The start of chapter fifteen is eerily similar to the start of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The Metamorphosis starts with, "One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug." Looking at the start of chapter fifteen the reader can draw several similarities. For one, chapter fifteen starts with the narrator being woken up suddenly by a loud noise. While Gregor wasn't woken upon by a loud noise, he was woken up by "anxious dreams", which seems to mean a nightmare. And in my experience, a nightmare wakes you up suddenly as well.
Another similarity is that they both wake up and have an itch. Gregor had an itch on his abdomen that was caused by some white spots and the narrator has the old grey skin that's making him itch. Yet another similarity is that they are both in a hurry. Gregor slept past him alarm and is going to be late for work and the narrator says, "I'd have to hurry. There was a lot of shopping to do". The last sort of connection is that Mary and the narrator see and try to kill some cockroaches. While it isn't positive that Gregor turned into a cockroach, the implications in The Metamorphosis makes me believe that Gregor did become a cockroach. As such, the scene where they try to kill the cockroaches made me think of when Gregor's dad tried to kill him.
While many of these similarities could be pure coincidence, chapter fifteen still has its own metamorphosis of sorts. Even though it isn't nearly as drastic as turning into a giant cockroach, the narrator has made a sudden change overnight. The reason we can tell is because the narrator notices the racist statue for the first time. While this might not seem like much, it shows definite change since the narrator hadn't noticed the statue before, not even that night before he went to sleep. The other metamorphosis sort of thing in the chapter is the scratching away the old skin part. That part made me think of a something like a snake that sheds its old skin. So in a way, the start of chapter fifteen showed the narrator shedding at least a part of his old self.
That was a great comparison to make, Aidan. Its interesting to compare, even throughout the entire book, the Kafka vibe Ellison injects in his chapters. They can be crazy and surreal, like Liberty Paints and Golden Day, but behind it there is a strong meaning in each moment.
ReplyDeleteI really like this comparison. Especially the part about the narrator becoming a new(ish) person after chapter fifteen. This definitely makes the surreal aspects of the chapter seem very kafkaesque. I feel like this was also just as important a scene as when Gregor turns into a cockroach as it helps transition into the next section of the book in a similar way to the surreal battle royale scene at the beginning of the book (giving an explanation of how the narrator got to college).
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