The Dehumanization of Gregor in Kafka's Metamorphosis Essay

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.

His father then stopped working altogether, his sister Grete was too young to work, his mother was ill with asthma; thus young Gregor not only supported the whole family but also found for them the apartment they are now living in” (Nabokov). Despite his condition and dislike for his job as a travel salesman, Gregor still seemed concerned to get to work in order to provide for his family. He never even speculated the cause of his altered physical state. Gradually, Gregor became used to his new role as an insect. Aside from late day inquiries of his family regarding his behavior and regular feeding intervals which allow for minimal interaction, he became largely ignored. After attempting to save his favorite poster of a woman in fur, chaos took place in the household. He was soon considered a burdensome nuisance. He had nothing to contribute to the well-being of his family other than being a pest. Eventually, Gregor 's will to live was crushed by the feelings of self-contempt and worthlessness. All hopes of returning to normality were squashed with every attempt he made to interact. His withdrawal from his family guided him further and further into retreat and isolation. He emotionally dried up within his shell and inside the shadows.

Although Gregor’s mother defends him throughout most of the story, she starts to have her doubts once she sees how difficult Gregor has made life for the rest of the family. Before his transformation into this vermin, Gregor and his mother have a stable relationship. But, after Gregor’s metamorphosis is complete it was not until after “two weeks…[that] his parents could not bring themselves to come into see him,” (Kafka 29). The strength of the mother’s unconditional love for Gregor has diminished over the process of his metamorphosis, so much so, that she is repulsed by Gregor’s presence and is afraid to even be in the same room as him. The mother further rejects the physical state of her son by “pointing to Gregor’s room,” (Kafka 40) and telling Grete to “close that door,” (Kafka 40), therefore leaving Gregor in isolated and in the dark. Gregor’s mother has now caught on to the idea of distancing herself from her deformed son by

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.

After Gregor mysteriously transforms into a bug overnight, his father does not want to deal with him. When Gregor first comes out of his room, Mr. Samsa’s only thoughts are to “return [Gregor] to his room as quickly as possible” (Kafka 18). Mr. Samsa could not bear to look at Gregor in his new form. During a squabble, Mr. Samsa “was determined to bombard [Gregor]. He had filled his pockets from the fruit bowls on the buffet and was now pitching one apple after another” (Kafka 37). From the very beginning, Gregor’s condition does not concern Mr. Samsa. He does not try to find a way to help him. Once Gregor’s physical form has drastically changed, Mr. Samsa deceives his own son by giving up on him, no longer trusting his son to maintain the household’s income. Mr. Samsa immediately disowns his son and becomes an antagonist by viewing Gregor as an intruder in his own home. The betrayal that Gregor suffers negatively affects him. Therefore, when Mr. Samsa makes it

He attacked Gregor, and throws an apple at his body. As Gregor’s condition continues Grete interest in her brothers health and welfare declined. Grete doesn’t clean his room and she doesn’t care much about his food anymore. “ ‘We must try to get rid of it,’ his sister now said explicitly to her father, since her mother was coughing too much to hear a word, ‘it will be the death of both of you, I can see that coming” (Kafka 807). In other words, Grete step forward and tells her parents and focused them to get rid of Gregor.

When Gregor turns into the creature, his family quickly forgets about all the good he has done. They lock him in his room, and all of his human features are forgotten. The only person who visits the protagonist is his younger sister, who has accepted the responsibility of cleaning up after him and feeding him. She does her chore quickly, feeling disgusted.

His family's lack of acceptance leaves Gregor “...completely filled with rage at his miserable treatment…” (Page 41). He sees that that family never really cared about him except for when he was helping them out of debt. Gregor soon becomes accepting of his physical metamorphosis and accepts his life living in “the darkest corner of his room” (Page 44). Not only does Gregor become accepting of his physical feature but he begins to accept the fact that he no longer really cares about his family anymore. Gregor embraces his feelings of dislike towards his family, he says, “It hardly surprised him that lately he was showing so little consideration for others; once such consideration had been his greatest pride” (Page 45). This shows that once Gregor becomes aware of the way his family feels towards his metamorphosis, his isolation and alienation leads him to care less about his family's expectation and views of

Gregor hears what his sister says and realizes it is time for him to go. His last thought before he dies is, “He thought of his family with tenderness and love. The decision that he must disappear was one that he held to even more strongly than his sister, if that were possible” (Kafka 814). Because

Gregor’s transformation in the story, Metamorphosis is dehumanizing from the very beginning as soon as he wakes up. Gregor is turned into some sort of bug, which is the most obvious and literal form of his dehumanization. Second, Gregor is dehumanized from his family and employer. His family begins to mistreat him and isolate him as he has to stay in is room, his employer completely rejects him as well.

