Animals, throughout record, have held an important devote literature, and have acted as icons and representations of society, economics and individual relationships. Possibly the most well know exemplory case of this are Aesop's Fables, thought to have been written in 150 BC, where animals like the Hare and the Tortoise along with the Lion and the Mouse which were written to provide as moral rules. These early pet animal reviews tended to be religious experiences, for example, in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible pets or animals are shown to represent various human being and godly characteristics like the snake, the swine, and the lamb. In the same way, Native Indian ethnicities have used testimonies of pets or animals to help describe the mysteries of life and the world, as have people in Asia, India, SOUTH USA, and Africa. However, following a publication of Charles Darwin's controversial book Origin's of Types in 1859 which advanced the idea that humans had evolved from animals rather than being created independently, animals in literature began to defend myself against a more literal meaning. In his publication The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka uses the original animal fable structure to articulate his angst against twentieth century world. Within the later part of the century the use of animals in books became an important tool in gender studies and women's literature. Feminine authors portrayed the challenges and confines of the pet world as an evaluation for his or her own challenges for freedom and equality often looking at their restrictions compared to that of the caged animal. In this article I'll discuss two novels from the twentieth century which entail not just family pets but the change of humans into pets. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka and Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq both portray the similarities between humans and pets or animals and use their chosen animals to signify their criticisms of twentieth century contemporary society.
Franz Kafka was created in Prague in 1883 to a upper-middle category Jewish, German family. Although his mom was adoring she was slightly supplementary to his upbringing and his highly daddy was domineering and both psychologically and bodily abusive. Throughout his life, Kafka always noticed somewhat of the outsider as well to be plagued with guilt about his hatred for his father who he regarded as 'a giant of a man, my father, the ultimate judge, coming to get me in the middle of the night ' As a grown-up, Kafka resided a dual life, working as a clerk by day and writing by night time, behavior that was highly disapproved of by his daddy. He never committed or had children and put in the majority of his adult coping with his parents and sister something that one may see shown in the Metamorphosis.
Metamorphosis, is fundamentally a illusion book however, it presents a very real situation. A Marxist interpretation and perspective shows a worker being abandoned by his employer and family after becoming struggling to work and support them fiscally. This is representative of the proletariat, bourgeoisie discord detailed by Marx. Kafka's Metamorphosis is an illustration of the capitalist world dominated by economics and the abandonment of those unable to provide for themselves. Thus by using this perspective it could be seen that the protagonist Gergor presents the proletariat and his director the bourgeoisie.
Gregor, the protagonist of is compelled to work in employment that he hates as a visiting sales man as he is trying to support his family and pay off his fathers obligations. Gregor's social status would be identified by Marx and Engels as an associate of 'the school of modern wage labourers who having no method of production of their own are reduced to providing their labour power in order to live. ' At the start of the book we learn that Gregor has changed into an insect. The identity of the creature however, is never disclosed; this is because the characteristics of the insect are relatively unimportant in understanding the issue and class battles that are happening within the book. Instead the change implies Gergor's new incapability to work and a give attention to Gregor's value as a labourer rather than a person and exactly how this diminishes when he is no longer in a position to venture out and make money or support his family. If Gregor is representative of the proletariat, then his manger symbolises the bourgeoisie and can be an exemplory case of 'the class of modern capitalists, owners of the method of social development and employers of wage labourers. ' The director is not given a name which signifies his insufficient mankind. He also functions superior consequently of his advanced monetary position. Kafka's portrayal of the supervisor makes highly suggests that he is not liked and, if anything stimulates the reader to empathise more with Gregor as an insect than his human being manger.
The first to reject Gregor is his director who leaves when he realises that Gregor is unable to work and is therefore of no value to him. As an employee Gregor is valueless unless he could work and therfore to his director he's expendable. The manager knows that he'll have the ability to find an upgraded staff member. However, once Gregor becomes struggling to support his family fiscally they decide to depart him. Marx says that 'the bourgeoisie has torn away from the family it's sentimental veil and has reduced the family connection into a mere money relation '. Kafka's metamorphosis is an obvious example of this. Gregor functioned in employment he hated for a long time trying to support his family who then immediately reject him once he can no longer earn a wage. His dad is the most psychologically unattached and handles Gregor in the harshest manner. Gregor's presence appears to anger his dad as he clenches his fists and throws super fruit at the insect. Although his mother and sister Grete are primarily upset and sympathetic towards Gregor - his sister brings him food and cleans his room. However, this devotion dwindles over time when they stop to get any financial support from Gregor. Grete even commences to refer to her brother as 'it' and claims that if the insect really was Gregor he would have 'realised way back when that it is not possibly for human beings to reside in with such a creature and he would have gone away of his own free will '. Her indifference towards her sibling shows that because of this of his change he has ceased to can be found to her. The partnership of the family was based on shared wages as soon as Gregor could no longer contribute to that he no longer existed within the family. That is further supported by the fact that because of this of Gregor's incapability to work his father and sister have to start earning a paycheck. His father gets control as brain of the household and his sister flourishes in her new occupation. As are result of this she becomes more beautiful and earns the esteem of her parents. Even his mom becomes more robust and starts off to work more throughout the house. It appears that Gregor's transformation triggers the family to change their frame of mind towards working for themselves from being reliant on their son.
