Examples Of Abuse In Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis

Gregor is treated differently than every person in his family and as well as everyone in the world. For example, Gregor is fed trash from the garbage instead of actual food because his sister realizes that Gregor does not want fresh food anymore. He is treated like a vermin in part because he has been treated like one for so long so he starts to feel like an actual bug. His parents did not care about him and they did not give their son the treatment he deserved. Towards the end of the novel

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

     Throughout the story there is a metamorphosis that is taking place in his home. He has traded places with the family and is now living the life they had previously embelished in. His father begins to work along with his sister and his mother must now work and do the cooking and cleaning. Gregor on the other hand does nothing but daydream, crawl, and nap through his days. One ironic statement from his sister “He must go, if this were Gregor he would have realized long ago human beings can’t live with such a creature, he’d have gone away one his own accord. This creature persecutes us, drives away our lodgers, obviously wants the whole apartment to himself, and would have us all sleep in the gutter.” How selfish of her, had he not taken care of them and he was not the only one working

Once I’ve got together the money to pay off the parent 's debt to him— that should take another five or six years—I’ll do it for sure. Then I’ll make the big break.”(pg.5) In other words, Gregor is working so much for his parents and the debt that he needs to pay off. As a result of that, Gregor is overworked, he never really goes out, and spends his time reading the newspaper or looking at the bus schedule. Kafka writes, “The young man has nothing in his head except business. I’m almost angry that he never goes out at night. Right now he’s been in the city eight days, but he’s been at home every evening. He sits there with us at the table and reads the newspaper quietly or studies his travel schedules.” (pg. 15) Gregor has lost his sense of humanity and spends his time thinking about business. He has also lost all sorts of creativity he had before he started working so much. He is pretty much used to a routine based lifestyle, which lacks creativity because he has a set schedule that he follows almost everyday. This resulted into his metamorphosis. His parents relied on him to work so much, they forgot that Gregor is human just like themselves. Gregor is human who needs basic human essentials. Like going out with his friends, relaxing, and learning to appreciate the things and people around him. He could not do so because he was stuck paying off debt with a job that he hated.

Gregor Samsa is a traveling salesmen working to repay the debt of his father. When he transforms into a bug the family decides to seclude Gregor by locking him in his room “He was already almost totally turned around, when, always with this hissing in his ear… when he was finally successful in getting his head in the front door opening, it became clear that his body was too wide to go through any further… his single fixed thought was that Gregor must get into his room as quickly as possible.” (Kafka 151) His father did not attempt to understand how Gregor was feeling or how this could have happened, he was quick to judge him and cut him off from society. This does not only occur in stories, seclusion happens everyday in some people’s lives. For example celebrity Ariel Winter was mistreated just as Gregor was. As a child she was starved and secluded by her mother. This just shows how people misjudge others for being different.

Both of these instances show that Gregor’s father has completely given up on his son to the extent that he would seriously injure him just to get this ugly creature out of his sight. By Gregor’s father never trying to help him from the beginning it shows that he has completely given up on, and ultimately betrayed, him.

I originally pictured the choice that Gregor chose to work is because of the feudalistic ideas of his family, and the rule of the society makes the difference in individual self awareness. However through our class discussion surrounding the time and place matters, i realized that the Gregor felt he has to work because he lives in that area that makes him think it is his responsibilities to labor for his family. While we researched the background information about Franz Kafka, we come to the result that the reason why Gregor doesn't like to work, it is because in the period of Kafka exist, and where he wrote the book, which is limited by the rule of society and the rigorous control from his father.

This article by Walter H. Sokel claims that the metamorphosis Gregor goes through gives him the chance to be rebellious. Sokel highlights that after Gregor is changed into a cockroach he also changes mentally, which affects his actions.

