The works
The Metamorphosis,
The Stranger, and
Dr. Faustus end
respectively with a protagonist murdered, a protagonist hung, and a protagonist
sent to hell. According to the respective
systems of values they confront, these
characters have all been deemed
guilty. The "vague sense of culpability" leading
to a "general
alienation" of which
Vaclav Havel speaks of as experiencing upon
reading The Metamorphosis can be seen is all three of these works, whose plots
create a character whose appearence, morals, or priorities are so radically
different from those around him (and often from the author's audience as well)
that he must be eliminated. It is when the reader guiltily identifies with this
spurned and disgusting character that the tone generated becomes one of
"unbearable oppressiveness", because he or she correctly feels persecuted by a
universal
condemnation.
This sense could not be clearer than in The Metamorphosis, which deals
so prominently with the outsider, a son who suffers the literal and symbolic
metamorphoses into a huge, repulsive, insect. The novella begins, "As
Gregor
Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in
his bed into a gigantic insect," a transformation which permanently severs his
relationship with normal humanity.
Kafka's ensuing meditation on
isolation has
Samsa living all alone in his room, sustained by but otherwise disregarded by the
family which should love him. The loss of his income cripples them financially,
as does his appearence before the renters they take in, who vehemently declare
his filth and leave. And nothing is resolved until he dies, presumably from the
long neglected infection of a festering wound resulting from an apple thrown at
him by his own father.
This work prominently addresses the fundamental human fear of being
condemned. Samsa is entirely alone, the world's only giant, sentient insect.
Even the implausibility and ludicrousness of this dilemma serves to isolate him,
as he cannot generate pity, even from the reader. The psychological reaction of
revulsion, even when there is identification, is strengthened by the Kafka's
detailed description of Samsa new body- he is manifestly everything most people
do not like. The reader's own feelings of
inferiority, however slight or deeply
buried, are magnified until he or she is overcome with the horrifying
contemplation of existing in Samsa's condition, isolated and unloved. And the
ingrained guilt meant to arise upon being disgusting is directly proportional to
the revulsion meant to arise upon being confronted by something disgusting.
This phenomena is repeated in conjunction with the other two works
under discussion, except that the protagonists involved are not nearly as
universally condemned. With the rise of
existentialism, and the limited
acceptance thereof by a jaded and, some would say, valueless population, The
Stranger's arbitrarily murderous
Meursalt can be seen as a expert practitioner of
the glorious art of living. And with the ever-higher premium placed on the
acquisition of
knowledge, Dr. Faustus' Dr Faustus can be seen as a martyr for his
noble cause of intellectual expansion. However, in the plots of these two works,
the protagonist is loudly condemned and sentenced for failing to comply with the
moral code of at least his own time.
In the case of The Stranger, the protagonist is one whose existensialism
places him sharply at odds with the accepted mores of his time and place,
though the author and perhaps the reader may support him. Seeking nothing in
life other than pleasurable experiences, and untroubled by human attachments
such as love or responsibility, he ultimately commits a murder, utterly unable to
forcast its consequences. The basis for the guilty verdict in his trial is not
evidence of his deed so much as
character evidence, with the lawyer for the
prosecuation going on at length about his inhuman lack of regard for his mother
or her death. The
guilt-trip is one that any mother's son or daughter can
recognize, and one that is often succesful in instilling tremendous remorse. And
yet, to be killed for not loving one's mother? There are readers who identify
Meursalt as a bold rebel, rejecting conventional figures of emotional attachment
such as his mother, his lover, and the prison champlain, to dwell instead in the
more objective world of experience.
And in the case of Dr. Faustus, which is practically a passion play in it's
unambiguous moral message, the protagonist is one who makes a literal deal
with the devil, under which the latter will gain possesion of his soul in return for
giving him endless knowledge. To the stern
Christian moral code of
Christopher
Marlowe's time, this was unforgiveable, and Dr. Faustus represented a craven
human
greed for knowledge, as well as a terrible folly, since he could not truly
know the agony he was to suffer in
hell. This gloomy atmosphere contributes to
an oppressive sense of judgement, at least in the reverent Christian audience for
which the play was written. The play's goal in portraying Dr. Faustus' horrible
fate is to inspire fear through playing on its audiences' insecurities about their
own moral rectitude and place in heaven.
Bibligraphy:
-
Camus, Albert. The Stranger
-
Havel, Vaclav. Lecture delivered at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in April 1990, New York Review of Books, September 27, 1990.
-
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphoses
-
Marlowe, Christopher. Dr. Faustus