The embodiment of inspiration as metamorfosis (in the work of Franz Kafka). Part 2

Building upon the embodied dialectic explored earlier, the interplay of flesh and language reveals a profound paradox of human existence: the intimate unity of body and mind that grounds our experience of freedom, yet simultaneously becomes a source of deep alienation. Kafka’s Gregor Samsa vividly embodies this tension. Though his transformed body retains the capacity for speech, those around him cannot comprehend his words. His tragic condition highlights the fragility of intersubjective understanding when the lived body—both image and schema—becomes estranged within its own existential horizon.

At this point, Kafka touches on a critical issue that he experiences both on a personal and social level, that is, the de-dialecticization of the subjectivity-otherness relationship that culminates as the withdrawal of man from the human reaches its peak. Man experiences complete separation from himself and from the other, people no longer understand each other, do not get along, since dialogue has been replaced by long monologues imposed on each other, speaking no human language, of parsimony and respect, but a language of violence, imposition, hostility, a language that divides, instead of uniting.

Empathy seems increasingly rare, the moment the individual becomes alienated as he or she is absorbed by the imperatives of trivial reality  (Besorgen- Fürsorge, according to Heidegger’s definition)¹ that are reduced to the realm of artificial finitude. Man is now called upon to learn to speak a new language, which he does not understand, that of artificial intelligence, which invades in various ways more and more aspects of life, intensifying the unpredictable risk of hic et nunc. The individual has now reached the point of not even recognizing himself while his corporal gaze is absorbed in artificial-altered images that falsify or completely abolish reality, creating unprecedented conditions that negate the smooth characteristic at the level of historicity.

Kafka captures this alienation of human existence and captures it both at the physical level and at the spatio-temporal level. The modalities taken by the event governed by the matter-form relationship are reflected in the space over the centuries, in the form and style that bear witness to the social, bio-political and economic conditions², as well as the morals of each era, highlighting human totality as existence of thought and action through the historical modes of the political-politician relationship that are kinesthetically imprinted in the material forms of society.

The space reflects the bio-political and social unfolding of the being through habitation and at the same time through the familiarization of space and time, expressing the kinesthetic perception of human physicality, which seeks the ground or background of its settlement, as it realizes that it is fitted into people. The familiarization rhythm of personal space is co-ordinated with the body’s proprioception rhythm as it unfolds as an embodied simulation of spatial and temporal becoming. In fact, Gallesse argued that interactive calculations are not carried out by the mind, but by the mind-body synthesis.³ 

Space is not an abstract concept since it is particularized by human physicality as it is appropriated through dwelling, but also through building, giving form to the space. In fact, Heidegger distinguished dwelling from sheltering, since dwelling presupposes a deeper existential relationship with a way of familiarity.⁴ 

The space acquires a form, a face, the face given to it by human actions, the choices and actions that make up the inner world event, as Bourdieu believed the body is a place of actions.  Human corporality inscribes its time within the space it inhabits.⁵ The time of familiarization constitutes the opening of the individual to the horizon. Space, without the familiarity of the individual through the sense of inhabitation, is an infinite void that extends limitlessly parallel to eternity that also extends to eternity, without void extending into eternity, nor eternity into void.

These two concepts begin to shine into each other through the sense of inhabiting human existence. The body of human existence appropriates space, which is transformed from emptiness into a particular personal space, while eternity is particularized, as it is inscribed as a definite time in human existence.

Merleau Ponty believed that space is not just the environment in which things are arranged, but the medium through which the position of things becomes possible. Space, Ponty wrote in the Phenomenology of Perception⁶, is not a kind of indefinite ether in which events swim abstractly, but is the universal force of their connections, for this reason he believed that the world is not only thought of, nor we imagine it as something vast and vague, from the moment we live it.⁷

The transformation of space-time in Kafka’s works is synchronized with the alienating transformation of human existence.  In Metamorfosis the familiar space is intertwined in an unpredictably disturbing way, from the moment Gregor Samsa’s lived physical identity mutates within the hero’s familiar space, with the consequence that, ultimately, the familiar space also mutates into an open spatiality, since the hero is unable to recognize his selfhood and to become familiar with his Dasein. Kafka tragically sees the uprooting of modern man from Sein. The space in his works gives this sense of inner world rigidity, the inactivity of the modern person, the suffocation caused to the person by the alteration of the political-politician relationship, the stress and anxiety that intensify every day, whether the person is inside the intimate space of him, as he heartbreakingly describes in the Metamorfosis, Gregor was filled with anxiety about the room and that ceiling that hung so high above him⁸, as he was forced to crawl in vain, or when the individual is exposed to various aspects of social becoming, as seen in the dicatives masterpieces Trial and Castle.  

