Family Structureless

                The traditional family structure is entirely undermined in The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, The Marquise of O  by Heinrich Von Kleist, and Iris by Mark Jarman. Each of these authors employed the standing metaphor as a means of storytelling, displaying emotion, and displaying dominance hierarchies within family structures. Each of the stories has a delightful grossness about them, as well.

                Our first gross story is The Metamorphosis. “One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.” Thus begins The Metamorphosis. To better understand the origins of this story it helps to realize the situation Kafka was born into. He was born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, Czechoslovakia. His father Hermann was described by Kafka as a “huge, selfish, overbearing businessman,” and as “a true Kafka in strength, health, appetite, loudness of voice, eloquence, self-satisfaction, worldly dominance, endurance, presence of mind, and knowledge of human nature.” Kafka’s relationship with his father was troubled. In his short “Letter to His Father”, Franz complained of being profoundly affected by his father’s authoritarian and demanding character. Indeed, the story of The Metamorphosis is quite inseparable from Kafka’s daddy issues.

                He awakens for work but cannot go. His mother, who has been so dependent on him to provide for the family, calls to him at a quarter to seven, “Gregor, don’t you have a train to catch?” From the beginning we see how Gregor’s family has become so dependent on him. When he awakens in the morning, of course,  he finds that he is now the one who requires help. “It occurred to him how easy everything would be if someone lent him a hand. It would take only two strong people (he thought ofhis father and the maid); they would only have to slip their arms under his vaulted back, slide him out of the bed, crouch down with their burden, and then just wait patiently and cautiously as he flipped over to the floor, where he hoped his tiny legs would have some purpose.” We see how he has been forced into a moment of helpless subordination due to his circumstances, and how in order to get low enough to help one as low as Gregor, somebody would have to crouch down. That’s how low he’s become.

      
         Throughout this morbid tale there are so many examples of standing and lying down as being integral to the relationships between the characters. Gregor was once in the army and sees a photo of himself standing in his uniform, “demanding respect for his bearing”. This device issued to emphasize just how low Gregor has sunk. At the beginning of the second section is another example of this device. “The glow from the electric streetlamps produced pallid spots on the ceiling and the higher parts of the furniture, but down by Gregor it was dark.” Clearly his posture as a bug has removed him from the light, both literally and figuratively.

                 The Marquise of O is an extremely gross story. For me, (and I don't mean to be a harsh critic,) the redeeming quality of that story was when the dad and the daughter were making out. It was extremely disgusting,to be sure, but I appreciated the dark Freudian surrealism,especially in a story so old. The standing metaphor is prominent throughout, but again, is most meaningful in the scenes regarding the gross dad and the daughter. When it refers to the father as being "bent over double", we see how he's been broken by the whole situation with the Marquise and the soldier. But as the story unfolds we see how his blessing has become the cornerstone of the entire piece.

              Jarman's Iris has a different kind of family structure than the others, since Iris' male family members are killed early one. She does search out her poetry teacher and have the little fling with him, sort of as a filler fantasy. But that's not all that important to the story, except that it lends some credence to her overarching obsession with Robinson Jeffers. It seems like, throughout the whole story, Iris is depending on men to make her happy. Her family life is completely jacked up-- except that she and the junkyard guy  raise Ruth to be a very good kid. When she finally gets to visit Jeffers' property, she knows that of course she was a prominent figure in his life too, since he so painstakingly planted a row of irises. Ahhhh.