How 'Metamorphosis' Defines Surreal Horror

Surreal horror sits alongside Gothic horror as one of my favourite genres of fiction, but as a niche genre full of cult classic oddities, I don’t often see it discussed in the horror space.

Surrealism was a response to the mainstream, the ‘rule’ of art at the time, by rejecting objectivity and the conscious, instead drawing from the subconscious and the subjective – similar to Gothic romanticism in a sense, but with an eye for the strange, the unconventional and, as Tate puts it, the ‘disregarded.’

Horror is itself a strange genre of fiction, interested in the subconscious – namely our subconscious fears – and the disregarded. Horror, like surrealism, is also transgressive, making the two a perfect match for one another.

But what, exactly, are we transgressing?

Let’s talk about the story that introduced me, and arguably the world, to surreal horror. Franz Kafka’s classic tale, Metamorphosis – or, The Transformation of Gregor Samsa.

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Metamorphosis opens with the perfect example of what surreal horror is – our protagonist awakening from uneasy dreams to find that he has turned into a huge, verminous insect.

This is a premise that should be absurd, fantastical at least, but just like the experience of a nightmare, Gregor, and thus the reader, instantly and readily accepts it, allowing a strange story to be explored with genuine belief and feeling.

Kafka manages this by taking advantage of the mundane. The familiarity of the bedroom Gregor wakes into contrasts the one single fantastical element here – that Gregor has become an insect is the only aspect of this story that will require any sort of suspension of disbelief. This is, without question, not a dream, despite how dreamlike it may feel.

That middle ground between fantasy and realism is the surreal in essence, but combining that middle ground with the distressing transforms the dream logic of surrealism into the nightmare logic of surreal horror.

Importantly, the mundane framing leads us directly into Gregor’s personal, subjective experience of the transformation rather than dwelling on the ‘fantasy’ in and of itself – right from the start, his focus on the dreary weather outside makes him depressed, asking himself why he shouldn’t sleep a little longer and forget this ‘nonsense’ in a kind of de-exaggerated emotional response the story draws from often.

He can’t sleep though, as he can’t roll onto his side in this form – a kind of paradoxically funny and tragic idea that really sells this character by blurring our emotional response to his situation into a confused but no less affecting tangle – and besides, there is something else. Despite everything, the main thought Gregor has this morning is of his work. And it is in this way that the horror does not come from the surreal event itself, but in more indirectly pointed, open to interpretation ways.

In this case, bringing us to what Kafka feels is disregarded. See, Metamorphosis is really about the experience of an internally suffering outsider in a cruel and selfish work culture. My own interpretation being that this insect form represents disability, and chronic illness.

Thanks to a unique third person stream of conscience, the ‘symptoms’ of Gregor’s Metamorphosis are noticeable from the beginning, if you recognise the signs:

His numerous legs, pitifully thin relative to the rest of his body, wriggling helplessly. Difficulty speaking in ways that can be understood, and which are painful to him. Trying and failing to communicate to his mother, father and sister why he has not left for work yet. Extreme difficulty getting out of bed – his legs being too difficult to control.

It's absurdist, perhaps, but it’s symbolic. Of course, the objective aspects of disability here are not what’s important. What’s important is that subjective part of surreal writing.

And so we are immediately carried forward to Gregor’s response to his condition, over the condition itself. For instance how he tells himself he can’t stay in bed doing nothing, or most pressingly to me, his thought of how simple it would be if someone came to help – but his apprehension towards calling for help.

There’s a constant sense of guilt drawn from pride in Gregor’s character. He only somewhat acknowledges the reality of his condition, and never its validity. He needs to go to work, to earn money for his beloved family. Anything else is inconsequential. After all, as he thinks to himself, “I can’t be the only one like this.”

Ignoring that he is referring to having turned into a giant insect, there is something very concrete about the commentary here, something real that is painful and tragic to read through partly because of the humour that colours Gregor’s and our perception of the horror.

This all comes to a head with the arrival of his workplace’s head clerk, a figure of authority demanding an explanation for why Gregor is late and admonishing him for his performance of late, diminishing his self worth to his family and laying on the guilt extremely thickly.

