The Metamorphosis notes Essay

Currently in the story, Gregor and his family have gotten worse. Gregor was hit by an

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 order to be aware of Gregor’s transformation in The Metamorphosis, Lacan’s theory of understanding reality, supports the idea of identity. Lacan realizes through the mirror stage that it is one thing to see a reflection of oneself, though, it is more complex than this, since a reflection of someone is just an image, one’s identity is more than we can see (Lacan 72). In other words, one must alienate themselves from others to compare and reach self-recognition. According to Kafka’s story, Gregor has felt isolated from the start, and because he travels for his job he barley makes any social interaction, hence his basis for relationships relies in his family unit where his identity is based on false recognition. But before Gregor’s metamorphosis, he was seen as something

It revolves around Gregor’s life before and after his metamorphosis and results in the tumult that erupts in the story and finally leads to his death. The people tasked with taking care of him were at times divided on what to do to him and resulted in keeping quiet about the matter, hiding it from anyone who was not in the house. Gregor’s feelings according to Weninger are important since they set the tone for the mood of the story. His rather negative feelings resulting especially from poor relationships make his world more evident to the reader. The relationship with his father also bears a vital role in the story, from what the author

Aside from these remarks, poor treatment towards Gregor is the most significant towards his

His only use to them prior to this bug transformation was very similar to that of an ATM. They came in contact with him when a money transaction needed to be made and that is it. When he was of no value to his family they began mistreating him anymore. His dad threw apples at him, and his sister stopped caring for him after she saw there was no change to be made. This is a very dehumanizing aspect of alienation, and Gregor experienced it not only at home, but at work as well.

This is most evident when Gregor, in spite of his animalistic senses, protests his sister’s removal of his bedroom furniture. Even though he physically wants to scurry around an empty, cave-like room, Samsa reasons, “Did he [Gregor] really want the warm room, so cozily appointed with heirlooms, transformed into a lair, where he might, of course, be able to creep, unimpeded, in any direction, though forgetting his human past swiftly and totally?” Kafka uses words like “heirlooms” to describe his furniture and “human past” to create a divide between his current and pre-metamorphosis lives. With this diction, Kafka asserts that Gregor has gilded over the inadequacies of his previous life in his head; Gregor remains fixated on his past by preserving his furniture, and thus refuses to let Grete take any of it (as doing so would be to relinquish his humanity). One piece of furniture in particular that Gregor is most fond of is the picture of the fur-muffed woman. Throughout the novella, this picture becomes a symbol for Gregor’s past humanity. In this scene, Gregor refuses to take it down — it symbolizes too much of his past, and too much of his former humanity. Gregor’s actions in this scene relate to a major theme of the novella: what it means to be human. Even though he innately wants to act like a bug, Gregor rejects turning his room into a cave and clings to the past. The reader

As each day goes by, Gregor grows more and more ashamed of himself because there is nothing he can do about his circumstance, as he can only listen through the door in hope his family works it out: “Whenever the conversation turned to the necessity of earning money, Gregor would let go of the door, and throw himself onto the cool leather sofa beside it, because he was burning with sorrow and shame” (Kafka, 1219). Gregor feels guilty he isn’t the one helping the family and it’s his fault to begin with that he isn’t a human being anymore. The stakes of how the family will live get higher and higher as each day goes on and his feelings of helplessness heighten.

Gregor started at the top of the line and ended up at the very bottom toward the end of the story. Gregor was the main supporter for his family, but he turned into a hassle to take care of and lost all human contact. It makes him feel bad when his sister and mother decide to wreck his room.

Gregor had previously worked hard as his family's sole provider without much recognition them, but once he transformed into a giant insect, all his physical humanity and worth, according to his family, was lost . However Gregor retains human thoughts and emotions, showing the readers that he is still mentally human and “normal”. As the story progresses, his family starts to abandon him, seeing him more as a burden, an “it” rather than a person in their family. This shows a big character change, especially in Grete, Gregor's sister. Grete had been the one who selflessly took care of Gregor in his insect form when his parents had been too ashamed and afraid to. However, even Grete eventually says: “We must try to get rid of it,” seeing Gregor as too much of a burden (85). She had transitioned from being selfless to being selfish, undergoing her own transformation from one side of humanity to the other. Gregor, ironically, was the only selfless one by the end of the story, choosing to sacrifice himself in order to relieve his burden on his family. His family further showed signs of being on the darker side of humanity by “...giv[ing] thanks to God” for Gregor’s death, a completely different reaction from Nagg’s crying as a result of Nell’s death

Gregor lives in constant fear of his family’s debt and of his manager. He is constantly moving

Gregor was enlisted for a war, probably WWI. as his picture hung on the wall in the hall, his family grew distant from him. He was no longer a human to them, he was but a bug. A nobody as we call those people today. Kafka

A major theme that is demonstrated throughout The Metamorphosis, written by Franz Kafka, is the idea of the loss of humanity. This is demonstrated through Gregor’s transformation into a cockroach. Any human being would resent the idea of being compared to a cockroach, mainly because it is one of the farthest things from being humane. As a Family and Human studies major, throughout my classes, I have been introduced to many different theories that relate to the various aspects of a human being. Because there are so many different factors that can impact the numerous areas that make up the humanity of a person, it is a complicated subject. Many of the issues that Gregor struggles with throughout the story correspond with issues that humans face on a daily basis. The symptoms that result from Gregor’s problems are comparable to those of any person struggling with similar matters. A few of these issues include a state of denial, rejection, and alienation.

The beginning of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka starts with a powerful symbolism. A person walking up in a form of a gigantic bug. But what if this whole story is a symbol, symbol of the author’s life. What if Franz Kafka tells his life story in his book covering it under the story of Gregor Samsa. If one decides to look deeper into Kafka’s life after reading the book he will find a lot of similarities between the author and the character he created. By Comparing Franz Kafka’s family, work, and personal life, along with his physical and emotional state it becomes clear that The Metamorphosis is the autobiographical story.

He was looked disgusted and he can’t even dare to make move himself and it has been turned into a big change. He had hidden from everyone and covered himself under the couch. Everyone was calling him up but he had not tried to open the door. There were also many horrible thoughts within his mind and related to his career and profession. He knew that he is no more able to financially support his family. Hs family suffered greatly because of his changing shape and appearance. They were feeling financially lost and wants to get rid of him. In the start, it was taken smoothly by his parents and sisters that they took care of him and even feed him well. With the passage of time, it became unbearable for them and the death of Gregor happened at the end.