Nothing Really Mattress(?): Kafka, Camus, and the Importance of Translation

Translations:

1. As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

• By choosing to start with the word "as," diction contributes to the sense that it is happening at that moment, working in conjunction with the syntax because without pauses from commas the sentence reads as an observer would see it happen. Structure aso contributes to this as the sentence leads up to a climax, the transformation. Imagery gives the reader an image of a giant, movie-like insect sitting on a small bed. Hyperbole may have been included through the use of the word "gigantic" because insects are typically small. 

2. Gregory Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug.

• By using "changed" instead of "transformed" it makes the event seem less meaningful or like such a big deal, this diction works with the syntax as it sounds matter of fact and nonchalant. The structure is not very significant because as with the previous translation it is simply chronological. Because the dreams are called uneasy they seem to be related to the change, however in this case the created image is not so drastic. 

3. When Gregor Samsa awoke from troubled dreams one morning he found he had been transformed in his bed into an enormous bug.

• Again, the use of the word enormous, such as with gigantic in the first translation, uses diction to create a hyperbole. Unlike the previous two translations, the syntax of this one is much longer, allowing for more detail to be included which adds to the descriptive writing so that a more vivid image may be created in the reader's mind. Also, it helps create more sympathy between the diction and imagery as his dreams are described as "troubled" and "he found he had been transformed" as if someone else did it to him. Structure contributes through syntax by adding to the build up to the climax as it is longer. 

4. One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.

• The most significant word choice in this translation was the use of "monstrous vermin" instead of bug or insect. Monstrous works with imagery to not only make it seem larger, but gross-like or unnatural, while vermin holds more the connotations of something like a rat than a bug. Structure and syntax, longer but with pauses, adds suspense as little details are each revealed before having a dramatic pause before the next. 

How does the word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery shift in each affect meaning? Is one more effective than another? Why? What does this exercise bring up about the difficulty of reading translated texts? How do different translations effect the tone of the sentence?

Word choice, syntax, punctuation, and imagery shift in each of the translations greatly contributed to the meaning. Sometimes the individual factor may have the larger affect on the meaning while in some cases it is the combination of two or more of them that creates a greater change in meaning. The greatest change that they create together is either the reader's perception of the severity or significance of the situation (his changing into an insect), and also the image that is created in the reader's mind. For example, word choice with imagery in each gave a different description of the creature that Samsa was turned into. In order of the translations, the different ways were as "a gigantic insect," "giant bug," "enormous bug," and "monstrous vermin." The first three all describe the same type of creature, with the difference being that bug sounds less scientific than insect, more like something a child would say or imagine. In contrast to this, the use of "monstrous vermin" creates a completely new image for the reader, a grotesque, giant rat or other sort of animal in place of an insect. This is the main factor that affects the actual meaning, while the other devices mostly affect how it is perceived. The reason for this is that not only did word choice contribute to the type of creature, but how the dreams were written to be, uneasy or troubled or agitated, while the other devices affected the pace at which it was read and how important it was, but had the same meaning. 

This exercise shows how the difficulty of reading translated texts is that each translator will either interpret the text differently, or consciously make the decision to change word choice with the intention of making it fit better to the audience they are writing for, or because they wish to influence the readers in a certain way. (Maybe they wanted to be writers but weren't good enough so they use other people's writing and change it to feel like they made a difference). For this reason, it is seen that you cannot simply read one translation of a text and take it as the true or only interpretation of the text, especially if it is a translation other than the native language in which the text was written. The biggest things that get changed or messed up in translation are word choice and tone due to language devices that cannot be translated properly. Different translations affect the tone of the sentence through punctuation choice to change the pace, along with word choice, that can make a particular event within a text seem more or less significant, or more or less severe than it really is.