The Castle was not an ancient castle, nor a new palace, but an incoherent collection of innumerable small one- or two-story buildings, huddled close together. If K. didn’t know that it was a tower, he would have thought it was a small town. Only one turret stood out, but K. could not perceive whether it belonged to a residence or a church. Then he compared it to the bell tower of his village church. The bell tower, solid in its line, rose unhesitatingly to its top – it was a normal earthly building – like what else can humans build -, K. asked, an earthly building, but with a goal higher than humble houses and a meaning purer than the nonsense of everyday life.⁹ At this point, Kafka sees the current living situation and “prophesies” the condition that prevails in the big cities.

The contemporary hic et nunc unfolds within the sphere of urbanism which is coextensive with social exclusions, control, enforced uniformity, the mechanization of existential corporeality that is transformed into a means of production and commodification, with the control and surveillance of capitalist society and the space-times of alienation that he develops.¹⁰

The tragedy of the alienation of man and his manipulation by the bio-system is demonstrated in a masterfully allegorical way through the great work of Τrial.¹¹ In The Trial, space-time acquires a terrifyingly agonizing texture, as Joseph K. wanders in vain through the labyrinthine corridors of the court, in semi-dark, narrow spaces with elevated doors that symbolize the suffocatingly domineering system of an unjust justice, which looms large in front to the tiny and weak Joseph K. who is accused, without having committed any crime, and does not even know the reason for which he is accused.

Kafka through his work, which constitutes the expressed power of his inspiration, brings to the surface the necessity of approaching the body as a place of creation in which the vital power of inspiration is embodied. Human physicality is placed at the center of socio-political becoming, since human existence itself constitutes the core of the political-politician relationship.

The writer observes the alienating changes of society, and despite his repressed nature, finds a way to rebel psycho-biologically by sculpting his guilty feelings through creative writing. Inspiration is embodied in the existence of Franz Kafka, contributing to his transformation, to a transformation, not in the sense of alienation, but to a re-invention of the transformation that contributes to the vital prime of his being.

Franz Kafka’s inspiration as a vital revolutionary becomes more intense, as can be seen through his reflections on human existence in the Blue Octavo Notebooks, at the very moment when his health is deteriorating. Throughout the worsening of his disease, the author realizes in a tragic and borderline way the fragility of human existence by deciding to penetrate its shelters. The Blue Octavo Notebooks¹² is Kafka’s total anguished outburst not only about the disease of tuberculosis that had fragmented him physically and mentally, but about the existential disease of being human. 

Sporadically in his notebooks he expresses his despair over the disease that plagued him, as can be seen in the Eighth Notebook in which at one point he expresses himself allegorically wondering what weight he carries on his shoulders, what ghosts hang over him.

The disease pushes him, through the embodiment of his inspiration in the form of writing, to transcend the limitation imposed by death, attempting to reflect on issues of life and death in order to understand death and exorcise it by communicating his anguish in creation, thereby curbing its dizzying unpredictability. He concludes, therefore, that death is an apparent end which, however, causes a real pain, and this is exactly where its greatest cruelty lies.

The great thinker believed that mourning for a deceased person is actually mourning for the fact that death did not occur in the true sense, that it was after all an epiphany. For Kafka, the salvation of man is death, but not in this sense. Human existence experiences throughout its life the tragic contradiction that governs its nature, the fact that it is aware of life and at the same time of death. Man leads his life driven by his nature towards life, but, as he is gradually alienated by being cut off from Sein, the drive to die exceeds his vital drive, reaching the point where he experiences death, not as a final and unrepeatable condition, but as a continuous repeatability. For this reason, Kafka concludes that death, while causing real pain, is an apparent end.

The evolution of humanity, which occurs in the midst of evil, violence, hostilities, rupture of the natural-human, and also human-human relationship, constitutes a development of the deadly force, the author characteristically notes in the Fourth Notebook.¹³

Death is salvation, but not this one. At this point is hidden the existential contradiction that governs the human being, who “dies” every day fearing the elevation to a higher life, a fact that Kafka points out, noting that in reality the joys of this life are nothing but the fear of his ascension , with the consequent self-torture¹⁴ that results from this fear and is reflected in the suffering of everyday life. 

