"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka?

Question

What other transformtaion takes place in the book besides Gergor?

Answer 1

Every other member of the family saparately, well, maybe except for the mother, as she dimply denied teh metamorohosis of gregor, not willing to do any changes in gregors room because he would like to find everything the same 'when he comes back'. The mother is actually trying to run away from everything, by fainting, before the metamorphosis and after it. The family, as a single unit also changes. By showing such a sacrifise of gregor, which is not actually a sacrifise, but just a simple action to help your family, kafka shows how important the family is, being together, trying for each other, and in the end we see how the one that is not valuable any more, is simply cut out of the family.

Answer 2

ah, poor gregor, i knew him well. it's been a while since my last adventure with kafka's prose, but if memory serves, his familly metamorphosed into less than compassionate souls, and, the apples?probably into a rancid mess. kafka's one of my all time favorites because of his insightful take on the human condition, including its institutions.

Answer 3

His family transforms. His parents and sister are no longer able to simply rely on Gregor to support them, therefore they transform into the caregivers.

Answer 4

The transformation of Gregor's family is most important; they become self-sufficient, happier, and less disfunctional

Answer 5

His cat is transformed into a tiger.

Answer 6

Franz Kafka's "Metamorphosis"
Janis E. Kenderdine © 2004-2006

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The short story “Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka is one that deals with the human condition, and the question “why do we exist?” This questioning is the epitome of the postmodern style of writing, in that we examine the world we live in, and question what it is to “be” and why we bother. The other prominent feature of postmodern writing is the presence of the unnatural and incredible.

Unlike the fantastic Gothic tales of Poe and Hawthorne, however, the postmodern style of writing deals with the individual as he fits in the society, not how the society fits in the individual. Instead of being an individual in unusual circumstances questioning his own morality and goodness, or being trapped in his own mind with his own persecutions, Kafka has produced the exact opposite effect. Metamorphosis is about the individual’s plight from within a prison imposed upon him within society.

One could say the story is a metaphor for one who has spent his life working to please others, supporting his family and working for the sake of survival, but not really sure why it is he who does it — it’s just the way it is. Suddenly, one day, the protagonist wakes up and his entire life has changed. He is unable to move and function as a human, he is unable to work, and he is dependent on his family to take care of him, for a change. Bug, or debilitating accident or illness, the onset is quick, and a shock to everyone.

At first, his family doesn’t know what to do, but to take care of him — after all, Gregor is their brother, son and (former) provider. But, as his presence becomes more and more of a nuisance and an inconvenience, he is left to fend for himself, even though he is unable and imprisoned. What must it be like for someone who cannot do anything for himself except exist hidden away and as the shame of his family? What would be best for everyone involved? Death seems to be the single, welcome answer to his plight.

Freudian, Marxist, existentialist, and religious interpretations have all been proposed, and there has been debate over whether Gregor Samsa, the man-turned-insect, symbolizes the human condition.

It is generally agreed, however, that the story portrays a world that is hostile and perhaps absurd and that major themes in the story include father-son antagonism (perhaps reflecting Kafka’s difficult relationship with his own father), alienation at work, isolation, and self-sacrifice.1

The story parallels humankind in several ways, in fact. Not only from the aspect of perhaps someone mortally wounded and unable to take care of himself, but given the time frame of when the story was written, and all that was happening around him, Kafka (a Polish-born Jew), could have been foreshadowing the mass ethnic “cleansing” that would take place in Europe in the years to come.

“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.”

All is told in this first sentence of the story. He doesn’t think himself to be a monstrous vermin; he still feels the same inside, but realizes something is very wrong, and people start reacting to him differently. He is no longer Gregor the (Jewish?) human, but Gregor the vermin. At first his family (neighbors, fellow citizens) comes to his aid, but as time goes on, they are less sympathetic, and Gregor finds he is dependent on the help of the very people who would be revolted by his very existence. The family feels only a mild tinge of guilt at the fact that they treat this family member in such a way, but they secretly wish the “vermin” to die and leave them be, so they can live their life free of him.

