Human Contact In Gregor'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

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

    Gregor Samsa had already been alienated and perceived as an outcast before his metamorphosis. Society separated Gregor as did his family that relied on their son as a financial foundation because of his hard working habits that were forced upon him. After the alteration that Gregor withstood, he lost all connections to his closest friends and family. This transformed him into an outsider to everyone but himself. He transformed into an unpleasant and uninviting beetle. ¨He lay on his armor-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections.¨(Kafka, paragraph 1). Gregor was misjudged by the cleaning woman in the story “The Metamorphosis” as well. Based completely on image she insulted him. ¨At first, she also called him to her with words which she presumably thought were friendly, like ¨Come here for a bit, old dung beetle!¨ or ¨Hey, look at the old dung beetle.¨ (Kafka, paragraph 89). Gregor was completely isolated and seen as an outsider until he reached is time of death because of his flagrant appearance to others. These important people in his life did not even take the time to allow him to prove himself.

Gregor’s metamorphosis brings many positive and negative changes in himself as well as his family. His family used to rely on him for his income as he was the only source of money in the family, but now they all worked and earned money themselves that is a very big positive change in the family. The negative change was bad for the Gregor himself as he couldn’t face the world with his new appearance,

In The Metamorphosis, Gregor is completely isolated throughout his whole life with his lonely job and later on due to his condition. When he was a human, a traveling salesman, he did not have a life outside of his job. Gregor focuses so much of his time on work, that his mother often worries that, “All that boy thinks about is work” (12). He isolates himself by not leaving the house when he is off the clock. He reads the paper, studies the train schedules and spends his time carving small frames all by himself. By doing this, he pushes himself away from a chance to socialize with others and create relationships. Gregor describes his traveling job as extremely lonely. He enlightens the readers on page 7 and 8 with a description that, “the steady stream of faces who never become anything closer than acquaintances”. Human beings need to have communal interactions with others. If not, well, it might bug you to death. When Gregor realizes that he is now a monstrous vermin, the alienation he experiences becomes even worse. He locks himself away in his room for days at a time. At first, his sister Grete, was understanding of his current condition. She often made meals for him to eat and left the living room of the house unattended, so Gregor could walk around. As Gregor

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 existence before the metamorphosis was much like after it; limited to work and family, he went unnoticed by both. After changing into a cockroach one night, Gregor is forced to live a life of isolation with a family who is appalled by him. He is placed in a "dark bedroom, in the jumble of discarded furniture and filth" a " monstrous vermin, a grotesque, hidden part of the family" (Eggenschwiler 211). Shock and terror, resulting in Gregor being locked away, marked his family's reaction to his metamorphosis. His sister is the only one that, while frightened, would tend to Gregor's room and meals. She even took the responsibility so far as to get angry with anyone who

In “metamorphosis” Gregor changed from a human being to a bug suddenly in one morning. Gregor sister Grete became his primary take care. Gregor’s parents never come into his room. The father is not care or compassion to Gregor. He seems like a person that concerns only about money.

Gregor feels isolated because not even his own boss will listen to him and Gregor feels like nobody will listen to him, so why bother speaking and hanging out with his family. Physically, we can also see how Gregor's isolation as a bug is mirrored to his life before. In one instance, Gregor's mother had passed out at the realization that this gigantic bug really was Gregor, and right as that happened, his father had walked in: “It was clear to Gregor that his father had badly misunderstood Grete’s short message and was assuming that Gregor had committed some violent crime or other”(Kafka 18). Gregor's father had walked in to see his wife on the floor with Greta by her side and Gregor standing across the room, and without any words said, Gregor's father assumed it was something that Gregor had done out of violence. This could mean that Gregor, before his transformation, was violent and had a bad reputation with people, so his father walked in and just immediately assumed that Gregor had done something to cause

At the beginning of the novella, Gregor is depicted by the narrator as an individual who has little to no worldly presence. Even though he is a contributing member of society by providing for his family, he is still seen as recluse since he rarely goes out or does anything. He does often stare at a picture of “a lady done up in a fur hat and fur boa... “ (Kafka 1). This infatuation with her image can hint at his longing for companionship. Once Gregor commences his change into a beetle, his reclusive nature continues and is even called out upon. On page 11, Gregor’s manager calls out to him while Gregor is locked away in his room, “What’s the matter? You barricade yourself in your room...

The metamorphosis is really difficult, for both Gregor and his family. Gregor spends all of his time, trapped in his room. At first, his family tipped toed around the apartment, being as quiet as possible, almost like they were in a hospital ward. He woke up as a giant beetle basically. Maybe I did not catch it, but the reason why this happened was never really discussed. Anyways, the whole family seems distraught, like this transformation was all Gregor’s fault, when in reality there was nothing he could have done to prevent it. The metamorphosis made him feel more isolated than he already did from his family; although before he would sit at the dinner table with his family, he never really felt like he was there for anything more than paying off his parents’ debt. He also begins feeling even worse about himself as the maid quits, his sister has to start working, and so does his father. His mother ends up doing all of the housework, and quite frankly, everyone is beyond exhausted. His parents are so stressed about the situation that they stop coming around to see Gregor. His mother comes

In Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor Samsa deals with the alienation from his family stemming from both absurd and mundane circumstances. While Gregor’s transformation into a bug is the catalyst to his physical alienation, Gregor had for years been becoming more and more isolated mentally and emotionally from his family due to his displeasure at his having to work a job he hated due to his father’s failings and the lack of gratitude he received from his family for his hard work. It was not just his family who Gregor was becoming isolated from, but it was humanity in general that Gregor had been drifting apart from, as he had not mentioned having any friends or work colleagues which leads the readers to believe he had no social life

At the beginning of the novel, Gregor finds himself transformed. He immediately comes to realize the implications of this newfound change. All of a sudden, he is treated with disdain and as

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.