Gregor

family, but also his past life. Furthermore, to depict the notion of alienation to his audience Kafka utilizes his vivid development of Gregor’s workaholic attitude, Gregor’s transformation in to a massive bug, and the primary emotion of guilt, which Gregor inadvertently faces due to his belief of sacrificing his life for the betterment of his family. Therefore, Kafka exploits Gregor’s alienation to depict his underlying theme of the novel – humans’ heavy dependence on society not only leads to the loss

effective in maintaining a positive domestic atmosphere. The author also describes the theme of alienation and its negative effect on people and how their relationships isolate others around them. This alienation can be shown through Gregor and Grete Samsa. Gregor was a man, who sacrifices himself to pay his father’s debt and this action was never recognized by his family. He transforms into monstrous vermin creating a discord between

about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense" Gregor states after he realizes that he is no longer human, but an insect. Gregor seems not to to be bothered about the situation he is currently in. He attempts to sleep it off his problem. This leads me to believe he is okay with it or it is just normal to him and that he has been in this situation before. This enhances the style by giving the image that Gregor might be a little bit crazy since he is unaffected by the transformation

reacted quite different to Gregor after his transformation. While it was as though Gregor's mother and sister believed this new insect was still Gregor, Gregor's father did not seem to believe this. Towards the beginning of the story, Gregor's sister took care of him and treated him as though he was still Gregor. This was demonstrated by Grete bringing him milk at first because it was Gregor's favorite. Gregor's mother also tended to believe the insect was still Gregor, which was shown when she begged

body out of the bed all at the same time” (Paragraph 13, Lines 1 and 2). Gregor is immediately turned into an unidentified bug at the very beginning of the story. Instead of him focusing on his own person problem of being transformed, he is more worried about getting out of bed to go to work. This gives the reader an uneasy feeling right at the start.

or misjudged people. This can be seen in the main protagonist of The Metamorphosis- by Franz Kafka- Gregor Samsa, and in my own life. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa wakes up one day to find he has been transformed into a bug, presumably a beetle. That was the only thing that changed about him, mind you; he still had his personality and care for his family. After this transformation, Gregor loses everything that once made him who he was; his social status, his job, his family, and ultimately

Gregor’s limited interactions with his family. Kafka clearly sees communication as imperative to the maintenance of a personal identity, which he illustrates through Gregor’s worsening mental condition as the novel progresses. Throughout the book Gregor expresses the desire to explain himself to his family, especially Grete, and muses that “[i]f [he] had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her for all that she had to do for him it would have been easier for him to bear it; but as it was

choices of their past, but that is not who they have to be. The choices of Gregor Samsa from The Metamorphosis lead to extreme life changing and identity changing experiences. Gregor, for many years had been the sole provider for his family.

happened to Gregor. However, Kafka’s views on existentialism were discussed in the seminar, and those comments showed his book in a much clearer light for me, especially regarding the question brought up of how Gregor could be both a vampiric reference and a Christ figure. When

’” (Kafka 1) The author understates the significance of Gregor’s new body by juxtaposing his description to Gregor’s thoughts about his job when he woke up in order to show that Gregor is less concerned with having a body of an insect than his occupation as a salesman. Furthermore, this conveys to the reader that Gregor did not metamorphose that morning when he became an insect, but rather the change inside him had already occurred; he had become the “monstrous vermin”(Kafka 1) when he began to