The “invasion” by the renters, the unsympathetic maid, and other outsiders who don’t understand (or care about) Gregor’s plight could even be considered a parallel to the Nazi occupation. They come into the residents’ home, treating the family like it is there to do their personal bidding, and all appears to be well until they are horrified by their dirty secret living in the room next to theirs. Of course these outsiders instead of acting shocked like one would think, instead use the situation as an excuse as to why they should not pay their fare, and threaten to expose their secret and embarrass them, despite their hospitality.

Kafka uses multiple layers throughout the story, displaying an easier to understand shallow meaning, and then a deeper truth that nags at the reader’s subconscious. The disability vs. ethnic cleansing interpretation could be one example, and another could be the obvious fact that Gregor has turned into a bug, or the less obvious fact that he has regressed into a “lower life form.”

In the mental world embodied in a work of literature, it is possible to distinguish two levels on which a descriptive or analytic approach to it may be made: its more primitive or infantile level (the level, psychologically speaking, of the id and of primary process) and its more developed or adult level (that of the ego and secondary process) at which aesthetic and moral judgments and not merely clinical correlations are appropriate; and, at least in the case of Kafka and similar writers, it is important to make this distinction.2

The fact that Kafka uses a bug as the mode of Gregor’s transformation is an unlikely and fantastic, but what’s more, Gregor seems oblivious to the fact that what has happened to him is all that unusual. He seems to accept it, and move on, worrying instead about how it is that he should provide for his family and fulfill his responsibilities at work.

... the existence of rationality, a discipline, they often only hid a rigidity in the way of thinking of these characters that gets concealed under a false masque of responsibility. The substitution of the values by these superficial elements provokes an emptiness within the person and as a consequence a lack of integrity. Then by facing those characters that haven’t lost their ideals ... to these others the absurd is produced (the transformation in a beetle of Gregor Samsa in The Metamorphosis...)3

One could also say that the family has also become more animalistic and primitive through this metamorphosis. Instead of being compassionate and trying to help Gregor, they lock him away, almost hoping he’ll die. At first they try to take care of him, but like an injured animal in the pack, they eventually begin to look at him as a liability and an inconvenience, and cease to “protect” him. As they stop thinking about him as a human being, they stop treating him like one.

The same could be said about the state of the room in which he dwells. When he first wakes up as a bug, his room has all the necessities a human would need — a bed, dresser, desk, sofa, etc. But as he devolves and realizes he doesn’t need these items, and as his family realizes it, they are removed — essentially removing pieces of Gregor from the room, and from their memories. And, somehow in this twisted scene, Gregor the bug mourns the loss of his personal affects.

“And so he broke out — the women were just leaning against the desk in the next room to catch their breath for a minute — changed his course four times, he really didn’t know what to salvage first, then he saw hanging conspicuously on the wall, which was otherwise bare already, the picture of the lady all dressed in furs, hurriedly crawled up on it and pressed himself against the glass, which gave a good surface to stick to and soothed his hot belly. At least no one would take away this picture while Gregor completely covered it up. He turned his head toward the living-room door to watch the women when they returned.”

The very idea of a man devolving into a bug is almost as absurd that man would treat his fellow man in such a manner. The absurdity, yet parallelism to real life gives the story a depth that pure fantasy could not. Instead of building up a fantastic story, Kafka takes the mundane — the ordinary society he sees around him, and deconstructs it in a fantastic postmodern tale. The story balances on the border of real and fantasy, hinting at absurdity and enlightenment, all while telling an amusing and thought-provoking fable.


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Footnotes:

1 Enotes.com, “The Metamorphosis | Introduction,” .

2 Luke, F.D., “Explain to me some stories of Kafka,” Gordian Press, Inc., First ed., 1983.

3 Bartual, Roberto “Once Upon a Time in America: An Experimental Epic,” .