Gregor The Overlander, By Suzanne Collins

His boss tells him that he is causing his parents unnecessary worry, but his parents are not worried at all or they would have busted into his room to see if he was okay. Whilst in the middle of all of this Gregor is starting to get scared of what the change is bringing into his life and causing unnecessary worry. In chapter 2, Grete brings in food for Gregor and for a change he is being treated somewhat correct and they notice he has became a full time crawler. This causes the family to question what he is doing is not human and they are starting to fear his new abilities as a “bug”. As an example, his mother and Grete take out the furniture to give him more room to crawl. Losing all faith in Gregor they take the furniture out because the fear is too great they may never get their son back and they have to accept the fact Gregor is a nasty vermin.

     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

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.

At the sight of Gregor, Grete succums to her fear and shuts the door after seeing him, but immediately regrets the decision and feels guilty for seeing her brother hideous creature, if only for an instant. Insect or not, Gregor is still Grete’s brother and she believes that the right thing to do is to keep on loving him and taking care of him, emphasizing her role as the superego.

Gregor woke up one morning noticing something strange. This so happened to be that he was a enormous bug. His family that he took care of did not know what to think of it so he just felt helpless. His sister is the only one that takes care of him and gives him rotted food, which he wanted. However his mother saw him on the wall and freaked out, and the father, thinking Gregor attacked his own mother, spin

“If you take no risks, you will suffer no defeats. But if you take no risks, you win no victories.” (Richard M. Nixon). In his investigative biography, Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer, expresses that even though young people can be ignorant and take treacherous risks, these can be used as knowledge enhancers and can be life changers.

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

We humans who live on the surface of the earth are all Overlanders! This is what I found out when I read Gregor the Overlander, a book written by Suzanne Collins. It is the first book in the Underland Chronicles series. This book was 311 pages of Underland adventure.

His family shuns him and will not look at him. In time, his family abuses him and keeps him in filth and debris, which is not only in his room, but clinging to his carapace. They also forget to feed him, or just kick scraps into his room. By showing how much Gregor's identity is affected by his treatment from family and others' treatment of him, the story shows how identity is socially constructed, rather than being an inborn trait. The devolution of Gregor's room from a human bedroom to a storage closet reflects how his connection to human society deteriorates as the story progresses.

the family representative of Gregor, in a sense, to a mother who does not understand and a father who is hostile and opposing. The father is physically violent toward his metamorphosed Gregor, pushing him through a door in Part I: "...when from behind his father gave him a strong push which was literally a deliverance and he flew far into the room, bleeding freely" (20). Grete appears to concentrate on protecting Gregor from this antagonistic father and an indecisive mother. In Part II, when Grete leads her mother into Gregor's room for the first time, we see the strange way in which Grete has become both the expert and the caretaker of Gregor's affairs (Nabokov 271). She convinces her mother that it is best to remove all of the furniture from his room. Kafka attributes her actions partly to an adolescent zest: "Another factor which might have been also the enthusiastic temperament of an adolescent girl, which seeks to indulge

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 third and final chapter, the family found the new drudgery of their lives. Their “overworked and tired-out family” (p. 880) increasingly neglected Gregor. He longed for responsibility and was “often haunted by the idea that next time the door opened he would take the

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.

During the time that Gregor was forced to live out the remainder of his existence in his now prison like room, many family matters occur. For one his younger sister whom he is used to taking care of now trades places with him as far as roles in responsibility go. She now after years of good loving and nurturing feels obligated to repay Gregor for all his years of dedication. Since Gregor in his current metamorphosed state cannot do his every day activities, she sees to it that he is feed and his room is kept clean though she personally finds it hard to look at him for undisclosed reasons. While she is doing this it is interesting to see how much utter disgust and loath his father looks at him with, and not for just physical reasons either. This after years of

Kafka describes the tedious, murky and muggy environment that foreshadows the decomposition and fall of Gregor’s life. When Gregor opens his eyes, he finds himself changed into a grotesque vermin or an enormous insect, an insignificant creature. Gregor does not scream. He does not panic at least not until he worries about going to work, that a gigantic insect doesn’t need to bother showing up for work doesn’t cross his mind. It seems as though Gregor accepts his fate so willingly. With this striking opening, Kafka sets his mystifying psychological fantasy in motion. Kafka’s diaries and letters point out that he considered “Gregor’s fate no worse, or better, than that of any person.” The prior life of a traveling salesman vs. the one-room Gregor occupies, as an insect are both lives of solitude. Kafka wrote that “the cares we have to struggle with every day” are emotional anguish. Kafka lived a sad life. He was persistently haunted by the oppressive image of his father. This could be clearly seen in Gregor’s attempts to get out of the bed. But, since his door was locked, he would need to call for help, which he does not favor. This shows Kafka’s fear of his father. He would rather lay on the bed forever than call his father to help him. Kafka’s fear estimated here as Gregor’s fear