Gregor Samsa As An Injured Addict.
"Gregor Samsa as an Injured Addict" previously appeared in Best of Freshman Writing, Volume 10, a publication of the Pennsylvania State University, 2005.

Just this moment, I was struck by remembered words of a friend that we in recovery had been, at one time, “stuck in the midst of a Kafka novel.” His comment was the initial reason I picked up The Metamorphosis and Other Stories. Not having read far, I finally came to the title story as a requirement for class. I took it as a sign that there was something for me to learn in that story, and I have. The story of Gregor Samsa nearly mirrors, in a metaphorical sense, the story of my last two years as an active addict, with a very important exception. His metamorphosis from the utilitarian head of his household to the shunned secret behind the door and his eventual death was a direct parallel, although my death behind the door was symbolic; part of my family was freed and the part that had sprung from my own body joined me in a new birth.

   “As Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 7). As I awoke from a few hours of unconsciousness, I found that my dreams were not dreams; my body had become as unfit for my role in life as Gregor Samsa’s hard shell and spindly legs were to his desire to board the morning train. I had suffered a spinal cord injury the day before during a routine medical procedure and did not yet know it. I tried to tell myself that a little bed rest would be suffice, and I’d soon be up and about, taking care of the business of making money and providing for the needs of my family. I just needed a little rest, just a few hours respite. Gregor felt the same way, and, “He must have tried it a hundred time, closing his eyes so as not to see his twitching legs, and stopped only when he felt a faint, dull ache start in his side, a pain which he had never experienced before” (Kafka 7). The only difference for me was that there were no aches that were fainter dull for a few days yet. They were screaming, excruciating and unlike any pain I’d ever felt in my life, though I felt I had suffered more than any human being should ever have to up to that point. I was soon to learn that suffering is relative, suffering is subject to redefinition, and I learned to never use the phrase, “it can’t get any worse than this.”

   My cast of characters were a bit different from Gregor’s. All were represented, though they often switched roles, and the head clerk becomes Grete and Grete becomes the father and the father becomes the mother, depending on the situation at hand. A few days into my journey, I arrived at the doctor’s office, having lived the entire time in a blinding, white-hot sphere of pain. The doctor immediately relieved me with pain killers. I was at last somewhat safe, though not ambulant, and could not understand the whispers outside the bedroom door, for as Gregor, I “felt perfectly well, apart from a drowsiness that was superfluous after a long sleep” (Kafka 9). The pain medication had helped me to have many long naps.

   Here, my story diverges with Gregor’s for a bit. I had begun a tour of the various medical facilities in the area and beyond, finally settling on a nationally renowned clinic for problems such as mine, and, Providence be damned, the only treatment that seemed to have any kind of effect was an ever-increasing does of opiate pain killers. My entire family for a time cared for me as Grete cared for Gregor. When it was obvious that my previous pastimes could no longer be enjoyed, gifts of books, magazines and video tapes began appearing, just as Grete had laid a spread out before Gregor attempting to determine his likes and dislikes. Computer equipment was adapted to my new station. An over-the-bed table appeared to hold a laptop, and a television was moved into the bedroom so that I would not have to stress myself in joining with the family in the evenings. So much care went into my comfort during this period as attorneys were called and lawsuits were discussed. As time went on, my financial contribution to the family became smaller, rather than larger. The tide turned, and the care was cursory, at best. It very well could have been sufficient, though I, at the time, was so consumed with my changed state that any type of adaptation or personal responsibility was not a conscious concern. The only thing that concerned me was living in the state to which I was fast becoming accustomed. Soon, the cane I had been using to hold up my injured right side was insufficient; the disease (by this time, we knew that it was a kind of disease; the nerve damage had sparked a strange neurological condition that spreads throughout the body) had become full-blown on my left side as well and I required a wheelchair. Here my story rejoins Gregor’s.

   The revulsion of Gregor’s mother manifested itself in my step-son, nine-year-old Andrew. He was afraid of my wheelchair. He associated the wheelchair as transport for one terminally ill. He had only ever seen its use in the very old and feeble and those who suffered forms of cerebral palsy. If we take The Metamorphosis as a literal tale, I was as much a “bug” to Andrew as Gregor was to his mother. The other children, the ones of my own body, would come to me, but Andrew refused for a very long time to acknowledge my presence, and when he was forced to confront me, he would shrink in horror at my rapidly degenerating form. My legs were becoming as spindly as Gregor’s must have felt to him, and they were chameleon-like in that vertical orientation changed them from normal flesh color to shades of purple and black.

   There was a similar act of revulsion from the rest of the family as other things had changed about me as well. My physical metamorphosis was evident in my legs and my inability to walk; my mental metamorphosis was not as apparent. If eyes truly are the mirror of the soul, as the Yiddish proverb avers, mine were the mirror of the chaos and insanity that was developing in my soul. My mind obsessed over the existence of a certain lock-box and the state of the supply contained within it. There was only one thing that made my physical existence bearable, and it was inside that box. It allowed me to accept whatever changes were occurring around me. It was my panacea. The dose of opiates had steadily increased as I had steadily declined, and my use of them now far exceeded anything a doctor would prescribe. Running out meant facing the reality of my situation, and that was not an option. Anyone hearing me speak would observe, as the head clerk did, that I had “the voice of an animal” (Kafka 15). My words were slurred from the thickening of my tongue. I felt as though I was speaking with someone else’s mouth, though I grew accustomed, as Gregor did. “Apparently his words were no longer understandable even though they were clear enough to him, clearer than before, perhaps because his ear had become accustomed to their sound” (Kafka 15). I remember an argument, when the pain medicine was withdrawn for a short time and I was once again understood, that I had not spoken clearly for months, and I had argued that only one time during that period had I had any trouble with speech. I just did not know. It was a matter of perspective, and my perspective, as the addiction took me deeper, was forever changed. I came to see, in retrospect, that my metamorphosis was due as much to the pills as it was to the injury. They could not be separated. I was as changed to my family as an injured veteran returning home from Vietnam, disabled and dependent upon whatever would still both mind and body.