The eventual summary to the Gregor's account is his unavoidable death. Once altered he was no more able to nourish himself and his life depended on the charity of his parents who considered him useless and a financial burden therefore locked him away. However, alternatively than being annoyed at their sons death, his family show up relieved - their economical needs superseded any psychological connection that the family was required to Gregor and therefore they cannot love him once he became a pressure on the family. Following his fatality, Gregor's family happen to be the united states, they discuss the economical benefits of not having to aid Gregor and then move to discussing Grete. They discuss her relationship and the financial benefits associated with this, it would appear that while Grete is financially useful to he her parents she actually is welcomed as part of the family however the novel ends with a refined caution that if she began to become a burden she may have the same outcome as Gregor.
Pig Tales, by Marie Darrieussecq, was posted in France in1996 more than 50 years after the publication with the Metamorphosis. However, like Kafka, Darrieussecq uses the change of an dog to give a critical analogy of population. In cases like this our protagonist, an unnamed narrator residing in another future Paris, who gradually becomes a pig. The reader is inspired to believe this is as a result of her amoral lifestyle. Her progressive change into an creature is reflective of the changes occurring in the contemporary society in which she lives which is becoming increasingly right wing consequently of consumer capitalism. The novel follows the life span of the nameless gal and starts with her being interviewed at a perfume store where in fact the director tells her that 'The important thing [is] to look lovely and well groomed all the time '. Pig Stories was highly successful and incredibly popular between adult readers, Sallie Muirden argues in her essay on the novel that success could be as a result of way that Darrieussecq programs 'contemporary feminine resentment about the patriarchy in a post modernist-feminist time, in particular the extended control over what women do with the body. ' Through her book, Darrieussecq is articulating experience and emotions that the present day day female audience will be able to relate to. She coping with issues regarding the women's body and women's rights however in a post-modernist feminist manner, as she is arguing any particular one may well not have an issue with retailing their body and could in reality enjoy working as a prostitute. Although this may be criticised by early on feminist to be degrading to women, what Darrieussecq is really preventing for, is that people don't see her protagonist as a sufferer but instead as women making her own alternatives and decisions with regard to her body. Similarly, Darrieussecq is not condemning the women in this novel, rather, she is criticising the sociable circumstances the narrator discovers herself in which is most likely due to her insufficient education rendering it hard on her behalf to concentrate. Her inarticulateness and naivety make it easier for those around her who are corrupt (mainly the men in the novel) to consider advantage of her which is shown at the beginning of the novel when she is sexually assaulted by the director during her interview, 'The director of Perfumes Plus was having my right breasts in one side and the job contract in the other '. As a result it takes her quite a while to realise that it is her involvement in these corrupt works that are leading to her apparent change and this she must avoid form amoral behaviour in order to stay human. However, there continues to be something about the narrator that makes the reader empathise with her, she is very sincere and has much feelings for others that can be observed in her connections with Yvan the werewolf and her lost pig newborns, 'I licked the poor mites as carefully as I possibly could. If they grew frigid, I felt as if I couldn't continue. I curled up in a ball and didn't think about anything any longer '. Here, her response is protective and tender which supports my notion that she actually is inherently good but living in world that is corrupt. Probably the most striking aspect of the book is the narrators metamorphosis into a pig, although there is reference to other individuals also transforming (Yvan becomes a werewolf at full moon and the director of the perfume store is generally known as a pig) she actually is the only figure who undergoes a total and lasting change into an creature.
