Essay on Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

The main character of Kafka’s book, The Metamorphosis, is a normal, everyday salesman named Gregor Samsa who happens to wake up one day only to find that he had suddenly become a hideous insect overnight. Throughout the book, Gregor experiences neglect, disgust, and eventually complete isolation

Gregor’s major transformation occurred not when he turned into a bug, but through the changes in his life. Gregor’s life before the changed into some sort of bug was like a bumble bee. He would go through life doing as others told him. In

     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

“The Metamorphosis” is a surreal story by Franz Kafka surrounding the transformation and betrayal of Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one day, reborn into a large insect. Along with the bizarre and nightmarish appearance of his new hard back, brown segmented belly, and many legs, Gregor only desire is to live a normal life, unfortunately, this is impossible because he struggles to even get out of bed. Gregor transformation into an insect is a vivid metaphor for the alienation of humans from around the world. After losing human form, Gregor is automatically deprived of the right to be a part of society. Franz Kafka could relate to Gregor because he too was mistreated/neglected by his father and worked a job that he was unhappy doing. Franz and Gregor both were providers for their families. Alienation, isolation, and loneliness were not hard to recognize during the Modernity and Modernism time period.

In Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”, the character Gregor transforms from a man into a bug, specifically a cockroach. Although Gregor physically changes, he does not change as a person. Gregor merely accepts his new condition as a bug and his family’s continuous abuse and hostility. Gregor’s acceptance of his new bug form is representative of his passive personality before and after his transformation. Gregor’s passivity, in response to the hostile world around him, causes his eventual downfall. Therefore, Kafka uses the character Gregor to exemplify how a passive attitude can cause one’s demise.

Kafka uses symbolism on many occasions throughout the novella to convey Gregor’s sentiments and reflect on his current situation. The bug, perhaps the most important symbol in the whole novella, symbolizes Gregor Samsa and his life. “That boy has nothing on his mind but the business… he’s been back in the city for eight days now, but every night he’s been home,” (10). This quote directly shows how Gregor has been occupied with work ever since growing up and has never been able to do anything unrelated to work. Similar to bees or ants, Gregor has led the same exact life, which mainly consisted of working in order to provide for his family. In addition to the bug, the furniture in Gregor’s room is symbolic in the way that it signifies his humanity. “Had he really wanted to have his warm room, comfortable fitted with furniture...he would be able to crawl around unhampered in all directions but at the cost of simultaneously, rapidly, and totally forgetting his human past,” (33). By removing his furniture, Gregor’s mother and sister are unknowingly and slowly taking away his humanity, which is not what he wants. Furthermore, this confirms the undesirable fact that Gregor is gradually losing his humanity and that his family has become inconsiderate, especially of

In the novella, Gregor transforms into an insect; he and his family must navigate his new life as a bug. As Gregor undergoes a physical transformation, there is also a shift in financial power in his family. Kafka shows that a capitalist society dehumanizes the working class, this is seen through the characterization of Gregor, the symbolism of food, and diction surrounding Gregor’s father

In Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” the character Gregor Samsa is transformed into a giant bug while he is sleeping. Although it is never said why he turns into an oversized insect, the characters never seem to wonder why or how this has happened. It is ironic that even after undergoing something dramatic and life changing as becoming a vermin, Gregor does not question his transformation; his reaction undermines the situation entirely. Irony in “The Metamorphosis” is a reoccurring theme that affects each of the characters in the story. Gregor, who was once a genuine hard working, family orientated man, is now a beetle who feels guilty about not being able to help his family anymore. Gregor’s family sees him as a burden. Their bitterness towards him instead of sympathy through his ordeal is greatly satirical.

