Essay Frank Kafka's Metamorphosis

Gregor endures his personal hell for quite a surprisingly long time. His sister is one of the only people who still talks to Gregor, but eventually, she couldn’t take it any longer. “They were emptying his room out; taking away everything that was dear to him; they had already taken his fretsaw and other tools”(Kafka 28). As time goes on, Gregor feels like he is gradually being stripped of his humanity especially after his room was cleaned out by his family. Eventually, his sister deems Gregor as inhuman, saying that if the insect was still Gregor, he would have left by then. Gregor’s father and mother both seem to agree with Grete that Gregor must go; that

     I have chosen The Metamorphosis as my subject for this paper; I will take a close look at how the death of Gregor Samsa opens the doors to understanding the story. I will give examples of irony through Gregor’s metamorphosis and how this irony brings together the conclusion of the story. Through his death we see the truth behind his parents, which in it’s self is ironic. It is difficult to pinpoint one specific thing to write about in the story; there are just so many things that can be brought to light. If I happen to lose sight of my topic bear with me, there is just so much to be discussed in the novella.

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.

Gregor father was physically abusive to him in everyway he could be. For example, Gregor father chased him around with a cane making a hissing noise that annoyed him. He felt as his father was just that crazy, because he didn't know what was going on at that point of time he didn’t know he turned into a bug. Then later on he threw apples at him and got an apple stuck in his back. When the apple got stuck in Gregor back he began to become weak and weaker by the hour. However, Mr. Samsa has a short temper and he's prone to violence. So there for, he was extremely physically abusive.

A metamorphosis can be described as a change in structure, form, or appearance, or as a change in form from one stage to the next in an organism’s life. In Franz Kafka’s novella, “The Metamorphosis”, change is a major theme. The theme of change is significant as the main character, Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, undergoes a metamorphosis of his own as he experiences changes living as a giant insect. However, Gregor’s journey through his new life is not subjective, as his transformation provokes significant changes in his family’s dynamics. In fact, Gregor’s transformation into an insect is not the main focus of the novella. Kafka uses Gregor’s metamorphosis as a way to emphasize the more significant metamorphosis within the Samsa

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 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.

Gregor Samsa is a travelling salesman that lives with his sister, father and mother in what we could assume to be a small apartment. Gregor is the main source of income for the family and is considered the main provider for all four of them. “When Gregor Samsa awoke in the morning from troubled dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous cockroach” (Kafka 1205). In one night he underwent a metamorphosis from man to bug. Throughout the ordeal he still focused on getting back to work even though he was barely able to move from his bed and certainly unable to leave the apartment. He took his role as provider seriously and did not complain about his predicament throughout the story. In society, citizens conform to what they know as being societally accepted.

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

In The Metamorphosis, Kafka establishes, through his religious imagery and gospel-esque episodic narration, the character of Gregor Samsa simultaneously as a kind of inverse Messianic figure and a god-like artist, relating the two and thus turning the conventional concept of the literary hero on its ear. The structure of the novel reflects that of the Gospel of Mark in that it is narrated in individual events, and in this it is something of a Künstlerroman - that is, the real metamorphosis is over the course of the novel, rather than just at the beginning, and that change is a heightened sensitivity to the world in an artistic sense. The motif of change is a rather theological one as well: we see it in a religious sense, in the form of

To begin with, Gregor already isn’t too happy with his dad because he is out of work and leaves Gregor as the only one supporting the family. After Gregor’s transformation, Mr. Samsa takes charge of the family. He gets a job and the family takes in a group of boarders for extra money. Mr. Samsa orders Gregor to stay in his room so that the boarders don’t discover that Gregor is now an insect, and he constantly throws insults at Gregor which emotionally hurts him.

In The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka there were many conflicts. Out of all the conflicts the most important conflict is that Gregor Samsa turned into a giant bug. This was a big problem for him and for his family.

Throughout literary history, certain authors are so unique and fresh in their approach to the written word that they come to embody a genre. Franz Kafka is one such author; “Die Verwandlung” or “The Metamorphosis” is one of his works that helped coin the term “Kafkaesque.” Through this novella, Kafka addresses the timeless theme of people exploit-ing others as a means to an end. He demonstrates this point through showing that a family’s unhealthy dependence on the main character results in that character’s dependence on the family.

Franz Kafka, in his novel The Metamorphosis, explores two conflicting ideas through his protagonist Gregor: unity and isolation. Gregor’s transformation created a whole life of distress for him, but on the other hand also formed a deeper and better relationship for the rest of the family.

However Gregor fails to realize that the metamorphic change into a cockroach has not only affected his appearance but it has changed his speech pattern as well. He not only looks like a cockroach but his voice which sounds normal to him translates to others in the sound of a cockroach. Upon hearing this insect like sound and seeing Gregor as he now is the chief clerk leaves the Sama’s residence never to return taking not only Gregor’s job with him but all hopes of Gregor ever repaying the family debt. Gregor is then chased into his room by his dad and forced to basically spend most of his time there until his time was up.