BOOK 4
four
the metamorphosis a spatial investigation of Franz Kafka’s acclaimed novel
The Glasgow School of Art | MDes Interior Design 2013-14 | Andriana Themeli
BOOK 4 chapter 3 5
“Hello, is there anybody in there? Is there anyone at home?” 7
“In praise of sister” 13
“Cain and Abel” 19
“Oh, death” 25
5
chapter 3
When Gregor wakes up, he is injured. The rest
of the family pity on him and they leave the bedroom’s door open at night so that Gregor can watch them. He is so close but simultaneously so far from them. Gregor feels guilty about the burden that he has become to his family. His sister now is really indifferent to him and she hardly takes care. The family takes three boarders into the apartment in order to cope financially. One night, as the door to his room was left open by mistake, his sister starts to play her violin for the amusement of the boarders. As Gregors listen her playing he goes out of the room and feeling overwhelmed by the dreams that had for her to send her into a music school. He continue his dreamy thoughts while a boarder spot him in the room. The boarder immediately cries out when Gregor's father rushes them out of the parlor. Then Grete, Gregor's sister, tells to her parents that they have to stop believing that the bug is Gregor and says that they must find a way to get rid of it. Gregor goes back to his room, feeling awful for the inconvenience that offer to his family. His only thought through the night is that he must go away and relieve his family from suffering. At dawn, he dies. Next day as the dead body of Gregor is being discovered by the landlady, the family gathers and decide to take the day off and go for an outing in the country.
7
“hello, is there anybody in there? is there anyone at home?�
As the third chapter begins, Gregor Samsa finds again himself in his room, dealing with his daily routine. He feels neglected and isolated by the rest of the family. He feels alone and he is an external observer of his own home. The audience enters the room by sliding a big, heavy, iron door and wanders around a glassbox that contains a scaled version of the hero’s apartment plan. The metal texture of the door, the glass cage, as well as the artificial, cold lighting, give the impression of the untouchable and make the audience feel the difficulty of the hero to approach even his own family. The abstract, two-dimensional representation of the house encourage the sense of alienation and neglecting, as even the most familiar things now look rather neutral, under the prism of an absolute, minimal approach. Towards the exit of the room. smoke introduces the audience to the beginning of a new space.
Blind Light, 2007, Antony Gormley
10
IN OUT barrier
flatness
“... for the family duty dictated that the others swallow down the disgust he aroused in them and show him tolerance, only tolerance.�
13
“in praise of sister”
Excited as he was, leaves the room by the small crack that they left him have in order to watch them, and goes into the room enchanted by the play of his sister. There, without anyone noticing him, he describes a fantasy that he has about him and his sister and how she is going to show her affection to him. By following the foggy aisle, the spectator listens to Gregor’s sister playing violin and remembers all the dreams that the hero had about her and what he was going to offer her. The space becomes Gregor’s dream. An heterotopia, separate from reality, innocent and expressive. The sister’s portrait covers the main wall of a warm yellow room, full of smoke. On the opposite side, a large window opening offers -for the first time since the beginning of the spectacle- direct view to the outside world, signalizing the aspiration of the hero for a different, better future. The audience, in-between fantasy and reality, feels the warmth tone of Gregor’s thoughts under the sound of orchestrical music. Are things going to be better in the future?
Inland Empire, 2006, David Lynch
16
“He was determined to creep all the way up to his sister, to pluck at her skirt and in this way indicate to her that she should come to his room with her violin, for no one here was rewarding her playing as he meant to reward her...his sister would be moved to the point of tears, and Gregor would raise himself to the height of her armpit and kiss her throat...�
19
“cain and abel”
Then comes the betrayal. The betrayal by Gregor’s sister. The exact next moment after his dream about the two of them living together, happy. The room of betrayal is a deconstructed space, with fragmented walls and columns, representing the inner self of the hero after the rejection from his sister. The audience, after experiencing a positive, charming space, now is entering into a rather contradicting chamber, a true nightmare. The total black, decomposed room aims at destabilizing the visitor, impeding the view, obscuring the spectator’s psychology. It comes as a shock, right after the previously dreamy environment. The floor’s descending inclination begins to lead towards the end of the spectacle in the most dramatic way. Why things have to go wrong all the time?
22
antithesis
instability
"It has to go,’ Gregor’s sister cried out , ‘that’s the only way Father. You just have to let go of the notion that this thing is Gregor."
25
“oh, death”
Psychologically collapsed, Gregor moves towards his death. The audience, right before the end, stands under the warm sunlight entering from the skylight above. This is a signal of hope, the positive view towards sky, towards heaven. But here comes the deep, dark, narrow void of death in front of their feet, which marks the end of the story. It is a critical point of the story. The hero slides quietly away, in a quiet and peaceful death. He is not afraid, he feels sober and satisfied in a way. This bittersweet situation is communicated to the spectators by the poetic juxtaposition between up and down, between life and death, light and darkness. After that final step that calls the audience to overcome death, the journey is completed and the audience is found back to reality. A curtain, a reference to the theatrical stage, marks the exit door and farewells the visitors.
“If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.” Pythagoras “The light came through the window, Straight from the sun above, And so inside my little room There plunged the rays of Love.” Leonard Cohen, Love Itself 28
E | LIF HOPE
DEATH
critical point
theatrical ending
"He watched as everything began to lighten outside his window. Then his head sank all the way to the floor without volition and from his nostrils his last breath faintly streamed."
31