Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis Response

First of all, Gregors family pays less attention and see him less in the novella. Once said in the book "For the first fourteen days, Gregors parents could not come in to see him" (29). This quote

This was illustrated in Gregor's last thought, "He thought of his family with tenderness and love. The decision that he must disappear was one that he held to even more strongly than his sister, if that were possible"(p. 825).

In his novel The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka describes his own life through the life of his protagonist Gregor Samsa.  Careful study of Franz Kafka's life shows that Kafka's family, workplace, and reaction to the adversity in his family and workplace are just like those of Gregor.  So we might ask why Gregor was transformed into a bug since Kafka obviously never turned into a bug.  The absurd image illustrates how Gregor lacks self-respect and feels like he's a bug in the eyes of his family and society.  Franz Kafka was unhappy and never found his place in life, either.  Therefore, he might have felt just like Gregor, like a bug.  Furthermore the novel describes Kafka's expectations of his own future and he was partially

Gregor woke up one morning noticing something strange. This so happened to be that he was a enormous bug. His family that he took care of did not know what to think of it so he just felt helpless. His sister is the only one that takes care of him and gives him rotted food, which he wanted. However his mother saw him on the wall and freaked out, and the father, thinking Gregor attacked his own mother, spin

Gregor was betrayed by society turning its back on him due to the transformation from human to a human-sized bug. After the metamorphosis, Gregor was pondering the idea of what people would think of him in his new form. He had high hopes that society would still accept him. "A man might find for a moment that he was unable to work, but that's exactly the right time to remember his past accomplishments and to consider that later on, when the obstacle has been removed, he's

The Father goes through one of the most drastic changes in the novella. Before Gregor’s transformation into a bug, the father did not work, and he did not really do anything, he relied on his son’s influx of money but when Gregor changed into a bug that was all about to change. Before the change happened, the father was not in working condition. In Gregor’s words, “now the father was certainly healthy, but an old man, who had not worked in five years and could not be expected to do much” (29). The father before his change was in general lazy. But because of the changes in his family, he had to change. In only 9 short pages of the novella, Gregor’s thoughts on his father changed drastically, “Now however he held himself erect dressed in a tight blue uniform. With gold buttons, like that of a bank manager…” (38). If you compared that to Gregor’s old information on the father, it is a major change, from lazy and unhelpful, to in charge and bringing in money. One of the other major changes in the father was his attitude towards Gregor. At the start of the novella, he wanted nothing to do with Gregor, “when his father gave him a terrific shove from behind and he flew, bleeding profusely, far into the room” (21). He could have killed Gregor then, but at the end of the story, when the sister wanted to kill Gregor, the father said, “if only he could understand us….then we might be able to come to some sort of agreement with him” (53). He almost wanted to make

First lets show how this happened in The Metamorphosis. The lack of sympathy the author had for Gregor was amazing. He went through a change in his life that no one thought would be possible. He went

Gregor maintains submissive personality and does not defend himself. Gregor’s physical change into a bug is the only aspect of him that changes. Gregor continuously allows himself to be abused. Upon Gregor’s transformation, he is unable to go to work. Therefore, the chief clerk visits Gregor to force him to come to work. Gregor remained locked in his room and would not leave for work. So, the clerk became extremely impatient. The frustrated clerk divulges into a cruel and demoralizing speech. He maliciously accuses Gregor of hiding because of unethical involvement in cash receipts. Later, Gregor’s family and the clerk become restless and want to see Gregor. The door to Gregor’s room is unlocked to open and reveal Gregor in his insect form. Gregor’s family and the clerk react with horror. The clerk and Gregor’s mother run away from him in fear. Gregor’s father grabs a stick and a newspaper and dashes toward Gregor, herding Gregor back into his bedroom with prods and fierce language. Gregor injures himself badly while trying to fit back through the doorway. Gregor’s door is slammed shut behind him and he his left alone, frightened and injured, in his room. The events subsequent to Gregor’s transformation exhibit his passive nature. Clearly such passivity was not useful to Gregor.

Ever since the metamorphosis, Gregor’s perception of himself begins to change as his family sees a bug more than their own son. Gregor does nothing but lock himself in his room.

When Gregor inexplicably becomes an insect his family is primarily worried about how this will affect them, and their financial security. The morning Gregor awakes as a ‘monstrous vermin' is the first day he has missed work in five years; his family's immediate concern is for Gregor's job. His father begins to admonish him before he can even drag himself out of bed. When Gregor hears his sister crying at his door he thinks, "Why was she crying?? Because he was in danger of losing his job and then his boss would dun their parents for his old claims?" This is very significant to their relationship; he considers himself close to his sister, but feels her emotion spent on him is related to money. Gregor has been the sole breadwinner for years; working at a job he abhors only to pay his fathers debts. The family leads an extremely comfortable life of leisure; the father sits at the kitchen table and reads all day, the sister wears the best clothes and amuses herself by playing the violin, and all even take a mid-day nap. Gregor is extremely pleased and proud to provide them with this lifestyle; however, his generosity is met with resentment by his father and indifference by his sister and mother. Once the family grew accustomed to this lifestyle they no longer felt the need to be grateful, "they had grown used to it, they accepted the money, but no particularly warm feelings were generated any longer." At one point Gregor is deeply

So concerned with ensuring his parents and sister were taken care of, he forgot his own needs. It was apparent to everyone that he was no longer thought of as a son or an extension of the family, but merely as a "support system." The tragic fact is that "everyone had grown accustomed to it, his family as much as himself; they took the money gratefully, he gave it willingly but the act was accompanied by no remarkable effusiveness" (Kafka 48). It appears that in the course of his hectic work schedule, he overlooks that in return for dedication to his family, he remains unloved and unappreciated. Yet Gregor still "believed he had to provide his family with a pleasant, contented, secure life" (Emrich 149), regardless of how they treated him.

Gregor woke up one day as a bug and was then locked in his room by his family. They were afraid of him, and the only reason he went along with it because he didn’t want to bother his family with this problem. “He thought back on his family with deep emotion and love. His conviction that he would have to disappear was, if possible, even firmer than his sister's.” Gregor believed that the only way his family would return to being happy if he were to die.

With all of Gregor dedication in helping his family and at work, he has not once been praised or rewarded. His family and coworker take his dedication for granted, therefore causing selfishness within them. Gregor’s family selfishness really showed when Gregor

Gregor's life as an insect, or vermin, as he described himself, is a metaphor for feelings of alienation and isolation that existed long before his transformation. Gregor’s loss of humanity in the eyes of his family condemns Gregor into what he describes as an “imprisonment” that restricts him from any of the comforts and securities of human interaction.

     In the third and final chapter, the family found the new drudgery of their lives. Their “overworked and tired-out family” (p. 880) increasingly neglected Gregor. He longed for responsibility and was “often haunted by the idea that next time the door opened he would take the