“格里高尔—甲虫”:生命颓废的隐喻形式--论卡夫卡《变形记》对尼采哲学核心问题的艺术化

“Gregor-the beetle”,a metaphor for the decadence of life:on the artistry of the core problem of Nietzsche’s philosophy in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis

尼采是卡夫卡精神上的先驱,“颓废”是尼采哲学的核心问题,而卡夫卡也同样以其天才的艺术直觉敏锐地捕捉到了这一现代人的普遍病症,并将其形诸多部作品。尼采在《论道德的谱系》中提出过“虫人”概念,而“巧合”的是卡夫卡在《变形记》中恰恰是以“格里高尔—甲虫”这一魔幻艺术形式隐喻了现代人生命颓废的严峻问题。悲惨万状又麻木不自知的格里高尔“被变形”为生物链最低端“肚大腿小、有壳无翅、焦虑破碎”的甲虫,这一匠心独运的“人—虫”艺术结构中蕴含着卡夫卡对现代人生存境遇的独到洞见:在时间、空间、精神与情感“多重贫困”的遭遇中,颓废的生命势必因窒息而死亡。

Nietzsche,the core issue of whose philosophy is“decadence”,is the spiritual forefather of Franz Kafka.Like Nietzsche,Kafka,with his artistic intuition of genius,captures this common modern ailment and applies it to his works.Nietzsche puts forward the concept of Bugman in his On the Genealogy of Morality.Coincidentally,in The Metamorphosis,Franz Kafka uses the magical art form of“Gregor-the beetle”as a metaphor for the serious problem of the decadence of modern life.The miserable and numb Gregor was“transformed”into a beetle,at the bottom of the biological chain,with a big belly and thin thighs,a shell and no wings,being broken and anxious.This ingenious“human-insect”artistic metaphor contains Kafka’s unique insight into the living conditions of modern people:suffering from the“multiple poverty”of the time,space,spirit and emotion,this decadent life is bound to die of suffocation.