Graham No Exit into Samsara: Ryans Claim and the Sarteian Subject in Kafkas The Metamorphosis I argue that

Kafkas The Metamorphosis offers an narrative critique of several prevailing philosophic notions of consciousness and experience by creating an (absurd) hypothetic scenario which elucidates several key objections to Locke and Descartes philosophy of the mind while articulating a proto-Sartreian idea of subject hood. By considering Kafkas story in this manner, I wish to take up Ryans argument, in Samsa and Samsara, that this story evidences Kafkas playing with Eastern philosophic and

mystic ideologies and attempts to play them out in the experiences of Gregor Samsa. This paper will address how Ryans reading of the text relies not only on a basic misunderstanding of Samsara but also how Gregors subject position in the story precludes and such identification with the Vedic and Buddhist belief in the cycle of death and rebirth. Ryans analysis hinges on his assertion that Gregor is some how aware of the Samsaric cycle of suffering and moreover is fed up with it. Early in the story Kafka portrays Gregor as planning to quit his job. In reference to his job he cries to hell with it all, if it were not for his family he would have quit his job long ago. Living in the Samsaric world, the agonies of life and transmigration are too much for Gregor. He is not deciding to quit his jobhe is deciding to commit suicide. (143) Ryans claim presents a gross misunderstanding of the principles of Samsara. The notion that the existential world contains suffering is present but not unique to the belief in Samsara. Moreover, the concept of Samsara holds that the physical body one inhabits provides unique sufferings and experience needed to progress and eventually eructate the attachments to material and personal objects to wish to be rid of the physical shell

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whatever form that may takerepresents a definitive attachment to the material world of suffering and a disregard for the notion of karma and the need for suffering in each life required to reach the ultimately unmotivated motivation and understanding that is Nirvana. Perhaps an apologetic reader of Ryan could assert that the notion of death and rebirth central to Samsara has occurred before the reader begins The Metamorphosis though Ryan never makes this argument. However, even were it the case, it bears no relation to the concept of Samsara and even further complicates Ryans reading because Smasas actions only indicate a further entrenchment of the necessity of the subjectobject relationship as the basis for his identity. It is this human connection that appears as the cornerstone of Gregors identity and its eventual removal (through the atrophying connective tissue of language) that ultimately shuts Gregor off from the world and deprives him of what he needs to exist as a self. Yet, at any rate people now believed that something was wrong with him, and were ready to help him. The positive certainty with which these first measures had been taken comforted him. He felt himself drawn once more into the human circle and hoped for great and remarkable results form both the doctor and the locksmith (Kafka 99) Gregors identity is so wrapped up in the material world thatdespite the retention of his consciousnesshis identity and relationship to others relies on the assumption that he can communicate his subject-hood relative to theirs. However, becausevia Kafkas use of the absurdhis human consciousness has been transferred to a form that mediates the communication of his humanity to those around him, the frailty and danger of the subject-object relationship comes to light. As opposed to the Cartesian and Lockeian

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notions of consciousness as inseparable from the human form and thus making the human body an object inextricably bound up in each subject-object relationship, Kafkas narrative elucidates how the alteration of the perceived subject can short circuit the entire relational process and any sense of humane duty dependant on this relation for its genesis. The moment which signals Gregors destruction in the story comes before his actually death and is due to the breakdown of these relational ties. When his sisterwho Gregor has throughout the story placed himself as a trusting object in opposition to her subjective roledenounces him. He must go, cried Gregors sister, thats the only solution, Father. You must just try to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor. The fact weve believed it for so long is the root of all this trouble. (134) This confirms the notion that the individual is ultimately alone and the dependence on placing ones self as an object in relation to others subject-hood relies ultimately on the ability of communicable langue (here proven allegorically to be tediously unstable) to mediate the their perceptions. When this language fails and the individual has lead an inauthentic existence (to use Sartres term) there is no redemption possible because value is determined exclusively in the sight of others who view the individual only as an object and not as a being. By detaching the appearance of humanity form the consciousness of Gregor. Kafka makes this case. Ultimately, Ryans analysis depends on his keen ears apprehension that of Samsa and Samsara are homophones and not any textual evidence thatwhile circumstantial biographic evidence Ryan cites does indeed indicate that Kafka was aware of Vedic mystic traditions and such mystic influences of Samsara are at play in Kafka.