VLADIMIR NABOKOV
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room . His family consists o f three people. Three servants appear in the
course of Lh e sLOry. T hree lodgers have th ree beards. T hree Samsas
write three lellers. I am very careful no t to overwork the significance o f
symbo ls, fo r once you detach a symbo l from Lhe a rti stic core of the
book, you lose a ll sense o f enj oyment. T he reason is tha t there a re
artistic symbo ls and there a re trite, artificial, o r even imbecile symbols.
Yo u will find a number o f such inept symbo ls in the p sychoanalytic
and mytho logica l approach to Kafka's work , in the fashionable mix–
ture of sex a nd myth tha t is so appea ling to mediocre minds. In o ther
words, symbo ls may be o rig ina l, and symbo ls may be stupid and trite.
And the abstrac t symbo lic va lue o f an artistic achievement should never
prevail over its beautiful ' burning life.
So, the only embl ema tic o r hera ldic ra ther than symbolic meaning
is the stress which is la id upon
three
in "The Metamorphosis." It has
rea lly a technical meaning. The trinity, the tr iplet, the triad , the
triptych a re obvio us a rt fo rms such as, say, three pictures of youth , ripe
years, and o ld age, o r any o ther threefo ld triplex subj ec t. Triptych
means a picture o r ca rving in three compa rtments side by side, and this
is exactly Lh e effec t tha t Ka fka achieves, for instance, with his three
rooms in the beginning o f the story-living room, Gregor's bedroom ,
and sister's room , with Gregor in the centra l one. Mo reover, a threefold
pa ttern suggests the three ac ts o f a play. And fina ll y it must be observed
tha t Kafka's fantasy is empha tica lly log ica l; wha t can be more cha rac–
teristic of logic than the triad of thesis, antithesis, and synthes is. We
shall, thus, limit the Kafka symbol of
three
to its aes the tic and logical
significance and completely disregard wha tever myths the sexual
mythologists read into it under the direction o f the Viennese witch
docLOr.
2. Ano ther thema tic line is the theme o f the doors, o f the opening
and clos ing of doors tha t runs through the who le story.
3. A third thema tic line concerns the ups and down s in the well–
being of the Samsa famil y, the subtle sta te o f ba lance be tween their
fl ourishing condition and Gregor 's despera te a nd pa thetic condition .
There a re a few o Lh er subthemes but the above a re the onl y ones
essential for an understanding o f the sLOry.
Yo u will mark Kafka's style. Its clarity, its precise and forma l
inLOna tion in such striking contras t LO the nightma re ma tter of his ta le.
No poe tica l metaphors ornament his sta rk black-and -white sto ry. The
limpidity of hi s style stresses the da rk richness o f his fan tasy. Con trast
and unity, style and ma tter, manner and plo t are mos t perfectly
integra ted .