Therefore, instead of man seeking to rise to a higher life by actions within the temporal and temporal life, he indulges in meaningless actions, thus turning his existential ascendancy into a vain expectation of eternity, with the consequence that he is trapped within of the idea of ​​the eternal. This limiting perception reveals the experience of the temporal and temporal world as something painful, since only pain in the hic et nunc is painful, not in the sense that those who experience and endure uncomplaining temporal and temporal pain will be elevated to a higher form of life, but in the sense that whatever in this world is called pain, in another world, unchanged and merely redeemed from its opposite, is blessing.¹⁵

What is oppressive in the idea of ​​the eternal is the incomprehensible justification of the subordination of time to eternity from which the justification of what we are follows as a logical consequence.¹⁶ This oppressive idea of ​​subordinating time to eternity intensifies the conviction of the present sinful human condition and at the same time the longing for the coming vindication of human temporality. The only strength, Kafka underlines, for the individual to withstand the conviction and the desire to justify his contingency is the measure of faith. The first idolatry was certainly the fear of things in the world, but, interrelated with this fear, is the fear of the necessity of things. The interrelated relationship of fear-necessity imposed an enormous responsibility, a responsibility that man cannot bear, since he is confronted with his limitation in front of a unique extra-human entity, because even the mediation of a being will not sufficiently lightened human responsibility, communication with a single being burdens man with greater responsibility. Although from a first point of view communication with a higher being implies the reduction of responsibility to that being, it confers a greater responsibility on man, the responsibility of taking on his own life. 

Man seems to base his existence on retrospective justifications, but in reality, Kafka emphasizes, he builds his life on his justifications. Admittedly, every human being must be able to justify his life, therefore his death, he bears this duty, for no man can live a life without justification.¹⁷  

Human existence feels the need to justify both living and dying in order to realize and manage to accept the tragedy of its limitation. The individual works for his food, his clothing, his livelihood, but also his livelihood, without realizing, most of the time, that no one creates here more than his spiritual basis in life, since moment with every visible crumb it also receives an invisible one. The issue is for him to realize this, assuming the responsibility he has towards himself and towards the human – the responsibility of his ascendancy, ceasing to postpone his life, reducing it to trivial excuses. 

The man of the modern era lives with – and in – postponements, postponing his life, but also the reconstruction of the world within which he lives his life. The human being postpones the assumption of responsibility of the admission of his mistakes, consequently also the correction of them and his reparation. He abdicates all responsibility by reducing evil to the realm of an abstract world, seemingly unable to destroy this twisted world in order to rebuild it. Man cannot destroy this world, because he has not constructed it as something independent, having merely wandered into it. The world as delusion is something indestructible, or rather, something that can only be destroyed by reducing it to its logical conclusion, not by renunciation. Of course, the reduction to the logical conclusion can bring about a series of disasters, but only within the spatial and temporal world and not in a world of the abstract sphere. 

The metamorfosis of reality presupposes the voluntary practical effort of man, who lives his life within spatio-temporal becoming, to change this world. Modalities of existential unfolding, actions and actions ferment with the temporal event, determining the evolutionary course of the world. Therefore, the outlook towards worldly good depends on human existence itself, which moves towards good, negating evil. In fact, notes Kafka, evil is like a tool in the hand of the individual. Whether man recognizes evil or not, when he himself has the will, it is allowed to be set aside without protest. Man’s will to change the world is integrated into his intracosmic actions in the hic et nunc, with the aim of reinventing the human-world relationship, a relationship that is activated in conditions of truth from which falsehood has been uprooted. Of course, as the author writes in the Fourth Notebook¹⁸, in a world full of lies, the lie is not eradicated through its opposite, i.e. a single truth, but only when the world is entirely reshaped as a world of truth.

The transformation of the world, therefore also of man within the world, is something extremely difficult and painful, just like, after all, the good itself, which requires toil and struggle in order to be conquered. For this reason from one point of view the good is inconvenient. Good is elusive, in contrast to evil which is immediate, swift, unpredictable and always invents tricks, a fact which Kafka underlines, writing that evil is distracting. He knows evil from good, not in the sense of knowledge as discovery, but in the sense of cunning, in contrast to good in its authenticity, which does not know from evil.