In the beginning of the novella, Gregor undergoes a transformation. Many readers view his transformation as he turns into a bug because of the way Kafka describes Gregor. Kafka may have been undergoing a transformation of his own. Kafka dealt with many issues growing up such as self doubt, issues with his father, and eventually, health issues. Like Kafka, Gregor deals with issues with his father and within himself and begins to feel less and less like himself as the novella continues. He awakes from his sleep to ask himself, “What’s happened to me (Kafka, 3)?” With the conflicts Gregor has with his family, especially his father, he begins to feel unwanted and unappreciated. Gregor also feels that he is becoming less sensitive when that used to be one of his main traits as a human (Kafka, 24). Seeing that Gregor is losing his sensitivity, that shows that he is truly losing himself since he is losing one of his main traits. Feeling less like himself, Gregor becomes more distant with his close

The deterioration of Gregor's life was in part due to the ostracism associated with his being turned into a bug. Once his family found out what happened, they banished him to his room, and his parents could not even bear to look at him. Prior to his metamorphosis, Gregor was an integral part of the family. He provided the money by which the family survived. Yet as soon as he changed, he was labeled an outcast, who was useless to the family, and therefore not paid any attention. He felt this ostracism, and it made him not want to continue on in life, he gave up because he felt unloved.

Gregor's physical transformation also sparks a streak of cruelty on the part of his family. It is understandable that they be frightened when he first appears, but they continue to lock him in his room without ever trying to communicate with him. The only person who ever goes in his room on a regular basis is his sister and she can barely even tolerate his presence. At one point when Gregor successfully escapes from his prison cell, his father ends up throwing apples at him with the intention of causing injury. "Gregor came to a stop in alarm, there was no point in running on, for his father was determined to bombard him." As Gregor merely sat there on the wall, his own father sunk an apple into his shell. After this event they leave him to whither away and die alone in his room. Gregor did not bring this horrid behavior upon himself by his actions, but instead they result because his different appearance and behavior led his family to think of

While the weeks and months passed Grete and his mother and father struggled to give little any compassion or concern for Gregor as their finances plummeted to the ground. Prior to his metamorphosis Gregor was physically alienated from any semblance of a social life due to his job and financial obligation to his family afterward the transformation and he was deemed a burden to his family that he had provided for countless months he was psychologically isolated from them as well. Notably while Gregor had finally been emancipated from his dreaded job as a salesman, he had become a parasitic to his family without being labeled as a provider they slowly began to turn against him only worsening his mental state and exile.

Gregor allowed his family to harass, bully and degrade him, in the same manner that Kafka had allowed his family to do. The similarity of Kafka’s relationship with his father was also portrayed with Gregor and his relationship with his father. Kafka intended to reflect and highlight the decisions that were made by Gregor being influenced by his family, by making them important protagonists within the novel. Gregor expresses from the beginning of the novel how his father intended on raising him, “from the first day of his new life that his father considered only the strictest treatment called for in dealing with him”38, much like Kafka’s father had. Gregor’s father was rather tough on him and his duties, and would take no clear- minded steps into understanding what Gregor, as a bug, did or tried to communicate through the actions he took. As he jumped to conclusions the second he saw Gregor out of his room, and would beat him with a cane trying to pressure him back to staying in his room as if he wasn’t even his son, or throwing apples at him. This provokes Gregor, allowing him to think more rationally, becoming more introverted, yet inside he was suffering with such sadness and crying desperately for some kind of recognition, much like Kafka did.

Throughout the novella, Gregor’s deeply rooted sense of guilt transitions from having the power to drive his actions to merely plaguing his thoughts. Immediately after his transformation, Gregor reveals that he has to “deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships…” (Kafka 4), in his daily work. Although he appears to hate his job, Gregor does not quit, as he has both intrinsic motivation to provide and extrinsic pressure from his family to keep them afloat. Rather than reflecting on his feelings and emotional baggage attached to his job, Gregor focuses on grievances set in reality, and allows this to occupy his conscious mind. After Gregor’s transformation, his

There are many causes to Gregor’s stress. Stress is the cause of his transformation. The transformation of Gregor happens because he feels worthless and useless to his family. He also transforms because he represses these feelings from everyone in his life, including his family and his boss at work, causing him stress. Another cause of stress for Gregor is his strongly hated job that he feels that he can not leave. Gregor does not leave his job because he is the person in his family responsible for supporting his family financially. Although he hates his job, Gregor feels as though he can not leave it since it pays well for his family. Another reason Gregor does not leave his job as a traveling salesman is because his parent’s owe the company that Gregor works for a substantial debt.