Abstract:

With the development of modern information technology, the application and popularization of network platforms have increasingly deepened their impact on individual subjective operations and regulations, and have also created metamorphoses in the new era. In this paper, we provide an in-depth textual analysis and inductive summarization to reread Franz Kafka’s classic novel The Metamorphosis in order to explore Kafka’s description of the survival strategies of ciphers in the interaction between real life and the virtual world. We will also explain the important ideological implications of his transformational aesthetics concerning the individual self-construction of one’s virtual personality in contemporary cyberspace. Kafka constructed the idea of human resistance to alienation in the real world via the infinite spiritual demands of a limited life, since the self-construction of individuals in the virtual world has alleviated the survival dilemma and spiritual crises of modern people to some extent. Since people are currently experiencing more complex and diverse lifestyles, as well as being affected by many social and personal factors in self-construction, metamorphosis has become a common state of survival and resistance. Searching for a harmonious state in the world, amidst reality and virtualization, freedom and shackles, is the ultimate purpose of humanity.

Keywords: Franz Kafka; survival dilemma; metamorphosis; self-construction; virtual world

摘要：

随着现代信息技术的发展，网络平台应用得到普及，深刻影响了个体主观性的操作和调控，从而造就了一批新时代的“变形人”。本文运用文本细读法和归纳总结法，重读弗兰茨·卡夫卡的经典小说《变形记》，探讨卡夫卡的“变形人”在现实人生和虚拟世界交互关系中的生存策略，阐释卡夫卡的变形美学对当代网络空间自我虚拟人格建构的重要思想启示。卡夫卡把现实世界中人类反抗异化的行动融入有限生命的无穷精神诉求中，虚拟世界中个体的自我建构在一定程度上缓解了现代人的生存困境与精神危机。如今的人们面临更为复杂多元的生活形态，加上自我建构中诸多社会性和个体性因素的影响，“变形”已然成为普遍的生存状态和抗争模式。人类在现实与虚拟、自由与枷锁之间找寻着在世界中的和谐状态。

关键词: 弗兰茨·卡夫卡, 生存困境, 变形, 自我建构, 虚拟世界