Guilty Gregor & Culpable Cohn

I know that we're only a few pages into Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, but while we were talking in class yesterday about Gregor's qualities as a character (human, not bug!) I kept making connections between Gregor and, of all people, Robert Cohn.

The scene where the manager is chastising Gregor through bedroom door #1 about being late to work kind of reminded me of Mike getting angry at Cohn for not being able to pick up on the social cue that he was unwanted on the trip. I think it's mostly the fact that both characters seem to get beat up on by the other people in their lives that makes me sense a connection between them. Cohn is just disliked by everyone in the novel even though they seem to agree that for the most part, Cohn is a "nice" guy. Meanwhile Gregor seems to be the poster-child for traveling salesmen and when, for the first time in five years, he's late to work, everyone flips out. Before Gregor even manages to get out of his room we have his parents insisting that something must be wrong with him if he's this late, his sister starts crying, his manager shows up eight minutes past seven, the doctor and locksmith are sent for, and who knows how worried the maid might even be at this point.

Then, with all this happening, Gregor, not seeming to completely register the many complexities of being unwilling transformed into an arthropod, worries about disappointing everyone else by not going to work (if he could only manage to catch the next train!). He feels guilty when he himself, Gregor Samsa, was thrust into this position, wronged in his own right, robbed of the duty of going to work. Why should he be feeling guilty? Now remember, Cohn the middleweight boxing champion got angry, beat Jake up, and then apologized profusely to Jake, (who says "that's alright" quite a few times as Cohn's apologizing) no doubt because he feels intensely guilty for throwing a few punches at people who didn't really like him anyway. Cohn's sense of guilt arises more out of his own perception of having been "crazy" just as Gregor's sense of guilt arises out of his own idea that he should be going to work to support his family even though he's a bug that's not physiologically capable of doing that.

Cohn's sort of alienation from from his group of "friends" and Gregor's literal and figurative alienation from his family, combined with the sense of mostly unjustified guilt that they both harbor, make Cohn and Gregor an unlikely pair of similar characters. I think it'll be interesting to see if this similarity still stands as the novel goes on.

Jake & Brett, Brett & Jake

  warning: this post is kind of messy, and I apologize in advance

I have to admit that while I was reading Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, I was in the anti-Brett camp. Every page had me annoyed at Brett not because she decided to hook up with any guy she fancied, but because she seemed like she was using Jake. She knew that Jake was so emotionally invested in her (just calling this "love" seems hollow) and she seemed to take complete advantage of that. Every time she said "darling" I cringed. It was almost like a damsel-in-distress cry for Jake to listen to / help her with her problems -- which in and of itself is perfectly fine; it's just that I didn't see her doing the same thing for Jake. Jake sacrifices so much for Brett, he completely loses the respect of Monotoya (and Monotoya's regard for him as an afficionado is important to him!), he gives up his mini-vacation in San Sebastian where he finally seems like he's content, and he puts her feelings before his own, always. Maybe that's admirable or damned nice of him or something, I don't know (I thought for a while about it, and I can't decide if Jake is a pushover or just a rare personality).

Then a controversial (within my own mind) thought that developed during Friday's class discussion: is Jake just being a good friend? Uh, if friendship is supposed to be a one-sided thing then sure. I really can't see this friendship as a two-way street, because Brett always talks about herself. Jake never says "darling, I've been so miserable," not that he should because that isn't his style, I mean that in the way sense that Brett unburdens herself to Jake but Jake doesn't ever discuss anything personal with Brett. Jake is Brett's confidant, but Brett doesn't seem to be Jake's. But I can still see the side of this question that says: Brett cares about Jake just as much as he does for her, but she just doesn't show it and we as readers don't see these feelings in the same way we see Jake's because she isn't narrating the story. Okay. Pair that with the idea that Jake seems to be Brett's only genuine friend/support and vice versa. The "vice versa" part doesn't make sense because what about Jake and Bill and their moments during the fishing trip? But Jake might never see Bill, or any of the other characters for that matter, again ("so long Jake" says everyone). Brett is there after everyone else walks out of this story. So vice versa works, I guess.