HERMANN HESSE AND THE DIALECTICS OF TIME Salvatore C. P. ...

exceptions (see the myth of Pygmalion), Ovid's characters undergo a coercive
process of metamorphosis (e.g. Arachne, Daphne), although sometimes the
transformations of Ovid's characters appear as a compensation for an unfavourable
fate Tiresias receives his power of prophecy from Jove after an angry Juno
condemns him to blindness. 34 Both Ziolkowski and Gallagher agree on the term
'degradation' to describe Gregor Samsa's transformation, while they regard Piktor's
metamorphoses as an example of 'ascension'. 35 As opposed to Gregor Samsa and
most characters in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Piktor actively pursues his
transformations, and metamorphosis appears as the process that allows one to
manipulate reality and play with time in order to partially deflect the latter's course.
Another important trait of Piktors' metamorphoses is that Hesse, like Ovid, portrays
the actual process of transformation, while Kafka begins his story when Gregor has
already turned into a beetle. In other words, the 'narrative' side of Gregor's
metamorphosis is absent from Kafka's account. Ziolkowski and Gallagher also lay
great emphasis on the fact that Gregor's and Piktor's metamorphoses are
'metonymic' their names are unrelated to the shapes they turn into whilst Ovid's
transformations are, in most cases, announced by the characters' names.
[Hesse's] tale shares with Kafka's Die Verwandlung the common element that
the metamorphoses are both metonymic in that they have no semiotic
connection with the names of the protagonists. (Gallagher, 302)
Although Ziolkowski's and Gallagher's standpoint rings true, it is my contention
that, on deeper inspection, Tiktors Verwandlungen' is not a clear case of metonymic
metamorphosis. Both Ziolkowski and Gallagher support their thesis with the fact
that Piktor is 'an obvious pseudonym for Hesse himself as "the painter"' (Ziolkowski
2005, 85). As there is no apparent connection between Hesse as a painter and Piktor's
transformations, they conclude it is a case of metonymic metamorphosis. However, if
we consider Piktor as an incarnation of Hesse's ideal of 'the artist', who is able to
transform himself at will and reshape the objects of the real world, the name Tiktor'
34 In this respect, Rilke's portrayal of Daphne's metamorphosis in Die Sonette an Orpheus (see Zweiter Teil,
XII, 46) retains the same negative connotations as in Ovid.
35 See Ziolkowski (2005, 87) and Gallagher (302).
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