Varieties of The Fantastic in Fiction

This week, we read four stories which all dealt with themes of transformation and shapeshifting. “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, “Mantis” by Julia Armfield, “Fatso” by Etgar Keret, and “Beast” by Samantha Hunt. While these stories share physical transformation as their main plot element, they are all distinct from one another in their underlying themes. 

I read “The Metamorphosis” as a metaphor for disability and the experience of becoming a burden on one’s family. Gregor tries to go to work despite his condition, but finds it is impossible, and his parents are forced to come out of retirement while his sister starts working at 17. While at first they try to accommodate him, the terror and resentment of Gregor’s family toward him grows, and they begin neglecting his needs, eventually leading to his death. After he dies, his family is relieved. They can finally mourn their son normally and move on with their lives. This is representative of the dynamic which can develop when the breadwinner of a family suddenly becomes disabled physically or mentally, or even enters a coma or vegetative state. Families can sometimes cease to view their loved ones as the same person that they were before (or even as human beings) when they can no longer recognize them.

“Mantis,” on the other hand, I read as a commentary on female adolescence. This story follows a young girl who goes to a Catholic girls’ school. She has a severe skin condition, which her mother tells her is genetic, passed down from her grandmother. She describes the experiences of herself and her friends, including insecurity, flaw competitions, and the introduction of boys into their lives, but it illustrates their closeness to each other as well. The narrator describes herself (and the other girls, to an extent) in a strikingly grotesque way, often going into detail about her peeling skin. She also goes into her relationship with her mother, who often retells the same story of her grandmother (a “party girl”) and seems to have a preoccupation with appearances, as she is repeatedly shown applying makeup to her seemingly uninterested daughter. In the end, the narrator completely sheds her skin to become an enormous praying mantis while at a party, and it is implied that she proceeds to eat the boy she was talking to. I think that her transformation may be a representation of the uncomfortable and rarely discussed aspects of growing up as a girl, such as hunger, anger, and lust. I also think it has something to do with the things we inherit from our mothers, such as generational trauma, vices, and even just personality traits.

“Fatso” is a very short story about a man whose girlfriend transforms every night into a fat man who enjoys soccer, eating and going out to bars. The narrator is at first slightly put off by this, but learns to like Fatso and finds harmony living with his girlfriend/wife during the day and hanging out with his friend Fatso at night. This story might have been about accepting the unexpected aspects of your partner’s personality, but I mostly found it humorous.

“Beast” is a story about secrets. It follows a woman who, despite her love for her husband, struggles with an insatiable lust for something more dangerous, intense, risky. Shortly after she cheats on her husband with a man who gives her that, she begins transforming into a deer every night after her husband falls asleep. She keeps this from him for days, but when she does eventually tell him, he reveals to her that night that he also transforms into a deer. They leave the house to find countless identical deer, and decide to join them even though it means losing some individuality. I read this as a metaphor for shame. She was ashamed of the thoughts she had and of cheating on her husband, and that shame was represented by her turning into a deer only when he couldn’t see. When she told him about it, though, it turned out that he also turned into a deer, that he also had secrets he was ashamed of. And then they left the house, and it was revealed that there are thousands of deer, and that the things they kept secret out of shame were actually very common.