The Kafka 's The Metamorphosis

Family: If no one cares about you or treats you well are you still a part of it? The family pays attention to Gregor less and less through the book. They abuse him with violent abuse and verbal abuse. They treat him as if he is not a family member and as if he has always been a bug. Gregors family in the novella treats him better sometimes. What this claim overlooks is that the family does not care about Gregor or want to have anything to do with him. In Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka the treatment of Gregor deteriorated because he turned into a bug.

“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.

To fully understand the depths of Gregor’s family’s betrayal, it must be mentioned how much he does for his family. His father had once owned a very unsuccessful small business, and when the business went under the family’s financial woes were unimaginable. Gregor saw this and wanted to bring joy to his family again. Kafka states, “At that time Gregor’s sole desire was to do his utmost to help the family to forget as soon as possible the catastrophe that had overwhelmed the business and thrown them all into a state of complete despair” (Kafka 25) He found a job so that

Often times, when someone is down, their family will bring them up. In Gregor Samsa’s case his family wants nothing to do with him. In “Metamorphosis”, by Franz Kafka, Gregor goes through a change with his body and himself. Gregor changes from a human to a giant beetle. This causes Gregor to feel very alone and doesn’t know what to do. He stays in his room because if he leaves no one will accept him. Before he was a beetle, he would help his family, he worked for them to help with living costs. His family doesn't appreciate his help or him for that matter. This leads to Gregor feeling rejected or alienated from his family, society and himself.

In the book, Gregor becomes isolated when he takes his new role in the family which leads him to become isolated and depressed. Gregor took a job as a traveling salesman in order to pay his family’s debt, however, his job prevented him from making “close relationships” (2), that is significant because it means that Gregor had no relationships other than the ones he had with his family. This leads to Gregor becoming both emotionally and physically dependent on his family. That is not a good thing because his job, in addition to isolating him from society, it also ends up isolating him from his family; when trying to argue with Gregor’s boss, Mrs. Samsa says, “[Gregor] has nothing on his mind but business”, along with the rest of her speech, it implies that Gregor rarely spend any time bonding with his family, and Gregor mentions how his job got him into the habit of “locking all the doors” (6). This is important because it is a symbol of how Gregor locks his family out, and it was a habit he gained because of his job. Because of this, Gregor’s care is left to strangers who only care about Gregor as long as he is useful; since he no longer is useful he becomes further isolated and has no purpose, which leads Gregor to lose his will to

Franz Kafka’s twentieth-century classic, The Metamorphosis, shows the changes of the Samsa family after their son, Gregor, turns into a vile insect. Even though Gregor has turned into the most disgusting of creatures, this “metamorphosis” is ironic compared to the transformation that his family endures. While Gregor still sustains his humanity, the lack of any compassion and mercy from his family, is what makes them the disgusting creatures rather than Gregor. The changes of Gregor’s father, mother, and sister prove that the theme of metamorphosis is not exclusively present within Gregor.

In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, Gregor’s life dramatically changes with the event of his transformation to a bug. His family is not in full acceptance of what has become of him and Gregor begins to lose himself. He had once been the provider for his family and now it is as if his family reproaches him for his inability to take care of them. Gregor wants to again have a role in his family yet recognizes that his family would be better off without him and dies. There are several situations that Gregor experiences that makes him lose all hope. From Maslow’s hierarchy of needs it can be be seen that Gregor loses his humanity including the essential needs to humans such as his safety, his desire to be successful, and his desire for affection from others. The desire to feel love from his family and their rejection is the final event that leads to his depression and at the end to his death.

So concerned with ensuring his parents and sister were taken care of, he forgot his own needs. It was apparent to everyone that he was no longer thought of as a son or an extension of the family, but merely as a "support system." The tragic fact is that "everyone had grown accustomed to it, his family as much as himself; they took the money gratefully, he gave it willingly but the act was accompanied by no remarkable effusiveness" (Kafka 48). It appears that in the course of his hectic work schedule, he overlooks that in return for dedication to his family, he remains unloved and unappreciated. Yet Gregor still "believed he had to provide his family with a pleasant, contented, secure life" (Emrich 149), regardless of how they treated him.

While the weeks and months passed Grete and his mother and father struggled to give little any compassion or concern for Gregor as their finances plummeted to the ground. Prior to his metamorphosis Gregor was physically alienated from any semblance of a social life due to his job and financial obligation to his family afterward the transformation and he was deemed a burden to his family that he had provided for countless months he was psychologically isolated from them as well. Notably while Gregor had finally been emancipated from his dreaded job as a salesman, he had become a parasitic to his family without being labeled as a provider they slowly began to turn against him only worsening his mental state and exile.

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.

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 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.

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

this book the Metamorphosis follows a young man by the name Gregor Samsa Who is nothing more than normal human being. That's a traveling salesman and he has to provide for his greedy family imagine if the family that you have loved for your whole life one day hate you for the way you look.One day out of the blue gregor wakes up to find out that he is a insect But instead of being disheartened about being an insect he Start fantasizing about how much he hated his Daily Grind

The straight forward style enhances the nightmarish quality of Franz Kafka’s, “The Metamorphosis”. For instance, the dialogue in the novel between the chief clerk and Gregor’s mother; the chief clerk states, “I hope it’s nothing serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we people in commerce ever become slightly unwell then, fortunately or unfortunately as you like, we simply have to overcome it because of business considerations” (Kafka, 257-261). In this excerpt, the chief clerk shows no signs of mercy for Gregor. Unless he is on the verge of death he is expected to be at work. This heightens the nightmarish quality because it belittles the fact the Gregor has turned into a vermin and it supports the thought that Gregor is under