Building Gregor's Room

Unique Perspectives

After finishing Kafka's The Metamorphosis, we had to construct Gregor's Room with only copy paper and ink: the bed, Gregor himself, and one other item of our choosing. In class we discussed how we viewed the bedroom and I loved it because everyone's responses were so different. One person imagined the room having a very large window, the blue sky beyond contrasting powerfully with Gregor's imprisonment. Another person saw the space with sharp angles and slanted walls, like an attic room, rather than the average four-wall square. We debated Gregor's size, the meaning of the boarders in the suits, and the texture of the different characters (maybe Gregor's sister is both prickly and smooth, "like an Egyptian mouse" someone said). I felt like I was in a very artsy version of one of my English literature classes.    

One reason The Metamorphosis is such a classic work is because it lends itself to so many interpretations. While reading, we fill in the details Kafka leaves out with our own; though there are clues in the text about the size of Gregor, for instance, his actual situation remains unknown and unquantified. It's like when someone tells a story featuring a relative or professor or classmate you've never seen, and by the end of it, you have a clear image in your head of what this person must look like even though few details were given. Seeing what everyone came up with for their personal "set designs" opened me up to countless new ways of interpreting the text. 

Process Pictures (or lack thereof)

  

Although I thought I had taken at least a couple w.i.p. pictures, this is the only one I could find from this project. I know I didn't take many because the frustrations of soaking, and baking, and not being able to use adhesives of any sort gave me a one-track mind: GET THIS THING DONE. In this photo, however, you can see the tubes I created to stuff inside the mattress and box spring. I gave them so much detail because my plan was to rip the mattress and box spring to reveal the structure underneath, giving it a "bare bones" feeling. To the far right, you can also see the Tupperware container where I soaked my paper overnight.

Final Pieces

Gregor

Gregor's Bed

The violin

At the beginning of the story, Gregor's room seems to be a neatly structured space; after his transformation, however, I imagine the room speedily denigrating into a dirty, tattered, virtually unlivable place. One reading of Kafka's story is that Gregor is mentally ill, that his world is and will forever be colored by that fateful morning when he "turns" into a bug. I wanted my pieces to reflect Gregor's deteriorating mindscape, so I used bright colors mixed with dull ones to indicate confusion, ties to hold things precariously together, and animalistic elements - blood, feces, and prints - to accent the very real, very dehumanizing aspects of mental illness.

While my first instinct was to create a bug-like creature to represent Gregor, the more I thought about it, the more I realized I saw his character as a lack rather than a tangible form. I constructed Gregor's briefcase, the one he would have taken with him to work had he woken up human, and made it into something grotesque. The edges are sharp, the inside littered with garbage, and the outside marked by black fingerprints and brown stains. A small black ball is, so to speak, Gregor's "essence" - the shrinking of his mind and soul into something so tiny and insignificant it could easily disappear, never to be found again (as it did when my project fell down the stairs at my apartment!). I also held the two compartments of the briefcase together with my homemade "twine," a motif which carried over during my construction of the bed.

As I mentioned earlier, I imagined Gregor's room to be a very disgusting space. On his too-small blanket (whose size represents the comically pathetic distortion of life caused by mental distress) I attached pieces of poo through a careful method of wrapping in wet paper strips and then securing with two paper fasteners on the other side of the blanket. In order to created the box spring and the mattresses, I both folded the paper and secured the forms with my twine. 

The notion of everything falling apart and away from each other guided my project. For the piece of my choosing, I decided to construct Gregor's sister's violin. I found this object to be so significant because it is his sister's music that draws Gregor out of the darkness and into the family room where his mother, father, and boarders listen to her play. Music is an undeniably powerful force - maybe it's what makes us human. Even the violin, however, becomes a source of oppression for Gregor. Although it is beautiful, it is still grotesque. I soaked the strips of paper in tea and stuck an errant string into the top of the violin. Like a body itself, the violin has a long, parched neck and a wound on its bottom. Its curves have become rough, and its backside is similarly coming undone.

Assembling the Bed

A place that can comfort.

Or destroy.

     

Gregor's Room: A Response

Gregor's Room

Franz Kafka's classic, The Metamorphosis, is strange and lovely and very sad. Many elements of the story pique my interest, however I am most drawn to the relationship between Gregor and his sister, Grete, both before and after his transformation. Besides Gregor's obvious transition into a bug, Grete also experiences her own evolution and awakening throughout the course of the story; for example, what was once cautious but loving care turns into indifference and anger toward Gregor. The pivotal scene in which Gregor creeps out of his room to hear his sister play the violin for the lodgers broke my heart. Kafka asks, "Was he an animal that music so captivated him?" The dehumanization of Gregor, the slow yet consistent degradation of his former life, culminates when one of the lodgers spies Gregor approaching his sister and cries out to Gregor's father. After the lodgers make their exit, Grete declares they must get rid of Gregor, that she will "no longer utter [her] brother's name in front of this monster." Although I saw the change coming, I was still shocked by her use of the word "monster"! I believe Grete also became a little less human by the end of the tale. She was no longer able to see Gregor as anything more than a disgusting nuisance; no trace of her brother remained. Her seeing barely skimmed the surface.

I have a sister who I love very much and is also my best friend. Throughout The Metamorphosis, I kept thinking about how I would react if she woke up one day transformed into a giant bug. (Even though it seems ludicrous, impossible even, I'm still going to knock on wood!) I would do everything possible to help her get better: take time off from school, get her to the best doctors, protect her from tabloids and the like. Thinking about how much my life would change is actually making me feel a little sick. And Gregor's family's life changed too, albeit in different ways. Instead of focusing on helping him get better, it seemed like the moment they realized Gregor had changed into something strange, they became scared of him and avoided him (except for his sister, to some extent) as much as possible. I would not lock my sister away and shove bowls of milk and bread pieces under the door. 

If I were to transform into a shocking new form, I know I would react differently than Gregor. He seems so detached from it all. It takes him a long while to actually start internalizing the metamorphosis and recognize the gravity of his situation. At the beginning of his transformation, all he can think about is work. Work would be the last thing on my mind if I woke up as a giant bug! But Kafka didn't characterize him as such a workaholic by accident. Gregor's metamorphosis reveals much about the human condition, about how we can become grotesque and savage without even turning into something physically different than ourselves.

A key image (no pun intended) that stuck with me last night when I couldn't fall asleep: Gregor using his jaw to turn the key in his door and the resulting brown liquid that flowed forth. GOD. Also, the rotting apple stuck in his back. So sad, yet so repulsive. Kafka did a wonderful job with his imagery.

Words
Derangement - a disturbance of normal bodily function or operation
Chagrin - distress of the mind caused by humiliation, disappointment, or failure
Entreaty - an earnest request or petition; a plea
Prerogative - an exclusive or special right, power, or privilege; a distinctive excellence
Plaintive - mournful or melancholy