Gregor Samsas` Burden In "The Metamorphosis" By F. Kafka

Everyone has dreamed of a crazy dream that made them go crazy as it was unbelievable, but what you will do if that dream turned out to be a reality that you are living? “The metamorphosis” is a short novella written by Franz Kafka which was first published in 1915. “The metamorphosis' finds, tells a story of a salesman that is called Gregor Samsa who wakes one morning and find himself transformed into an insect (vermin), he considers the transformation to be temporary as the consequences of this metamorphosis. Gregor tries to communicate with his family and his manager, but all they can here is incomprehensible vocalizations. Gregor's family were horrified, as his sister Grete takes care of him by providing him food as they can see that he can only eat rotten, after some time his sister and the family think that he is neglected as they started using his room as a storage room, and his sister Grete that was taking care of Gregor was tired of caring about him, and she went to her parents and told her that they must get rid of Gregor. Gregor understands that he is no longer wanted and he dies of starvation. Gregor is the main character in the novella. He works as a traveling salesman, to provide for his sister and parents with money. He wakes up one morning and he finds himself transformed into an insect. After the metamorphosis, he becomes unable to work, and he stays in his room most of the time. This prompts his family to work again. So, I am going to relate in that essay three themes to Gregor, transformation, family relations, and loss of identity.

Family relation is one of the strongest themes that were in the metamorphosis novella as the events showed to us that his family depends on his position and that they don’t consider him as a part of the family, they just love him because of his money. At the beginning of the novella, it was shown that the relationship between his family is very good when he woke up on his first day of transformation, he kept on thinking about how he would like to leave his job, however, his family depends on his position as he makes money for them “well, I have not entirely given up hope and soon as I have saved the money to pay off the debt my parents owe him it might still be another five or six years I’ll do it”. That changes through the novella as his love for them changes to heartbreaking, every one of the family members started to change with Gregor also, his sister that was helping him in the beginning and getting him food to eat stops and says that she is tired of him and MR Samsa behavior to Gregor becomes very brutal as he is punishing Gregor, and he doesn’t want to try to understand Gregor “his father gave him a hard shove, which was truly his salvation, and bleeding profusely, he flew far into his room”. At the end of the novella, everything was changed as Gregor understands that his family doesn’t want him and his sister wants to get rid of him, so he decided that he will go to his room and die from starvation, “his thoughts, full of tenderness and love went back to his family. He was even more firmly convinced than his sister, if possible, that he should disappear” also that shows that he stills care about his family happiness as if his death will make them happy he will do it.

Transformation is one of the important themes in the story that effected Gregor throughout the novella. Everything that happened in the novella is related to the transformation of Gregor, as it started with his sister removing everything from his room because she believes that bugs need more space to move around, while his mother saw that he as Gregor will prefer to have his belongings with him but it ended up by getting everything out and his sister took care of him in the beginning but then she was tired and she said to her parents to get rid from Gregor. Gregor's father doesn’t accept the transformation of Gregor as his father has changed with him; he doesn’t take care of Gregor. Gregor found out that his family has changed in reaction to him “he had not all pictured his father like this as he was standing there now, and yet could this indeed still be the father. Gregor sees that his character has changed after the transformation, as when his sister was playing on the violin in front of boarders, he went out of his room to listen, and he knows that if someone saw him in that form they will be shocked “his growing lack of concern for the others hardly surprised him, whereas previously he had prided himself on being considerate” so that shows how his character is less humanlike and more repulsive as his looks aren’t accepted.

As Gregor suffered a lot in his transformation, he kept on thinking about his new life with the new character and look, he kept on spending a lot of his time wondering about his family and his old job. Gregor cared about his family a lot before the transformation by being successful at his job and supporting them with money to help them, but when these things aren’t there. Gregor loses his identity as he is no longer there like before to provide them with money, so that makes him nothing for his family: “ then other times he could not be bothered to worry about his family, he was filled with rage at their miserable treatment of him, and even though he could not imagine anything that might spark his appetite he still devised plans to raid the pantry and, even if he was not hungry, get the food due to him…”