De-Essentialized/De-Essentializing Genders in Kafka’s “Metamorphosis”: A Deconstructive Approach

This research is an attempt to show how Franz Kafka’s magnum opus “Metamorphosis” can be read as a bold, subversive and counter-discursive narrative to de-essentialize essentialist conceptions vis-à-vis traditionally- and discursively-conceived essential gender identities. This paper relies upon Judith Butler’s postmodern performative conception of gender so as to better tease out the ways in which Kafka’s narrative can be read counter-intuitively, not as a conservative work in its investigation and portrayal of gender issues, but as a radically metamorphosing, de-essentializing and deconstructive literary artefact impugning traditional identity- and gender-related binaries. Multivalency of Kafkaesque language and inter-metamorphosed genders are conducive to a more de-essentialized and boundary-defying discourse that invite Kafka’s readers, across geographical and ideological boundaries, to rethink and recast their previously held essentialist conceptions regarding identities in general and genders in particular.

Keywords:

essentialism , de-essentialized/de-essentializing , metamorphosis , gender performativity.