Gregor’s main concern here, though, is not the frequently mentioned pain, or the mobility issues he wrangles with, or even his sense of worth as a source of income. It’s his appearance. When his family and colleague witness his change, will there be a strong reaction or is he okay to go to work? Gregor’s own physical and mental wellbeing barely factors in.

What’s really horrific here is that no one understands Gregor on any level. No one contemplates his illness or his pain, nor his compassion and selfless devotion. And when he appeals to the head clerk, trying to speak, to explain, to buy time – no one understands his words because of his new voice. He must be playing them for fools.

So desperate to accommodate others, even in his distressing new condition, Gregor injures himself in order to open the door. Wishing that his parents were shouting words of encouragement, imagining them waiting in suspense…

But this is not what is happening.

Working in that uncanny sense of familiar meeting strange that is so core to surrealism, the story subverts horror norms excellently – instead of waiting in suspense for the arrival of a monster, we follow that monster’s own suspense as he slowly makes his way out of his room. This suspense is then followed, of course, with a gasp of horror not from our relateable protagonists, but in response to our relateable protagonist. Gregor is in fact the only one who remains calm, even though he should be the only one with an excuse not to be calm.

It's the mundane description that once again emphasises rather than distracts from the dreamlike horror. Such as dishes laid out for breakfast, the most important meal to his father, but a meal Gregor has been denied. And especially potent, a picture of Gregor, smiling and relaxed, his military uniform commanding respect in direct opposition to the horror and revulsion his appearance now produces.

This is powerful imagery, because a fear of disability is all about perception of difference. Where once disabled people were seen as repulsive monsters at odds with God’s design… seeing heroes of the First World War returning from the war against fascism with those same differences so literally demonised simply had to evoke a change.

Unfortunately, such a change is not in poor Gregor’s future.

Instead he is treated as vermin, hissed at and chased back into his room – no accommodations being made for his difficulty in moving, instead more pain being his only driving force, his father protecting the hurt feelings of a horrified rather than compassionate family. It is with this darkness that the story’s first of three chapters ends.

The word surrealism is a contraction of ‘super realism,’ since by ignoring the prescriptive focus on pure realism and objectivity, and allowing for a subjective, subconscious, fantastical element placed within an otherwise realistic world, a surreal work of art can be more accurate, more demonstrative of… perhaps not the whole world as everyone experiences it, but certainly of the world as the individual, the artist, experiences it. Being unapologetically strange and demanding to depict that which others consider unreal allows the artist to say a whole lot more than a purely realistic, ‘normal’ story can.

Kafka’s brand of surrealism explores the super realism of Gregor’s life, concerned not with the world as it is, but with the way an individual character can exist in a world that feels absurd to them, and how this strange unseen cruelty affects them physically, psychologically, personally.

In this way, the disregarded is regarded and the storyteller transgresses – not in an overtly political way, but simply drawing attention to an aspect of reality never before discussed. Allowing for that which only one person experiences of the world makes said depiction of the world much more insightful.

The second chapter takes the established darkness of the story and uses Gregor’s sister to complicate a typically simplistic view of how others treat the disregarded.

In her kindness, Gregor’s sister visits his room and attempts to figure out which foods he can now stomach in his new form – but she is still frightened, put off, by her brother. Like everyone else, she assumes that as she cannot understand him the same must be true the other way around, and so she never speaks to him. But she tries more than his mother and father, and is it really a coincidence that immediately after she visits in this way, Gregor feels better, his wounds no longer affecting him? He wonders if he is less sensitive now, but I wonder if the more clear implication is that empathy and comfort are what heals this kind of injury.

Gregor reflects that she treats him “as if she were visiting someone who was seriously ill” – not directly stating that this was happening, but instead likening to such an occasion. Either Gregor does not see himself in this way, or he has been raised in an environment which does not acknowledge that chronic illness, pain, and disability are as ‘valid’ as ‘real illness.’ Adding layers is the following phrase, “or even a stranger” – drawing attention to the way people treat you so differently after the onset, or the learning of, a new health condition.

