SOURCE: Ben-Ephraim, Gavriel. “Making and Breaking Meaning: Deconstruction, Four-Level Allegory, and The Metamorphosis.” Midwest Quarterly 35, no. 4 (summer 1994): 450-67.

In the following essay, Ben-Ephraim demonstrates how Kafka both builds up and deconstructs the traditional pattern of allegory in his The Metamorphosis.

From Quintilian to Angus Fletcher critics have noted allegory's doubled significance; “twice-told,” but many times understood, allegory invariably means more than it says. To supplement meaning, allegory characteristically enfolds abstract significance in narrative images. These suggestions may be provided by presences in the text, verbal signals like the name of the protagonist in Everyman, a nominal allegory which designates significance in its very title, or by absences in the text, covered mysteries like the unknown face in “The Minister's Black Veil,” a tale that is itself a mask over figural meaning. Allegory's polysemous texture is created through addition and subtraction in a doubled allegorical technique.

Writers of allegory...