Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” and Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”: Analysis and Comparison

Despite the spatial and time gap between, Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” and Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye”, both focus on some of the human dilemmas in our age: alienation, estrangement, misunderstanding, miscomprehension and misconception with miscommunication in the background. These predicaments are not insurmountable problems; however, the insuperability or the overcoming (conquerablity) of these plights depends on the way people act and react towards a specific situation in their societies. Passiveness, negativism, apathy and indifference; or activism, briskness and liveliness on the side of individuals or on the side of the public can have their impacts on the psychological and physical stature of a society or a community in general, hence its productivity and its outcome of individuality in particular. Even though Gregor Samsa and Pecola Breedlove are typical protagonists in atmospheres of alienation, estrangement, miscomprehension, misconception, ramifications and repercussions, each is a unique character as manifesting particular ideas about society and the human experience. In this paper light will be shed on some specific points of likeness/similarities and some points of differences between Gregor Samsa and Pecola Breeddlove as both are tragically affected by a physical defect which leads each of them to being disliked and rejected by their societies in an absence of communication; yet, while Gregor Smsa is experienced and meets his end with absolute physical death, Pecola Breedlove is an inexperienced child who is morally and mentally devastated; and her ruins remain to be a provocative symbol of the society’s responsibilities for the protection supplied to its individuals.

While the tragic hero, Gregor Samsa, in “Metamorphosis”, is fully aware of what is happening to him of change that leads him to the loss of communication between him, his family and the outside world, hence alienation, no one thinks of the new situation as something peculiar that needs some more focus and attention to deal with in a different way so as to either eliminate, or at least abate its bad results. Although Samsa’s transformation is something unnatural and peculiar, all people, including Samsa himself, accept it as something natural and ordinary; the thing that may reflect the amount of indifference and inability which deluges people both individually and collectively; and make “Metamorphosis” a sort of absurdism or chaos that hides an endurable symbolism of the disintegration of a human being when the separation between body and mind takes place; and only in death (the complete separation between body and spirit)is where and when freedom manifests itself flawlessly. In “Metamorphosis” is it obvious that freedom is unapproachable or unattainable value or percept while one is still in one’s physique. Only in death is the spirit released and absolute freedom attained. Here lie the contradictions of life and of the universe: While death means the disintegration and decomposition of the body where the spirit and mind are entangled and imprisoned, it means the integration of the soul and mind winged with freedom.

On the other hand, Pecola represents non-standardized tragic hero who is still a child much more sinned against and affected by the passiveness of her environment than affecting it. She seems vulnerable, fallible and inert receiver all the time. A child in whom self-loathing, self-hatred, self-repulsion and self-degradation have been planted since the beginning of her self-realization and since the start of her awareness of her biased and prejudiced surroundings. Like Gregor Samsa, she thinks that all what happens around her is natural and normal; she never tries to revolt or to change her surroundings; and unlike Samsa, she seeks to have her appearance changed, so she goes to Soaphead Church to give her blue eyes. Instead of changing the possible (her acquired behavior), she seeks the impossible without knowing that everything is relative and proportional. Dealing with everything as absolute fact stops her creativity and innovation and causes her inability to challenge these surroundings. Once an individual is unable to act or react properly to keep his/her stature in a society he/she may end up with his/her escape, desolation or madness, which in case of Pecola means the disintegration of her character by her mental dysfunction .

On one hand, Both Kafka’s Gregor Samsa and Toni Morrison’s Pecola Breedlove have the same aspects of tragedy and downfall. Both of them have physical defects. Samsa has the body and the appearance of a monstrous bug; yet, he is still having a human mind where thoughts, creativity and innovation are produced. These mental abilities are restrained and incarcerated because his body is not qualified to communicate them to others. Pecola’s physical defect is her ugliness that involves her feeling of self-inferiority, self-hatred and self-loathing. Thus she hides behind her ugliness which impedes communicating anything good or even complaints to others, (It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a clock of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question…. Dealing with it each according to his way . . . And Pecola. She hid behind hers.), (p. 39). These physical defects lead to their rejection and dislike. Samsa is rejected and disliked by all those who surround him. Even his sister, Grete, who once has been his closest relative and friend, now thinks of getting rid of him, (“My dear parents,” said his sister, slapping her hand on the table by way of introduction, “things can’t go on like this. ……… we must try to get rid of it. ….. etc,) (p.133). Pecola, too, is rejected and disliked by her own race, her brother, her father and even her mother.

On the other hand, there are some specific points of contrast between Samsa and Pecola that can shape different attitudes towards them. While Samsa is a fully mature and experienced man that he takes the responsibility for supporting his parents to repay their debts and for helping his sister to study violin music at conservatory, Pecola is a mere child who has not yet experienced life. As a salesman Samsa travels to different places, meets different people, has a lot of friends and is responsible for many deals while Peola is still a child who is still being taught at school and her friendly circle is so narrow that it consists only of three friends of her own race. Samsa’s metamorphosis is something strange, unfamiliar and uncontrollable; in addition, his transformation totally distorts his bodily structure and excludes him from the human species even though he still has a human mind; hence estranging and alienating him. On the contrary, Pecola’s lack of beauty or her ugliness is something normal, relative and proportional and it can be reconciled with if she has self-confidence and self-love. In the end, Samsa dies and his physical death results in relieving the tension on the family and leads to restoring life and maturity to all the family members while Pecola gets mad but not dies, the thing that makes her unforgettable in the conscience of the her society to remind it of its collective crime that rapes and strip childhood off its innocence.

In conclusion, even though there are some points of similarities and differences between Samsa and Pecola concerning their physical deformities, their life experience, their miscommunication, their alienations and their end, Pecola remains a more provocative symbol of what it means to be human because Pecola does not disappear all together or abruptly like Samsa whose death makes him forgotten and restores liveliness to his family. Pecola’s madness and her existence or presence in the streets is a curfew knell and a live witness to social trespasses and transgressions against children. It is very important and crucial to love our children; but more important is the way we express our love to our children as it can be devastative and destructive to them as Morrison herself has deduce that Cholly is the only one who loves his daughter Pecola, but the way he has expressed his love (raping her) has destroyed and devastated her.

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