It seems to me that Gregor does not see what is right in front of him in this story – he doesn’t see that he is being treated like a stranger, even as he also does notice it. The third person narration aids this sense of cognitive dissonance. It’s very much in keeping with surrealism that something can be at once consciously ignored while subconsciously understood – and the fact that it is used here to explore the pedestal on which the corporate, the work life, the financial value above any other value in a person has been placed, as well as the consequently negative attitude and response overwhelmingly held in this story towards disability and illness, is brilliant.

At least, this is how I’m reading Metamorphosis, but as I mentioned earlier, it’s very much possible to read it in multiple other ways depending on the reader’s own situation. I can see the potential to read Metamorphosis through the lens of ageism, transphobia, or any other type of negative reaction to a change – or perceived change – in a person.

When I first read this story as a young inexperienced reader, I was most struck by the dreamlike nature of the narration, and my own sadness towards this character and the way his family and colleagues were treating him. All of which is still absolutely the appeal of surreal horror to me, even as I become more aware of the depth it carries with it over time.

Gregor thinks about how he saved the family from their despair by working with such zeal as to become a travelling salesman and fix their financial situation, thinks about his plans to send his violinist sister to the Conservatoire come Christmas Eve. But then he remarks that such thoughts were pointless in his present condition.

His present condition, their current state, this current situation – these are the kinds of vague terms with which the turning of Gregor into a giant insect is always referred. Ambiguity definitely has a home in surrealist stories, but this is also emblematic of how certain subjects cannot be directly addressed in such a household. Gregor’s changing into an insect has supplanted all other aspects of him as a person, and so Gregor’s humanity is now disregarded.

Every time the subject of money is brought up, it turns to Gregor to earn it. His father is an old man who has put on weight, his mother old with asthma, exhausted just by walking around the apartment, and his sister is still a child. What neither the family or seemingly Gregor himself understands is that a painful and debilitating transformation is also more than valid a reason for him not to be able to work. Even so, during these discussions, Gregor turns from the door, burning with shame and grief.

I mentioned earlier about the confused emotions this story likes to evoke in the reader. In fact, Gregor and his family experience similarly confused emotions. While Gregor’s sister changes his room, removing furniture to accommodate Gregor’s new form, his mother opposes such changes in case it seem they are giving up on the possibility of the ‘real’ Gregor eventually making a return.

In many ways the family are living their own surrealist nightmare, completely divorced from the one Gregor experiences and which they either ignore or are completely unaware of – and yet I can’t feel much sympathy for them. It’s very much like a full Frankenstein subversion where the monster evokes sympathy, and the ordinary folk inspire horror.

Following from this, Gregor becomes confused by their disagreement, not knowing himself if he wants his insect form accommodated, or his old life held to with vigour. It’s a fairly common way of experiencing disability, simultaneously thinking about how you used to be, or want to be, and also simply wanting to be more happy and comfortable as you actually are. Either way, these confused emotional states cause a rare scene in which Gregor expresses distress, leading to his father lodging an apple projectile in Gregor’s exoskeleton – an image that has never left me in all the time since I first read this story.

Once again, the distress of those who witness ‘monstrous’ forms is given preferential treatment over the monstrous experience of pain and prejudice, the absurdist and cognitively dissonant writing of the tale illustrating the absurd and cognitively dissonant nature of the lives we have built.

If I was to tell you that this story’s third and final chapter concern Gregor’s family finally learning to tolerate Gregor, accept his new situation, would you think it to be a positive, joyous chapter where things start to look up?

If so, I haven’t properly convinced you of how surreal horror works.

Before we get into that though, what are the three core pillars of surreal horror that Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis so perfectly embodies?

1. Blending realism with just the right amount of fantasy allows a horror story to utilise the best of both worlds, less accurately depicting the world as most experience it, but much more vividly communicating how an individual personally experiences a painful, distressing moment in their own life.

2. The subconscious, ambiguous writing of surrealism enhances horror by immersing a reader in the dark emotions and thought processes of a potentially unique and thought provoking character – while allowing them to draw from their own darkness thanks to the open to interpretation reading experience this facilitates.

3. Leaning into the strange, transgressive, and disregarded leads to surrealism providing some of the most original and surprising works of fiction you can find. Leaning into the darkness and morbidity of surreal horror compounds this advantage even more.