   Gradually, my immediate family was no longer responsible for any of my care. They had gone on, as Gregor’s had, with their lives. I was finding that my long hours spent working on the family finances and running the household, long hours I had spent with the belief that I was the only one who could do the job, were no divided, and the family was now functioning without me. Children were doing laundry, bills were paid by someone brought in for a few hours each week, and the days that my partner had spent sitting and watching me work were extended in order to make the requisite phone calls and deal with vendors and customers. Each member of the family became independent of me. I was in a room at the end of the hall, a necessary inconvenience to be tended to, and even that was delegated to our own charwoman. A woman was hired full-time to care for me and do the heavy chores of the family, such as shopping and cooking. With her there, they need not fear I was neglected, just as “there was no need for the mother’s intervention or for Gregor to be at all neglected” (Kafka 40). As my caregiver seemed sturdy enough to deal with me, the charwoman in Kafka’s story “was not particularly disgusted by Gregor” (Kafka 40).

   My “charwoman” fed me now, though I rarely ate, just as “Gregor now ate next to nothing. Only when by chance he passed the food set out for him would he take a bit just for fun,” (Kafka 41) I was brought a cup of soup every day and kept supplied with a can of Pringles potato chips (the only two things found that I would consume, if the mood might strike me), I rarely took more than a sip of broth and I would hold the potato chip on my tongue for what seemed like “hours, and mostly spit it back out” (Kafka 41). Food revolted me, chewing seemed unnecessary and strange in the changed shape of my mouth, and I just didn’t trouble myself to try much. She also took care of cleaning my room, which included changed the sheets once a week. My personal hygiene consisted of a shower coinciding with the weekly bed changing. I would often resist the assistance to the shower, determined that not enough time had passed to require a hosing down. I felt as Gregor did “coated with the dust that blanketed [the] room and blew around at the slightest movement,” the transformation so gradual that I didn’t mind my hair hanging in strings or the odor that permeated the room in the absence of any regular bathing (Kafka 43). Just like Gregor, I was “deeply indifferent” to my state (Kafka 43). Something had to break, and soon, for both me and my family.

   There was a moment for me that was very much like the sound of Grete’s violin to Gregor’s ears. My partner was standing before me, eyes and heart hardened to my state, and he was flanked on either side by the faces of my children, who were now, two years later, nine and twelve years old. Their eyes held for me all the beauty that ever was or ever could be in the world, and I was the only one who appreciated that, especially not the man standing in the middle. He wanted only to be free. The children, I wanted to scoop up and carry them away with me, as Gregor fantasized about his sister. “He felt as though the path to his unknown hungers was being cleared. He was grimly determined to reach the sister and tug on her skirt to suggest that she take her violin and come into his room, for no one here was as worthy of her violin paying as he would be” (Kafka 44). My own charwoman was present on the sidelines, and she too, was tired of the troublesome creature I had become for her. I was soon to know Grete’s words when she said, “You have to try to stop thinking that is Gregor …. Gregor would have understood long ago that people can’t possibly live with such a creature, and he would have gone away of his own accord” (Kafka 47). It was discussed, and no consideration was given to whether I heard or not. I did hear, and I did see, and when the clock approached three, “[my] thoughts, full of tenderness and love, went back to [my] family … even more firmly convinced than [they] … that [I] should disappear” (Kafka 45). When the clock struck three, rather than dying, as I undoubtedly was, I reached for the telephone and called for help. I died to them that night, and that part of them which was a part of me, my children, were reborn with me, elsewhere, so that the rest were now free. In a figurative sense, Grete and the charwoman lived happily ever after, or so the story goes. If Gregor Samsa’s ghost returned, as mine had the next day briefly, it would have observed, perhaps, what I had: the charwoman sweeping away the carcass of the recent past. My bedroom, the lair of the creature I had been for two full years, was being packed up and swept out, ready to be occupied or abandoned for something better.

   Gregor Samsa’s experienced a transformation and did his best to live with it. When he saw the futility of continuing and the pain which he had caused his family, he surrendered and died. I, too, tried my best to live out the circumstances in which I’d found myself, and I was content for a while to do so as long as I didn’t have to feel any of it too deeply. When the moment came that I saw my own futile state, saw the pain of remembering in my children’s eyes and the loss they felt, I surrendered as well, but not to physical death. Personal responsibility became a possibility for an instant, and physical death was most definitely an option, but the higher road was the choice to live. Gregor’s story ended in his exit from his home and on to the waste pile. Mine ended in an exit from my home as well, but I found a new one with a colony of beetles where I could be accepted by and happy with beetles and non-beetles alike. I was picked up out of the waste pile, and I no longer needed the veil of drugs to hide my beautiful shell.

Works Cited
Kafka, Franz, The Metamorphosis and Other Stories,
Trans. Donna Freed, New York: Barnes & Nobles  Classics, 2003.
©Sugah. (JLK)