One morning, Gregor woke to his alarm clock ringing on his bedside table, signalling that he must be getting up to head to work. When he opened his eyes, he caught himself staring at the picture he had recently cut out of a magazine, showing a woman wearing a fur hat and fur boa. As he started to get out of bed, he felt an excruciating pain go through his body, making him think he must of just slept on it wrong. From outside of his room, he could hear his father reading the daily newspaper too loud that made Gregor wondered if their neighbors could hear him. Gregor got dressed and went out to the kitchen to have breakfast with his family. “Good Morning Gregor, did you sleep well?” His mother asked him when he entered the kitchen. “I slept very
The story begins when Gregor Samsa wakes up from a terrible dream and realizes that he has turned into a bug. He wonders what has happened to him. Everything else in his room seems normal. He sees the collection of textile samples on his table that he uses for his job since he is a travelling salesman. Gregor looks out of his bedroom window at the rain, and the depressing weather makes him feel sad. He tries to go back to sleep, but he can’t since he is used to sleeping on his right, and his present predicament makes it physically impossible for him to do so.
He is depressed of sacrificing himself for his entire family while his family is not doing any work but taking advantage of Gregor. Also, the story looks like Gregor’s confession about how he has been feeling like as being in his place but the biographical document explains that it is not a confession but an
“‘It must be gotten rid of,’ cried the sister; ‘That is the only way, father. You must try to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor. The fact that we have believed for so long, that is truly our real misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would have long ago realized that a communal life among human beings is not possible with such an animal and would have gone away voluntarily. Then we would not have a brother, but we could go on living and honour his memory. But this animal plagues us. It drives away the lodgers, will obviously take over the entire apartment, and leave us to spend the night in the alley.”
He supported his mother, father and Grete. Now that he cannot work, his family is desperate for money. The father decides to go back to work to bring home money. To make some more money on the side, they rent their apartment out to three lodgers. One night while the lodgers were there, Gregor was seen, which made the lodgers freak out and leave. This marks a turning point in how Grete feels about Gregor. She comes to realize that he has no humanity left. The reader sees this when Grete explains to her father, “It has to go,’ cried his sister. ‘That’s the only answer, Father. You just have to try to get rid of the idea that it’s Gregor. Believing it for so long, that is our real misfortune” (Kafka 1107). Grete no longer thinks of him as Gregor, but refers to him as “it”, showing that she really has no regards for him. This ultimately adds to the decision that they should get rid of
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.
But, as time goes on his sister Grete, who had been the one to care for him the most, begins to lose faith in his humanness. She says to her parents, "You must just try to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor. The fact that we've believed it for so long is the root of all our trouble." This same idea is reiterated when Gregor finally dies and his mother says, "Well, now thanks be to God." His family was convinced after a short while that it wasn't even their own Gregor underneath that hard exoskeleton.
The plans for a new dwelling for the Samsa’s have been postponed, once more due to Gregor’s condition, his father is not pleased. As days pass Gregor dwells in his bed complaining of soreness every time he moves about. For the past few days all Gregor does is gorge down food and sleep an unheard of amount of hours. A week later Gregor decides to get up from his bed, he enters the kitchen and he finds no servant, but instead his sister Grete, who before departing for work makes him something to eat. She still works as a salesgirl, nothing had changed in the Samsa’s residence, only Gregor’s exterior. He pulls up a
Worried about their son, his entire family urges next to the door and demands Gregor to unlock it. At that moment, his manager angrily storms to his house and demands an explanation for his delay. His mother tries to pleads his manager by complimenting Gregor’s devoted and hardworking attitude. She didn’t want her son to lose her occupation as she still perceived him as the successor of the family, and if anything were to happen, it would only disrupt the sustainability of her family. Finally, Gregor opens the door and witnesses the repulsive and scared faces of his family and manager. The horrified office manager backs away, his mother who was "already in tears...yelling" (12-13) passes out, and the father cries. Nevertheless, Gregor “[filled with] assurance and confidence” continued to see himself as his human self, and tries to protect this identity by delivering a long explanation. However, he doesn’t realize that no one saw him as Gregor, and regardless of how strongly he believed in his perception of himself, his family simply saw him as a disgusting creature. Courageously, the father shoves him back into the room and isolates the hideous Gregor into the 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.
With the rise of Gregor, Kafka describes the dull, gloomy and humid environment that foreshadows the decay and deterioration of Gregor's life. As soon as Gregor opens his eyes, he finds himself positioned in an uncomfortable manner and transformed into a monstrous vermin or a gigantic insect, a worthless creature, with his hard armor-plated back lying on the bed: "He was lying on his hard, as it were armor-plated, back and when he lifted his head a little he could see his dome-like belly divided into stiff arched segments?" (Kafka 296). With this arresting opening, Kafka has set his mysterious psychological fantasy in motion. He plainly describes Gregor's uneasiness of keeping himself balanced in his bed. "His numerous pitifully thin legs waved helplessly in the air before his eyes" (296). Just so the readers are not left in confusion, Gregor asserts that "It was not a dream," and sees for himself, in disbelief, that he is still in his own regular human bedroom, with a collection of cloth samples widespread on the top of the table (296). Slowly and gradually, we notice Gregor's difficulty in getting up from his bed and his effort to get up safely without hurting hims5elf. This is clearly seen when the narrator says, "If he tried to bend a leg, it first straightened out; and if he finally succeeded in taking charge of it, the other legs
Similar to Mersault’s relationship with his mother, Gregor’s relationship with “the lady dibe yo up in a fur hat and a fur boa..” (1) increases his inability to connect to society. The woman in the poster cannot reflect any emotions, thus it requires no effort to “understand” her and cope with her, just like with Mersault’s dead mother. Nevertheless, the poster is one of the few things in the room that keeps Gregor human. Thus, after there is no chance of establishing a proper connection, an “imaginary” connection is the only option he has. Ironically, this option was taken away by his sister, who does not understand his disconection from women and his immaginary relationship with a poster. Thus, dehumanizing him and precipitating his death.
After breakfast, he returned to his room and started to gather his cloth samples that he needed for work that day. As he was walking out of his house, he felt as though something felt very off. Not really minding, he shrugged and continued to make his way to the train station to catch a ride to his job. His boss, the one who always looks down on his employees, and the one who does not appreciate his workers, bump into Gregor when he arrived at work that morning. Considering that his boss did not pay attention to what had happened, Gregor just went to receive the list of people he needed to see that day.
A lot can happen to anyone. Take Gregor for example. He was a normal person, hating his job but providing for his family, but one day that all changed. Gregor started off feeling accomplished in life but by the end, he felt like he had nothing. He then felt like his family and friends didn’t want him anymore, by the end, he didn’t even have food or water.
The novel shows how people can have negative physical effects from the demands of society. The book shows Gregor isolated from a man having dinner with his boss laughing and having a good time while Gregor proceeds to storm up a fleet of dark stairs with a very upset facial expression (Kuper 11). Grogor being physically separated from the feast will have a negative effect on him because being isolated like this will have a lonely upset feeling on any individual. Just before chapter three Gregor's father in an angry commotion throws an apple directly into Gregor's back illustrating stars and lines causing Gregor to make a very painful face (Kuper 50). The apple in gregor's back represents being stabbed in the back by society. Gregor is also seen being spat on by the new roommates, at the same time Gregor looks dead with scratches all over him and a