Now, what remains for Gregor Samsa? And how does it unveil the soul of surreal horror?

*There will be spoilers ahead*

First – ‘tolerate’ is not a strong word. It is not liking, loving, having empathy for your family member. In fact, it is still very much in the realm of horror and revulsion – only it’s subtle, hidden away, intangible in the way surreal horror tends to prefer.

It is this aspect that so worsens Gregor’s life.

Leaving the door open at mealtime discussions so Gregor can hear them, he is still not a part of said discussions. On top of this, no longer is care given to his room being cleaned or his food being provided as these were chores performed to humanise Gregor, and alleviate the distress the chore-performers felt towards their changed family member.

When the family decide to tolerate Gregor, they are choosing to accept that a room of their apartment is occupied by a dirty, wounded insect they want nothing to do with.

They are not accepting in any meaningful way.

They are moving on from a loss – a loss that has not happened.

Gregor, in memory, is reduced to the man who used to financially support the family, but with all three of the ‘remaining’ family getting jobs, and the introduction of three lodgers, this role is no longer absent in the household, and so Gregor is essentially forced out of their conscious mind.

In other words, if Gregor’s family were writing a novel, Gregor would not be featured. His surreal, absurd, subconscious reality would be ignored and disregarded.

It is in this way that Metamorphosis so embodies the essence of surreal horror – the surreal horror of existing as something unaccepted, unwanted, and despite all assertions to the contrary, intolerable.

But even this is not the end for poor Gregor.

A typical horror story might choose to lean into the fantasy towards the end here. It might offer Gregor some kind of monstrous revenge or introduce an additional absurd presence to provide comfort, companionship. Or it might evolve his dreamlike condition in some gruesome and painful manner.

But Kafka, in his surreal brilliance, had a better idea.

The story ends by leaning into the mundane, and forgetting about the fantastical presence.

It starts with a rare happy occurrence, Gregor inadvertently stepping from out of his room to watch his beloved sister play violin for the first time in a long time, thinking he appreciates her art more than the others, and wanting to renew his relationship with his sister to whom he is already the closest even in all this bleakness. But the lodgers see him, and while at first his presence is a novel joke, they become horrified by the knowledge of this creature that has been secretly living among them all this time – they put in their notice, thus threatening the family’s financial security.

It is here that the family’s tolerance of Gregor is revealed for the façade it had always been, that as soon as the disregarded – accidentally – insists to be regarded, the horror seeps back in full. Gregor is named monstrous, it is stated outright this is not really Gregor, and it is decided they all need to move on from their loss, the loss of someone who is standing right by them, listening.

And most horrifying of all, it is Gregor’s sister who says all this.

Still assuming he does not understand their words, Gregor is once again chased to his room, the door is shut, and he collapses to the floor, his legs no longer supporting his body. The next day, he is found dead, starved to death, by the cleaner.

But this is not even the worst, not the most horrifying, not the most disturbing or upsetting part of the story. In true surreal horror fashion, the worst part of this tale is the mundanity with which Gregor’s death is related.

As the cleaner announces the death, the family barely acknowledges her words, too busy with their finances and plans for the future

Gregor, who was previously the most valuable member of the family, is forgotten. They have moved on not from his transformation, but from him ever having existed in their life.

It is these last moments of the story that places it so prominently in the surreal horror genre. After a lengthy, vivid, dreamlike stream of conscience narration in which a disregarded thing suffers through his attempts at supporting his family, in the end he is rendered impossible to regard.

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Thanks for reading an essay about a story that is so important to me as both a reader and a writer. I’ve devoted this one to laying out plot moments a little more than I usually do, so hopefully that helped illustrate my point as much as I think it did.

Kafka’s Metamorphosis was arguably the first literary work of surreal horror, and it was also one of the first examples of surreal horror I personally read, but there is still one more author who I consider a vital part of my introduction to this genre. I want to give that author, and my favourite of their stories, the spotlight – only then can I put the final stop on my surreal horror analysis.

Part Two of this discussion shall be uploaded to my blog at the end of the month – and if you find this subject as interesting as I do, I hope to see you then.