The good is difficult and uncomfortable, because it mobilizes the individual, pushing him towards a transformative action, which, however, requires the individual’s exit from his inertia, from his usual situation, from the artificial certainty within which he wanders thinking that it is safe. Franz Kafka does this through his -existentially- transformative writing, which constitutes a form of psycho-biological revolution. Kafka struggles through his work. But, as he himself confesses, he does not struggle to acquire self-control, because for the great thinker self-control means wanting to be effective at some random point in the endless rays of his spiritual existence.

The endless rays of Kafka’s spiritual existence culminate as an embodiment of his inspiration in the form of his works that contribute to his existential Metamorfosis. The writing rekindles the vital force of his being, which, already from his childhood, is strained by the oppression he experiences within the family environment, then by the complex social mutations of his time, culminating in illness and the tragic end of. His body through contemplation and creation is revitalized, despite the weakening caused by the disease, he remembers the desire for life and begins to express his innate urge towards it.

Through contemplation and writing the body is transformed, from the moment its suffering flesh is embodied the expressed power of its inspiration, pushing the existential corporality into a form of vital rebellion. Kafka through his works, with allegories, symbolism, eerie images, expresses himself, vents, breaks out, struggles, awakens the reader, sculpting the chaos of his time, giving form to the formless.  

In art, rebellion is consummated and perpetuated in actual creation, writes Camus in his work ” The Rebel”  (French: L’Homme révolté).¹⁹ This rebellion in the form of creation, found in Kafka’s work, is the source of the authentic revolution that emanates from creation and is completed through the Metamorphosis of existence. This Metamorfosis unfolds as a revolution – a revolution that can only be validated through a culture and not through terrorism or tyranny.

The revolution as a transformative creation is determined by order and harmony, giving shape to the disorder of the time, as well as to the passions of the contemporaries, writes Camus in “The Rebel”, while continuing to articulate heartbreakingly that the abominable society of tyrants and slaves in which we live, will find its end and will be transformed only at the level of creation.²⁰

Franz Kafka rebels by creating, he revolts through his expressed inspiration, he sculpts the tragic of his agony, which takes the form of the objection he utters in the form of a question, as he wonders if he will exist eternally, how will there be tomorrow? This objection of his shows us that Kafka does not postpone tomorrow, being ready to decisively undertake his relationship with life that extends from time to eternity. Kafka is determined to take charge of his relationship with life and seize every moment, tasting the fruits of the Tree of Life. In fact, as he characteristically mentions, we are sinners not only because we ate from the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we did not eat from the Tree of Life.²¹  

Kafka dares to eat from the Tree of Life expressing the life force of his inspiration embodied in its totality. It is inspired by human existence struggling to walk the path of agony, reinventing its relationship with its selfhood, as it transforms itself by embodying life itself in the form of creation.

Bibliography

• Greek

Δεληβογιατζής, Σωκράτης Ζητήματα Διαλεκτικής,( 4^η έκδοση),  Ερωδιός, Θεσσαλονίκη 2010.

Τσουκαλά, Κυριακή σχέσεις σωμάτων και αρχιτεκτονική, εκδ. Επίκεντρο, Θεσσαλονίκη 2023.

• Translated into Greek

Camus, Albert,  Ο επαναστατημένος άνθρωπος, ( Albert Camus, L’ homme révolté, ©Éditions Gallimard, Παρίσι 1951), (μτφρ. Για την ελληνική γλώσσα: Νίκη Καρακίτσου – Dougé, Μαρία Κασαμπαλόγλου- Roblin), © για την ελληνική γλώσσα Σ. Πατάκης  ΑΕΕΔΕ (εκδ. Πατάκη), 2011, η παρούσα είναι η 19^η εκτύπωση, Μάιος 2023.

Heidegger, Martin, Είναι και Χρόνος ( Sein und Zeit, 1927), (Μεταφρ: Γιάννης Τζαβάρας), εκδ. Δωδώνη, Αθήνα, 1η εκδ. 1978, 2η, 2013. Kafka, Franz, Η μεταμόρφωση (Die Verwandlung), translated by: Μαργαρίτα Ζαχαριάδου, 1^st edition in German: Kurt Wolff, Leipzig, 1915, this edition (20^th ): εκδόσεις Πατάκη, Αθήνα, Νοέμβριος 2023.