Writing for The Guardian, John Mullan argues that 'Marie Darrieussecqs first e book, Pig Tales is clearly a version of Kafka's The Metamorphosis for a later age '. Indeed one can see clear similarities between your two novels, despite the 50 year time period between magazines. Both authors use human-animal transformation to reflect culture and issues of their own time. Although Kafka is looking at socialism and Darrieussecq feminism they both package with issues regarding the problem of the societies their protagonists reside in. One can also see Darrieussecqs criticism of the corrupt capitalist French population. Nonetheless, both authors are authoring a kind of dystopia influenced by the societies they reside in. Kafka was published in Germany in 1915, only a year following the outbreak of World Conflict I, when European countries and all of those other world were in a state of great distress and turmoil. Kafka's work is often explored in the framework of his own activities with alienation. He was a Jewish Czech living in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, speaking German, alienated from his overbearing daddy, the opposite gender and his desire to further his interest of literature which conflicted with the confines of his bureaucratic job and bourgeois life.
The Metamorphosis commences with what ought to be the climax of the novel, the transformation of Gregor into an insect. There is no build-up of tension just the immediate declaration within the first word, which leaves the reader with the realisation that Gregor is a insect and the consequences of this simple fact. Likewise, in Pig Tales we learn from the start that something is not right, the narrator shows that she is writing when she can the account of what happened to her. One major difference between your two novels would be that the Metamorphosis ends with Gregor's seemingly inevitable death while Pig Stories ends with a slightly happy finishing whereby the narrator leaves behind the disappointment of civilization (and is also happy enough to retreat almost forever to her pig form only holding on to her human being qualities long enough to create her tale. However, whilst inside the Metamorphosis, the transformation of Gregor, is a very disturbing and finally harmful change, the alteration of the narrator in Pig Stories from a human to a pig indicates her transformation to a thinking being. Darrieussecq says herself that the book is 'the excursion associated with an alienated female (to the point of not realizing that she is a prostitute) Her body, transforming itself, implies to her that now, immediately, if she wishes to survive, she is going to have to start out thinking. '
A novel that may be compared to both The Metamorphosis and Pig Stories is Animal Plantation by George Orwell. Although in this account the transformation takes place from creature to human alternatively than real human to animal. Much like Pig Stories, Orwell thought we would make his family pets pigs, this summons the stereotype that pigs are greedy and uncouth and reduces the characters mankind. However, Orwell's novel is a satire about socialism specifically within the Soviet Union. Here we can easily see more similarities along with the Metamorphosis although Orwell is critical of the socialist regime and Kafka is criticising the capitalist one. You can also argue that we now have reflections of this book in Pig Tales which is often illustrated by the fascist dictator Edgar and the xenophobic religious number of Marchepiede, however I think that perhaps Pig Stories is more of any cautionary story predicting a fascist dictatorship in France if the corruption and exploitation evident in Darrieussecq's book prevail.
To conclude, the use of pets or animals and specifically the change of humans into pets in twentieth century books aided in the representations and reflections that authors wanted to make on culture. In The Metamorphosis the reader can observe many Marxist reflections and in Pig Stories there will be the obvious feminist connotations. However, in both novels discussed not only can we start to see the evident metamorphosis from individuals to dog but also many other transformations that take place. In Kafka's Metamorphosis, the initial transformation of Gregor into an insect is shown, which is consultant of his monotonous life and the abusive treatment by his manager. However, addititionally there is the transformation of his sister Grete, her first transformation is from being sympathetic and a friend to Gregor to his enemy whereby she only refers to her brother as 'it'. The audience can also witness Grete's change into womanhood, she wakes up to realize that her body is blossomed in the wake of Gregor's fatality. Therefore one can conclude that Grete's changing behaviour and emotions towards her sibling coupled with her physical move parallel Gregor's change. Although as Gregor deteriorates Grete seems to flourish. In the same way, in Pig Stories, we can easily see the female protagonists transformation from a women to a pig which shows connotations of the corrupt world in which she lives and the corrupt life style in which she participates. However, there is also the transformation of the women into a physical being who believes and recognizes, there and the transformation of modern culture which becomes increasingly more corrupt, thus having a poor effect on the narrator. The use of animals helps in representations as readers will curently have a predetermined judgement of this animal and for that reason they are symbolic, however, both the authors discussed are trying to break down these judgements. Kafka uses an insect which is something that lots of people dislike and fear however, throughout the publication however the other heroes are disgusted by Gregor the audience is encouraged to empathise with him. Similarly in Pig Stories, the narrator changes into a pig which has connotations of being disgusting and uncivilized however, this is more a representation of the society and again the audience is prompted to empathise with the narrator.
