A Review Of: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

I read this book because I heard someone use the word “kafkaesque” and I was curious what that meant. I think this book paired with the short story “Before the Law” distills the concept pretty simply. There is absurdity in the fact that the system works because people internalize it, enforcing the system’s best interests instead of their own.

Gregor wakes up as a bug and his first thought is “How do I get to work?” The remainder of the book explores the fact that Gregor cannot get to work. The fallout is that his family suffers. Not because he has turned into a bug, but because he can no longer provide income. We internalize systems of economic necessity so deeply that our value is entirely derived from our productivity.

I had a boss who thought this way. She was an older lady and had spent a whole career doing manual labor, waking up at the crack of dawn, doing hard work and that hard work did not pay off. The company decided to close that store and she was laid off in an instant. Eventually she was rehired at another location and still her mindset persisted.

She could not internalize the mindset of the new generation in that these companies and jobs should serve the individual, not the other way around. She judged other employees harshly when they would call out. She would say nasty things about their laziness. The absurdity is that the company would let her go at the drop of a hat and her allegiance to it was self-imposed and meaningless. Loyalty to a system is not reciprocated. The idea that “life-work balance is shameful” is absurd and kafkaesque and is only persisted because of people’s willingness to believe in its legitimacy.