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’s isolation grew a lot through how his changes affect him. In this case, he is a dynamic character which undergoes some kind of change because of the action in the plot. Due to his no human abilities, Gregor refused to eat normal food but disguising moldy, rotten food that his sister gave him in the beginning. “But he turned, almost against his own will, away from the dish (. . .)” (Kafka par. 32). But for one thing the food wasn’t the bad part with Gregor, it was how he could not talk anymore to communicate with others. This changed Gregor’s thoughts to how it was different that he couldn't speak his mind and, “As nobody could understand him, nobody, not even his sister, (. . .)” (Kafka par. 39). Even for the fear that his family might get mad at him especially since how his sister didn’t like to look at him, he came up with an idea to help out. And in any case that Gregor tried to help or anything under that circumstances, he was still isolated from his family. “(. . .) he spent four hours carrying the bed sheet over to the couch on his back (. . .) he was completely covered (. . .)” (Kafka par. 48). While Gregor was trying to make the situation the best he could, his family didn’t bother the notice have the things he did. Gregor grew tired of trying to help and talk to them that the love of his family drew him to his own isolation from himself even. Gregor changed as the plot continues and for him, it was more bug like which in the sense to the reader anyways that generally people don’t like bugs especially the one he turned into. Unfortunately, Gregor knew the best way was to be invisible and die knowing that they would be better off without him leading to how it actually

Also, Grete begins to play the violin as the boarders invite the family to the parlor in which they were eating in. While Gregor becomes entranced by her music, he wishes that he could speak to her about his plan to send her to music school. The boarders on the other hand, lose interest. While Gregor sneaks into the parlor, one of the borders notices him and screams in horror. Gregor’s father rushes them out of the apartment as they furiously yell out that they aren’t going to pay for the rent. This leads to Grete attempting to convince her parents that the bug is not Gregor and that they should get rid of him. Gregor’s father wishes that he could explain to him why they should leave him, but on the contrary, Grete claims that if Gregor could understand them he would have left them a long time ago to pardon them of anymore pain. As a result, Gregor succumbs to depression and eventually dies. As the cleaning lady discovers Gregor’s dead body the morning after, his family surrounds his dead body as they realize how skinny he had gotten. They all decide to take a walk, while sending letters to their bosses explaining why they were not able to go to

(34) This foreshadows how his family would soon do the same to him. After the metamorphosis, as Gregor steps out of his room, his mother reacts in a frightened fashion. His dad attempts to “thrust Gregor back into his room” (43) after the scare. Whenever Gregor is upside-down in the novella, his mother never turn him right-side-up, simply ignoring his pleas for help as though he does not exist. Towards the end of the second part, his dad gets into conflict with Samsa and throws apples at him until one ends up “embedded [...] in his back” (84), and never removes the lodged apple.

Furthermore, Gregor’s descent into social and physical abjection then forces his family to change radically in order to support themselves. In the beginning, Gregor starts off as the provider for his family. He hates his job, but he still goes above and beyond the call of duty to give his family a more comfortable life, even indulging the expensive endeavour of his sisters’ dream of studying the violin. However, after the metamorphosis, he is thrust into the role of a dependant – forcing his family to take responsibility and support themselves. His sister steps up to the plate in the beginning, giving him a selection of foodstuffs to find what he likes and even cleaning up after him. His parents are still in denial at this point, so much so that they refuse to see him at all. But as time goes by, his family begins to accept the situation and even try to help Grete out. His father produces some money from his previous failed business venture and his mother and sister try to make life more comfortable for Gregor. Grete in particular changes the most noticeably; Gregor himself notes at the beginning that her life up till that point had been “enviable”, consisting of “wearing nice