Gregor's Role In Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

Thirdly, he suffers isolation from the physical world, which he is no longer able to participate in due to his presence and lack of mobility. Lastly, he suffers isolation from other people around him, especially his family. By the end even his sister, Grete, the most compassionate member of the family, explanations that they should stop thoughtful of the creature as the person they knew. She says that “the fact that we’ve believed it so long is the root of our trouble” (Kafka 48), which can be taken to mean that at some point Gregor stopped being a person not only because of his entrance but since of his non-conformist actions. The beating he receives from his father shows the extent of the cruelty he endures, though his father knows that “family duty compulsory the conquest of disgust and the use of endurance, nothing but patience” (Kafka 36). The tragedy is that this alienation ends up killing Gregor, who “dies not as a vermin, but as a human being thinking of his family”. The transformation is an indication of the breakdown of Gregor’s psyche and alienation within his self. The reader is not told how the transformation

     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

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.

In his "Metamorphosis", Kafka utilizes an allegorical technique to compare Gregor's sacrifices to those of Jesus in the Bible. Ultimately, both Gregor and Jesus sacrifice their lives so that they can help their loved ones, despite betrayal.  Kafka uses this biblical allegory to illustrate Gregor's Christ-like actions.

Isolation not only changes the personalities of Gregor and his family, but also it changes the role and duties Gregor plays in his family. Before the metamorphosis, Gregor worked alone to provide for the entire family. For example, in the beginning, before the transformation, he says, “But besides that, the money Gregor had brought home every month he had kept only a few dollars for himself” (4). This shows Gregor’s selfishness and his family’s heavy dependency on his income. It establishes the fact that Gregor’s family’s loyalty to Gregor was strong because the family depended on Gregor for their own survival, and shows how they betrayed him by disregarding him after he became an insect. The isolation of Gregor caused by the transformation not only affects Gregor’s role in the family, but also changes the role of Mr. Samsa. Mr. Samsa originally told by Gregor: ”Now his father was still healthy, certainly. But he was an old man who had not worked for the past five years and who in any case could not be expected to undertake that much” (17). This shows how irresponsible Mr. Samsa acted for his family in the beginning. Mr. Samsa, a man in his 50s, blamed his unemployment on anxiety and depression from a past failed business. Mr. Samsa changes his role as the useless drag to the provider of the family, and even obtains a new job as a bank manager.

Now homebound Gregor is now able to be apart of family conversations. Metamorphosis shows Gregor yearning for human contact from his family, but it also shows his family eagerly alienating him from their life. With continuous alienation, Gregor loss interest in his family and no longer desires to have contact with them. Kafka shows families that are experiencing a financial crisis; a loss, unemployment, abuse or an illness can cause a breakdown in communication as a whole. Once Gregor is unable to communicate, he becomes an observer of the world around him. His insect form symbolizes the emptiness, insignificant and an outcast, which he was at work and at home.

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

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 the novella The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, the main character Gregor undergoes a physical transformation from human to bug. Despite this change in appearance, he maintains his human brain as insect tendencies slowly take over his day to day behavior. He maintains his thoughtless state of mind, memories, and inner dialogue during his exterior transformation. Although he maintains his mental capacities, it is his change in appearance that causes his family to turn against him and eventually kill him. These events show how people can become dehumanized by society and the government only because of a difference in behavior or appearance.

Gregor’s role in his family characterizes him as an altruistic individual whose nature made him ignorant to his family’s manipulation. Gregor endures most of his hardships without complaint and puts the needs of his family firmly above his own. Upon realizing his transformation at the beginning of the novella, his first thoughts were not of alarm but of great concern about being late to work because it is his only means of taking care of his family (Kafka 6). After his father’s business failed, Gregor “work[ed] with special ardor” (27) doing laborious work as a traveling salesman, not only to “pay off [his] parents’ debt”(4), but to also spend what little money he has to give Grete the opportunity to perform violin professionally (26). With all these responsibilities, it’s inevitable for Gregor to be under great stress, which can infer that Gregor’s transformation is a result of his willful desire to escape the pressures his overburdened life. Gregor struggled between remaining a steadfast provider or following his desire for independence, however, his metamorphosis freed him from a job he detests. Now that it is impossible for Gregor to work, Mr.Samsa reveals that “he possessed more money than Gregor knew about” (#). This is a significant event where Kafka uses the motif of betrayal to emphasize the corruption in familial infrastructure represented through Gregor’s sacrifice and interaction with his family, as well as to socially comment about how people in society use

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.

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

1. Gregor’s initial reaction to his transformation, more specifically his worrying about missing the train and dwelling on the hardships of his job, reveals the extent to which Gregor’s own self-identity and way of life is dependent on his work. While most people would probably be horrified to find themselves transformed into a bug, Gregor instantly thinks of his job because that is what comprises Gregor’s identify and without his job he has no purpose or worth in his society. As Gregor contemplates his future, he thinks to himself, “Well, there’s still some hope; once I’ve got the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to him [his boss] – another five or six years I suppose – that’s definitely what I’ll do. That’s when I’ll make the big change” (Kafka 8).

Gregor’s transformation to a Vermin created a new life of separation and isolation for him. Before Gregor’s transformation he already felt isolated and stressed out because he was the only one working and he didn’t have that good of a relationship within his family. Kafka states “Constantly seeing new faces, no relationships that last or get more intimate.” Gregor is a traveling salesman who sees new people

Engelberg exclaims, “the common alienation of two urban men, both suffering all the deleterious consequences of subsequent isolation, dehumanization, death” (Engelberg). Gregor’s isolation after turning into a cockroach continually provides evidence that he is no longer a part of the family; thus, he also loses his own instincts as a man. Kafka uses this isolation to exhibit what he experienced throughout his life, especially for being a Jew during World War I. Goldfarb explains, “For one thing, Gregor's repulsive appearance means he has to remain in his room, a prisoner, completely isolated. His existence was always a fairly lonely one, but this is worse: as far as friendship and intimacy are concerned, Gregor's transformation is not an escape from his past loneliness but an intensification of it” (“Goldfarb”). Gregor is isolated from his family because he looks different and he is rejected with any hope of reconnecting with them. Kafka utilises Gregor to show how being different from others leads to being isolated and eventual suffering. The dehumanization of people is caused by the isolation from others; thus, they often lose their will to live.