Metamorphosis from the Phenomenology of Perception

An encounter of existentialism through the body in Kafka and Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

Deviating from Cartesian conceptions that establish oppositions between body/mind and body/world, this text uses a sociological approach to Merleau-Ponty's philosophy and Kafka's literature, which is read as "fabulist realist" (ANDERS, 1990) , to understand how the body manifests itself in literature and, mainly, how it is related to the construction and reconstruction of subjectivity. Based on the considerations presented, the book The Metamorphosis (KAFKA, 2017) will be analyzed from a Phenomenology of Perception perspective (MERLEAU-PONTY, 1999). The article is divided into three parts: in the first, The Metamorphosis: Rupture and Opening to Existentialism, a more descriptive presentation of The Metamorphosis is made (KAFKA, 2017) and it is pointed out how existentialism is present in the book from the presentation of the work and a discussion based on secondary readings; in the second, Reflections on Corporeal Existentialism in Merleau-Ponty, it is discussed how the phenomenology of perception opposes scholastic and idealistic ideals, thinking of an ontology through the body, at the same time that it distances itself from behaviorist and biologizing reflections; in the third, The Phenomenology of Perception Along with Metamorphosis, a reading of elements present in The Metamorphosis (KAFKA, 2017) is carried out to understand in the light of the phenomenology of perception.