The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

“His mother was not used to the sight of Gregor, he might have made her ill, so Gregor hurried backwards to the far end of the couch”(Kafka 28). Even though they know he is an insect, they feel so repulsed by Gregor’s new form that their disgust completely outweighs the love they felt for Gregor. Kafka’s writing about the family’s reaction to Gregor’s new appearance can be compared to how people are often isolated in the real world for reasons beyond their control like social caste, physical unattractiveness, race, gender, and other factors that may be seen as unappealing to some people, but are all traits that are really only on the outside. These traits do not define a person, similarly to how Gregor is still human inside, but is a disgusting insect on the outside.

In the book, Metamorphosis, Frank Kafka tells the story of a dysfunctional family that becomes even more dysfunctional when their son, Gregor, transforms into a cockroach. Before and after his transformation, Gregor has a variety of identity and self-esteem issues. Through his transformation, many of these issues are maximized. He begins to not know who he is anymore, and he is disgusted by the fact that he has turned into a hideous creature, both figuratively and literally. This is demonstrated when he has woken up after turning into a cockroach with an itch. After he tries to scratch his itch, he notices one of his many insect legs and is revolted by the truth. The immensity of his disgust is portrayed in his reaction to his transformation into a bug. He does not react how most people would if they woke up one morning to find that they have been turned into what most would consider the world’s most repulsive insect. Instead of waking up in a panic, he simply reflects on his life as a human and how monotonous it was. In this reflection, it becomes clear that his family is codependent on him. Codependency is a major concern, and it should be addressed.

This novella shows the psychological and emotional distance that Gregor causes to those around him when he becomes a literal insect.

Turning the character into a giant, monstrous insect helps the author demonstrate the situation in which a person becomes absolutely vulnerable, helpless and pathetic. At that very moment of Gregor’s new form the attitude of the family becomes absolutely clear and transparent: everyone feels ashamed and diverted from the personality of Gregor. Betrayal of his mother and his sister is nowhere near what Gregor would have ever imagined. His relationship with his father was rocky. He never expected the mishap to become so realistic and his lift to be so heartbreaking. So the main

Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, is the story of Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman who is responsible for the financial well-being of his entire family, yet experiences an unfortunate metamorphosis into a giant bug. However, while Gregor undergoes a disturbing physical transformation, the family dynamic changes drastically as well. The family’s treatment of Gregor slowly deteriorates from them regarding him as the basis for their financial success and security to regarding him as no more than an extraordinary nuisance that holds them back from a brighter future.

On the surface, “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka is an evocative story of a man transformed into a “monstrous vermin”. It seems to focus on the dark transformation of the story’s protagonist, Gregor, but there is an equal and opposing transformation that happens within Gregor’s family. Although Gregor has physically changed at the beginning of the story, he remains relatively unchanged as the novella progresses. The family, on the other hand, is forced to drastically change how they support themselves. Although the change was unexpected, Gregor’s transformation into a vermin sets into motion a change in the Samsa family that leaves them better off in almost every facet of their lives. Thus, Kafka’s story is not one of descent into darkness, but one of a family’s ascent towards self-actualization. The metamorphosis the title speaks of does not take place in Gregor, but rather in the Samsa Family; consequently, Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is not a tale of darkness, disconnection and despair, but rather a story of hope, new beginnings and perseverance.

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.

The story initially involves Gregor’s physical appearance and his conscious awareness that he has become an insect. “When Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous cockroach in his bed” (505). Quite in denial, he does not appear to be very bothered by his transformation, and sees it as any other disturbance to his sleep, “what if I went back to sleep for a while, and forgot about all this nonsense?” (505). As the story progresses, Gregor seems focused on ordinary concerns like missing the early morning train, losing his meaningless and unfulfilling job as a traveling salesman, or his family’s unstable financial situation. His life is completely consumed with work and his family’s needs. Undergoing more physical changes, Gregor’s normal human voice turns into that of a bug, which makes it difficult for him to communicate with his family or his manager, who says, “that was the voice of an animal” (511). His words were no longer comprehensible. Once he was able to open his bedroom door, revealing himself as an insect to the others did not ensue ideally. Gregor’s mother, father, sister, and manager all stood shocked, and ran away in horror at the sight. Ironically, one of the first things that Gregor sees outside the bedroom is a photograph of himself from his period in the army as a lieutenant, “his hand on his sabre, smiling confidently, the posture and uniform

Franz Kafka’s renown novella, The Metamorphosis (1915), is divided into three sections. Each section approaches a different aspect of the main character, Gregor’s life after his metamorphosis, which in turn makes them easily identifiable. Accompanied by each section are a different set of emotions, knowledge and aesthetics, the potency of each growing or dwindling as the reader reaches the climax of the narrative.

In the story “The Metamorphosis”, written by Franz Kafka, Gregor’s family represents the causing factor that prompts Gregor to become a cockroach. Gregor’s family is a symbol of a repressive structure that inhibits Gregor’s every thought and action. When Gregor gets up in the morning to get ready for work and finds that he has been transformed into a cockroach, he ponders about how maybe he should just go in to work late and get fired, but then realizes that he cannot because “if [he] were not holding back because of [his] parents, [he] would have quit long ago” (Kafka 8). This quote displays how the family contains immense power over Gregor which causes him to turn into a cockroach that symbolizes that he has become alienated, has

Analysis of the story “The Metamorphosis”, by Franz Kafka was written back in the early 1900’s, but reflected a more modern way of thinking and lifestyle of today. Gregor felt that he was a slave to his job, isolated from his co-workers, and misunderstood by his family. Although that is the norm in today’s society, it was not the norm back then. In the story Gregor finds himself transformed into a cockroach and his internal struggles become a permanent reality. Kafka’s choice of the family member to play the role of the cockroach was necessary in portraying the curse of the working man only living each day in hurried lifestyle with no freedom.

People who become gay or lesbian have to deal with the rejection from their family members and all the problems they face, due to what their sexual identity is. This problem leads into the book Metamorphosis, which Franz Kafka used many different characters, the plot, and setting to show many allegories. However, this is about how Gregor is facing this problem of being a bug, which is an allegory representing someone who is gay or lesbian and facing the same problems. It is shown through how his parents grieve for him, his eating disorder, and how his family is trying to ignore him. Gregor coming out of his room as a bug is an allegory of a family member coming out and telling their family that they are gay or lesbian.

In the short story, The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, the main character Gregor Samsa wakes up to see that he has become a giant bug, and he and his family have to adjust to the changes that this has brought about. Kafka weaves several images and symbols through out the story, so many that writing a paper on all of them would be incredibly long. However, the thing I will concentrate on is the use and symbols of food that Kafka has placed in the tale. Just what do these symbols mean? Why are they there and what do they show about Gregor and his family and their relationship? I will prove in my paper that a piece of bread and bowl of milk can be much more than just a meal. The food in this story shows how life has changed for Gregor, and also that in some of the scenes, that it even has references to passages from the Bible itself.

The story of this book revolves around a businessman named Gregor Samsa, who one fine morning wakes up to find himself transformed into a monstrous vermin. Over the decades, this vermin has been portrayed by scholars to be a beetle or cockroach. The reason as to why this transformation happened, was never explained by Kafka in the book neither did he ever tell his readers about the fate of Gregor. Some of the scholars are of the view that the story’s biographical and historical context conveys Kafka's own process of self-alienation. This is because Kafka was a German writer who lived in Czech Prague, and always had the desire and the pressure to become a successful businessman just like his father. Thus, the

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