Kafka, Franz, Τα Οκτώ Μπλε Τετράδια, (Die Acht Oktavhefte), μτφρ. Ερατώ Τριανταφυλλίδη, εκδ. Αρχέτυπο, Θεσσαλονίκη.

Kafka, Franz,  Ο Πύργος (Das Schloss), 1^st edition 1926, this edition: εκδ. Γαλαξία, 1967.

Kafka, Franz, Η Δίκη (Der Prozeꟗ), translated by: Αναστασία Τρουλάκη, ©ΝΙΚΗ ΕΚΔΟΤΙΚΗ Α.Ε., Αθήνα, 2016.

Ponty, Maurice-Merleau, Φαινομενολογία της Αντίληψης,( Phenomenologie de la perception), (μτφρ. Κική Καψαμπέλη), εκδ. Νήσος, 2016, Αθήνα ( Gallimard, 1945).

• Foreign Language Bibliography

Délivoyatzis, Socratis, La dialectique du phénomène (sur Merleau-Ponty), éditions Méridiens Klincksieck, Paris, France, 1987.  

1. Martin Heidegger, Είναι και Χρόνος ( Sein und Zeit, 1927), (Μεταφρ: Γιάννης Τζαβάρας), εκδ. Δωδώνη, Αθήνα, 1^η εκδ. 1978, 2^η, 2013. ↩︎
2. Κυριακή Τσουκαλά, σχέσεις σωμάτων και αρχιτεκτονική, εκδ. Επίκεντρο, Θεσσαλονίκη 2023, κεφ. 1.1, p. 17. ↩︎
3. See above Κυριακή Τσουκαλά, 2.2, p. 40. ↩︎
4. See above, 2.2, p. 38. ↩︎
5. See above κεφ. 1.1, σ. 17. ↩︎
6. M.M Ponty. Φαινομενολογία της Αντίληψης, ( Phenomenologie de la perception), (μτφρ. Κική Καψαμπέλη), εκδ. Νήσος, 2016, Αθήνα ( Gallimard, 1945), 2^nd Part, II, p. 420. ↩︎
7. See above Ponty. ↩︎
8. See Franz Kafka, Η μεταμόρφωση (Die Verwandlung), II, p. 62. ↩︎
9. Franz Kafka,  Ο Πύργος (Das Schloss), 1^st edition 1926, this edition: εκδ. Γαλαξία, 1967, Ι, p.12. ↩︎
10. See above Κυριακή Τσουκαλά, 2.2, p. 43. ↩︎
11. Franz Kafka, Η Δίκη (Der Prozeꟗ), translated by: Αναστασία Τρουλάκη, ©ΝΙΚΗ ΕΚΔΟΤΙΚΗ Α.Ε., Αθήνα, 2016. ↩︎
12. See above Franz Kafka, Τα Οκτώ Μπλε Τετράδια, (Die Acht Oktavhefte).  ↩︎
13.  See above Franz Kafka, Τα Οκτώ Μπλε Τετράδια, (Die Acht Oktavhefte), 4^th notebook, p. 106. ↩︎
14. See above Franz Kafka, p.88. ↩︎
15. See above, p. 89. ↩︎
16.  See above, p.94. ↩︎
17. See above Franz Kafka, Τα Οκτώ Μπλε Τετράδια, (Die Acht Oktavhefte), 4^th notebook, p. 105. ↩︎
18. See above Franz Kafka, Τα Οκτώ Μπλε Τετράδια, (Die Acht Oktavhefte), 4^th notebook, p. 89. ↩︎
19. Albert Camus,  Ο επαναστατημένος άνθρωπος, ( Albert Camus, L’ homme révolté, ©Éditions Gallimard, Παρίσι 1951), (μτφρ. Για την ελληνική γλώσσα: Νίκη Καρακίτσου – Dougé, Μαρία Κασαμπαλόγλου- Roblin), © για την ελληνική γλώσσα Σ. Πατάκης  ΑΕΕΔΕ (εκδ. Πατάκη), 2011, η παρούσα είναι η 19^η εκτύπωση, Μάιος 2023, IV, p p. 438-441. ↩︎
20. See above Albert Camus. ↩︎
21. See above Franz Kafka, Τα Οκτώ Μπλε Τετράδια, (Die Acht Oktavhefte),  3^rd notebook, p. 79. ↩︎