Determination of Human Behaviours and The Metamorphosis

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Determination of Human Behaviours and The Metamorphosis

        Humanist psychologists believe that human behavior is not determined by psychological nor environmental forces, thus we have “free will” in making choices (Myers, p.437). Abraham Maslow combined the concept of actualizing tendency and free will to develop the theory of self-actualization (Myers, p.436). Self-actualization is one motivation to fulfill one’s full potential (Mayers, p.436). “What a man can be, he must be” (Maslow, “The Need for Self Actualization”) expresses Maslow’s optimistic view about human growth. Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha and Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis shares the story of struggle towards self-actualization. A young protagonist named Siddhartha is a Brahman who devotes his life in search for freedom from the endless life cycle of suffering. As he realizes that life in society is filled with suffering, he escapes from social life by renouncing social interactions and responsibilities. He progresses towards self-actualization by completing his quest for self-fulfillment. In Metamorphosis, the protagonist Gregor “woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka, 1). Gregor mainly struggles with alienation caused by his family’s abandonment towards him. Gregor escapes from social order by renouncing social interaction and responsibilities. This freedom makes it possible for him to advance towards self-actualization. In the end, he acts bravely and selflessly to sacrifice his life for the love of his family. Both protagonists realize that they are imprisoned by a “dehumanizing society”. The progress of self-actualization is a struggle to escape from social imprisonment accomplished by renunciation of social interactions and responsibilities.

        Both protagonists are imprisoned in a “dehumanizing” society (ClassNotes on Siddhartha, “Chapter 3: Analysis”), defined as a society that “deprives


qualities thought of as being best in human beings”(Concise Dictionary & Thesaurus, “dehumanization”). Siddhartha refers to life in society as Samsara, an endless cycle of suffering. Before entering Samsara, Siddhartha acquires spiritual knowledge with the Samanas, Ascetics who spend their lives in the wild without procession. To him, life in Samsara is more of a “game” (Hesse, 67) than reality. He does not commit his life but rather remains “Samana in his heart” (60). He saw people suffer for things that “did not seem worth the price” (57) such as “money, small pleasures, and trivial honors” (57). Watching people “grow grey” or aging, he observes that all people experience the same endless sufferings, and he refers to their lives as “senseless cycles” (Classnotes on Siddhartha, “Samsara”). Once he accumulates wealth and experience sensual pleasures, he let himself gradually absorb into the world of Samsara represented by fading of his “inward voice” (63). Siddhartha’s moral consciousness is represented as his “inward voice” (63), “which reminded him quietly complained quietly, so that he could hardly hear it” (71). Siddhartha’s dream of a dead bird symbolizes the awareness of imprisonment of the dehumanizing society. The dead bird symbolizes death of Siddhartha’s “inward voice” and the cage trapping the bird is the social imprisonment (Classnotes on Siddhartha, “Kamala”). The “dehumanizing” society changes Siddhartha into a dice player, exerting “power over people” (81) while “nausea over took him” (Hesse 64). A merchant named Kamaswami symbolizes “greed” for money and power.  Society, it seems for Siddhartha, develops selfishness in people rather than kindness.

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        The dream of the dead bird causes his “inward voice” to return. Watching people age fills him with a “secret fear” (65) and he explains that life in society is “a long path which had no joyous goals” (Hesse, 65). This realization causes Siddhartha to reflect on his life that this “game [is] called Samsara” (Hesse, 68). Was it “worth playing continually?” (Hesse, 68) asks Siddhartha, and his answer is that “the game [is] finished and that he [can] play it no longer” (Hesse, 84). Moral consciousness that guides him throughout his life makes him a unique individual. Realization plays ...

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