involved, they are all as completely accepting of the total absurdity of the situation as Gregor is. I think this seems very dreamlike because in dreams no one ever question the total strangeness of the situation in mars. My bus driver from second grade never wonders exactly why we are on a hot air balloon, he just goes along with it the same way I do. The whole family never wonders why he's a cockroach and in fact they view it the same way Gregor does, they are ashamed of him as he is ashamed of himself and they view him primarily as a provider for the family which is similar to the way Gregor views himself. His first thought is that he will no longer be able to work and right away they begin to plan for what they will do now that Gregor is unable to.
        I am not entirely sure of the significance of the contrast between the dreamlike way all the characters think so similarly and Kafka's reassurance that this is not in fact a dream at the beginning of the novel. It is probably just to make the novel seem more surreal and strange and to convey the fact that this reality is just as horrible as Gregor imagines it.

Mastery of the Idiom

I think my favorite moment in the whole novel is when someone describes Georgette as having a mastery of the idiom. That phrase  stuck in my head as being the perfect description of the way we behave in certain situations.On one level it makes complete sense that Georgette as a prostitute would have mastered creating impressions out of more then just the exact meanings of her words and actions. This is a skill which would certainly be vital in her career. Furthermore it strongly implies that she is laying a role. which again as a prostitute she is pretty much expected to do. Because an idiom only makes sense because we have heard it used and not because of what it is actually composed of, I think it works as a very good metaphor for anyone playing a role in a social situation. When we play roles we constantly give off cues and the like indicating to people who we want them to think we are. These cues frequently conform to agreed upon ideas of how people should behave in certain situations or what one type of person is like rather then being true to any one persons authentic self. Therefore mastery of the idiom is a great expression for when we are trying to pretend to be a stock character everyone has heard of and knows and who fits comfortably into certain situations rather then ourselves.

Brett and Jake

I suppose since everyone is weighing in on it I should probably discuss the Jake and Brett relationship. I don’t find the end of the novel to be particularly affirming or uplifting for the future of their relationship. I read Jake’s “Isn’t it pretty to think so” to be sarcastic in light of his heavy drinking and the way he sort of rubs his material wealth in Brett's face through the decadent meal he eats. I also think that trying to draw conclusions based on the possible phallic imagery of the baton is kind of a stretch. I see the future of their relationship being much the same as their past, while Jake is angry and frustrated with Brett he is still willing to come help her and there is no indication that this will be the last time he serves as an enabler for her. That said I think it is an oversimplification of the relationship to view this relationship as Brett exploiting Jake, though Jake likes to view it this way.

There is a repeated motif of Brett being unwillingly worshipped. For example in the procession at Pamplona there is a moment where “Bret wanted to dance but they did not want her to. They wanted her as an image to dance around.” While here Jake is aware that Brett does not want this he later shows that he thinks Brett really wants this sort of worship when he describes her walking through the festival and acting as if it were all for her when really she just want to talk to him. If we look at the group dynamics we see that they somewhat parallel the dancers and Brett.

With the exception of Bill all the other characters are totally obsessed with Brett. Cohn is the most obvious, he follows her around almost obsessively and is basically there waiting for her to come back to him. The people he is with don’t like him and make perfectly clear that they want him to go away. Therefore his presence is a sort of self-abasement, he stays in this situation in which he is constantly insulted and loses all credibility as a socially competent individual in order to have half a chance of being with Brett again. Mike is less obvious but he is also sort of abasing himself before her simply by sitting back and watching her affairs with Cohn and Romero. We can see that while he never explicitly states it his aggravation at Cohn in some way stems from Cohn’s affair with Brett. Similarly when he frequently talks about how fine he finds Brett to be, betraying the fact that he is actually quite obsessed with her despite the way he is supposed to play it cool.

Jake is quite clearly in this social group for Brett as again with the exception of BIll it is pretty clear he is not exactly fond of Cohn and Mike is quite annoying when he is drunk. Despite all the aspects is which he uses Romero as a surrogate, pimping out the woman you love has to be an act which causes great pain, we can see this pain in the line “Send a girl off with one man. Introduce her to another to go off with him. Now go and bring her back. And sign the wire with love.” Even characters which don’t play a large role in the story very quickly become enamored with Brett. The Count offer her a lot of money to go and spend time with him and quickly finds her very entertaining. The possibly gay, or at least very effeminate men who dance with Brett are important to Jake only because Brett is with them and while they are not described as having the same reverence towards her as the others, Jake's description of her as the lone individual amongst a sea of “white hands, wavy hair, white faces” establishes her as the only important person among a sea of lessers, paralleling her role among the dancers in Pamplona.

I think it is clear that while Jake sees Brett as desiring this attention and placing herself in that position, it is entirely possible she does not want the adoration and attention of her entirely male following. Furthermore Jake exaggerates this  group dynamic because he is so focused on Brett. The case with the effeminate men is the perfect example of this, Brett is the only important person to him in that group so she seems elevated over everyone else. Jake tends to exaggerate her sense of self importance and turns her into an object of worship for everyone else because she is one for him.

That said there are people who are genuinely obsessed with Brett, such as Cohn and Mike, and for whom this group dynamic is not just a product of Jake’s exaggeration. While Brett deserves some sort of blame for this, as she is having idle affairs, as Fulton (the author of our presentation article points out both Mike and Cohn were pigs before she got to them and therefore she is not deserving of the Circe label Mike applies to her. I think just as the dancers in Pamplona have no idea who she is when they idolize her, much of the idolization she receives in the bohemian scene in Paris is not for whom she personally is but for the way she represents the consummate post WWI woman.

If WWI has stripped Europe of the old heroic ideal, as evidenced by the way all the characters find Cohn trying to win her heart repugnant. Then Brett, who functions in a very ironic mode,  i.e. claiming she is never going to get drunk again and ordering a drink in back to back sentences, is the embodiment of the new way of being. She pioneers the new fashions, Jake mentions she was the first to start wearing her hair like a boy She has created a new beauty standard.To them Brett is the person who has it figured out and they are drawn to her because of that. I would say the reason why men are particularly drawn to her is that masculinity and femininity have always been defined relative to each other, and so they hope to find out how to be modern men by spending time with the ideal modern woman.

Unfortunately I don’t think Brett finds the meaning she has created particularly satisfying, she clearly isn’t happy with her relationships, be they with Lord Ashley, Cohn or even Mike. She tries out the old heroic ideal with Romero and finds that the two can’t coexist. The others find these relationships similarly dissatisfying but are so dependent on Brett to provide them with some sort of meaning rather then find their own that they feel betrayed and end up blaming her.

Jake by being physically emasculated is unable to define himself as a modern man and doesn’t expect her to do this, because he has reasons other than just the culture shift for why he is emasculated he can stay with her. For the others while she is also the hope of finding the new masculine ideal she is also a reminder that they have been stripped of the old ideal and therefore culturally emasculated, and so when she fails to reinstate their manhood they can’t stand her.
            Brett is not totally to blame for this, she isn’t toying with people, it is just that they constantly expect her to show them how to live in this new world when she doesn’t really know herself. She’s not perfect, and they’re all a pretty dysfunctional bunch, but I don’t believe she can be labeled exploitative; people simply tend to see her for something other than herself. Even Jake does this, if were to simply content himself with a friendship with her instead of constantly seeing her as a reminder of  his lost masculinity then he would be happy with the relationship as opposed to the dissatisfaction he feels.