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

He was just a pest, a nuisance, a cockroach. The analogy that he was not intimidating, such as a spider or snake, but just really an insect that people tried to rid themselves of, like a cockroach, drove deeper into his self-condemnation. Kafka chose Gregor to be the cockroach as he was the only one working in the family, yet he still felt unappreciated and miserable. The moral is that self-loathing can make you an outcast, even if you started out far from it. You will become what you think of yourself, if you do not take necessary steps to improve your reality. Gregor felt like he had no freedom and was trapped in his life caring for and doing everything for everyone else except himself.

In “The Metamorphosis”, Franz Kafka, the author, tells the readers a strange story about a working salesman, Gregor Samsa, waking up one morning from an uneasy dream and found himself transformed into a verminous bug. “One Morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.” (page 3) What? Why? How weird! How can a salesman mysteriously wakes up one day and suddenly transformed into a bug, is it just a metaphor? Well yes, it is just a metaphor.

Kafka reveals very little about Gregor's life prior to this incident: all we know of him is that he had been a traveling salesman who was constantly "busying himself with his fretsaw" and who "never (went) out in the evenings," instead spending his time "sitting . . . at the table quietly reading the paper or studying" (Kafka 12-13). This imagery of Samsa as a studious carpenter characterizes him as humble and, in this, somewhat unlikable to the toughest audiences. Even imagery as simplistic as this conjures the image of Gregor as a bookish, studious milquetoast. At the same time, the carpenter characterization connotes Christ, and thus immediately hints at Samsa's eventual heroism, even before anything significant has happened. So when the book's first "metamorphosis" occurs in the first sentence, Gregor's prior circumstances make him fertile ground in which a change in spirit can occur. Samsa even acknowledges the metaphysical change enacted in himself: when he tries to explain to his family and the head clerk why he cannot leave his room, his audience can "no longer (understand) his words, even though they (are) clear enough to him, clearer than before even" (15). It is as if he is in another dimension from them completely and therefore a sort of "immortal" at heart, before the knowledge is even imparted upon him in the form

Also, in his writings, Kafka pointed out the dehumanizing forces of industrialization and capitalism in post-WWI Europe. Kafka saw bureaucracy establishments as being something that deprives the mere existence of real human standards of industrialization that will oppress a person in a workplace. “Work like this is far more unsettling than business conducted at home, and then I have the agony of traveling itself to contend with” worrying about train connections, the irregular, unpalatable meals, and human intercourse that is constantly changing, never developing the least constancy or warmth” (Puchner, P1881). Before the protagonist Gregor’s transformation, he views his life as a working insect being trapped in a society where alienation and decay are rampant because the workers are not happy. Gregor is stuck in prison

Gregor Samsa is unhappy with his life and is isolated from the expectations placed upon him by his family and society as a whole. He is holding back and if he, “were not holding back because of my parents, [he] would have quite a long time ago. [He] would go up to the boss and tell him [his] heartfelt opinion. He would be knocked off the desk" (Kafka 8). Gregor is a small part of a bigger machine, not much different from a drone bee or a worker ant. Gregor's boss has no interest in Gregor's ambitions just like how the queen bee has none in their drone bees. Gregor's alienation is symbolically represented in his transformation. Gregor morphing into a bug is symbolic of his lack of power and his uselessness to the cycle once he begun to question what it is all for. Humans crush bugs because they serve no purpose to their society. Just like how Gregor can no

Gregor?s becoming an insect symbolizes the changes in Kafka?s life from being a slave to his father and doing everything that his father wanted him to do (for instance being a lawyer) to doing nothing at all.  Gregor?s death symbolized that Kafka had failed to communicate with his family.  They thought of him as an insect, and he too thought that he was an insect, because he was looking at himself through their eyes. Through his family?s eyes they saw Gregor as an insect.  He wished that they could love him for his true self, even though he was in the form of an insect.  If Gregor was able to be accepted as a insect, by his family then maybe he would have been able to metamorphosis back into a human.  They could not except him he was different than them and people are afraid of change and someone who is different.  Same thing with Franz, writers were unknown to the Kafka family in a way almost bug like or alien to them.  They could not handle the change.