Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer is Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis in Reverse

Rudolph the Rednosed Reindeer is the story of a young reindeer discriminated against for having a red nose. It is also my favorite Claymation Christmas movie that I watch every year with a sweater and some hot chocolate. In the end, it turns out that his “deformity” his bright shining red nose has utility as it can allow Santa to see through thick fog. Everyone apologizes learning of his usefulness and he goes from being an outcast to the most celebrated reindeer (free to play any and all reindeer games).

Kafka’s Metamorphosis is about Gregor Samsa who is an unremarkable but hard working salesman providing for his family who one day, inexplicably, woke up to find himself transformed into a giant grotesque and rather useless bug. Most of his family turn on him almost immediately, one of his first thoughts on such a hideous transformation is to his boss and what his unexplained absence will mean for his position at the firm. By the end, even his sister who had initially shown kindness to his monstrous form rejects and detests him and he dies alone and miserable after a lifetime of diligence and familial piety. I read it the last time during a particularly long Covid line.

In one case utility is gained and with it esteem, in the other case utility is lost and with it everything despite his fervent intentions, despite history.

In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the first book by Adam Smith, Smith tries in painstaking (and often repetitive) detail to come to the root of human sentiments towards others and to ourselves. The answer he finds is that we, as social creatures, largely adapt ourselves to others and see ourselves in the eyes that others would see us if they knew the truth about us. We in turn sympathize with others to the degree we can imagine their situation and feel it. It is for this reason he argues we are so apt to give undo care and deference to those of the most elevated status, we imagine ourselves in their position and in our anemic understanding, imagine ourselves as happy and content as can be. This is the solution to one of Smith’s central mysteries, why do people make themselves miserable seeking fame, power, and money, when contentedness is (obviously to him) merely a function of state of mind, having the basics of life, general security, and most importantly our personal relationships.

“In ease of body and peace of mind, all the different ranks of life are nearly upon a level, and the beggar, who suns himself by the side of the highway, possesses that security which kings are fighting for.”

Smith goes so far as to state that the bulk of those who manage to gather enough wealth to increase their station will find their lives worsened as material gains only add the slightest ease, and they will lose their prior connections and be unable to gain new genuine relationships with those of their new station.

He argues that for a person to be considered well-bred and good company we are aware of the level of care others can place on us and our misfortunes and must bring down our emotions to the level of which those around us can feel them, even mocking our misfortunes if our misfortunes our companions will mock. Those who are the most disagreeable to us are those that show their internal state rather than meshing harmoniously with the sympathies of those around them. He does make an exception for dear friends and close family of course. But how much of cringe compilation videos are just people publicly crying and screaming? Do you not doubt these people are in actuality acutely miserable? Or is it that the external state they express goes too far outside what we can sympathize with given the circumstances? It is for this reason we tend to think of those with too often public displays of emotion as children, growing up is a process of learning to filter your feelings through what others can receive.

Smith might hope in the case of Gregor Samsa that given he was a close family member his treatment would have been better. We have evidence dating back many thousands of years of people born with medical conditions that would make life of a hunter gatherer impossible, living far beyond what one would expect. It could be that by becoming something so outside of our ability to imagine that the familial moral sentiments were cut off(especially given Gregor could not communicate), or that the family was overly mercenary in disposition, or that the author’s outlook was bleak. His sister who treated him kindly in the beginning even finding what foods he could accept in his new form certainly didn’t seem mercenary, that is likely why she was added to the story. As the family is now forced to pay their own way by getting jobs and to maintain the house start taking in lodgers and she enters into society as a burgeoning woman whose prospects Gregor’s cockroach form dampen. It makes sense to us as the reader that she is the one who ultimately concludes his fate. Though this is illustrated with additional tragedy as he simply wanted to get a bit closer to listen to her play the violin for the lodgers. It is the fear of judgment of Gregor in the eyes of others, and specifically what a relationship to him would make others feel that ultimately removes the last remaining sympathy for him. Just as it was the praise of Santa the highest-status member of the North Pole changing his mind on the now useful reindeer that instantly changed at least the outward attitude of all of the other reindeer.

These two stories share the same general moral just stated in reverse. That our usefulness is the ultimate arbiter. The pessimistic tale points out that by losing usefulness we will harden the hearts of our fellows to us and find outside the circle of their sympathies. The optimistic one is that even if we find ourselves outside the circle of others sympathies that gaining usefulness might see us incorporated into the fold.

This is likely true, though of course, far from the whole truth. It is most true when dealing with individuals who know us the least and would find our clamoring for assistance and sympathy grating. Still, it is true that even in the halls of our finest feelings there does exist a delicacy.