Gregor Samsa is a traveling salesman working to pay off his parents’ debt. One morning, Gregor wakes up and discovers he is a “monstrous verminous bug.” He thought he was dreaming, but everything in the room appeared to be the same way he left them the night before. He tries to go back to sleep but cannot get on his right side because of his abnormal shape. He wakes up again and looks at his alarm clock, it is six thirty. He missed the five o’clock train and already knows he will be in trouble with his boss. His mother knocked on his door and warned him he was going to be late for work and needs to hurry in order to make the next train. Gregor does not want to rush to the train station so he decides to stay in bed. A little after seven in the morning, Gregor’s manager showed up to the family’s apartment and questioned why Gregor missed the early train for work. Gregor’s mother tried to justify her son being late for work because he is sick due to being a workaholic. Everyone tries to get Gregor to come out of his room, …show more content…
Having no opposable thumbs, he attempts to turn the key with this mouth. The manager hears Gregor opening the door and Gregor’s parents cheer him on. Gregor finally gets the door to open and everyone in the apartment looks in horror at the human sized bug that is in the apartment. Gregor tries to plead with the manager to defend him at work, but the manager just leaves in a hurry before the bug can explain himself. Gregor wants to stop the manager from leaving and falls down trying to catch up to him. The sight of Gregor moving and talking frightens his mother causing her to spill coffee on the rug. His father tries to shove the insect into his bedroom with the manager’s cane that he left behind and a newspaper. The door is not open all the way and Gregor is slammed into the door, letting bug guts ooze all over the door. His father gives him one last push and slams the door behind
Gregor’s initial reaction to his transformation shows his preoccupation with work. His confusion over his radical transformation does not last long, quickly becoming concerned with work and disregarding that he woke up physically transformed into a monstrous vermin. Immediately after realizing he had transformed, Gregor explains, “Well, I haven’t given up hope completely; once I’ve gotten the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to [the boss] that will probably take another five to six years… But for the time being I’d better get up, since my train leaves at five” (4). The quick transition of Gregor’s thoughts from the initial shock to his economic duties reveals his ironic nonchalant attitude towards his nonsensical transformation and
"My stomach kind of fell as I felt how hard the world was going to be to me hereafter. " Sammy does survive in his story "A&P" (Updike 20). In "Metamorphasis", Gregor dies in his insect form. The cleaning woman says: ""Come and look, it's had it, it's lying there, dead and done for." " The quote of the cleaning woman refers to Gregor's death.
" Physically: Gregor literally crawls into his room, lays down on the floor, and takes his last breath. Mentally: Gregor's family alienates him and is ultimately responsible for Gregor's death through their negligence. Clearly, the bug is Gregor, but Mr. and Mrs. Samsa and Grete treat 'it' as if he was scum. " They were treating him as though he was invisible. They would literally walk past his room every day and attend their family dinners without saying anything to Gregor at all.
Hurry, get the doctor. Did you just hear Gregor talking?’ ‘That was a voice of an animal’” (12). Through Gregor’s perspective, one may assume that his response to his manager was heard loud and clear and the only modification to his identity is the physical change he has undergone which highlights the importance of Kafka’s change in perspective. Although Gregor believes himself to be in control of the situation, the third person narration as well as the other character’s remarks reveal quite the opposite.
Gregor Samsa’s transition from human to vermin was not the only shift that happened through the duration of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. The novel is centered around Gregor who wakes up as a vermin, presumably a cockroach, which catalyses a series of emotionally traumatic experiences for him and his family, culminating in Gregor’s death. Yet the most significant change is, in fact, the gender role reversal seen both with Gregor and Grete, his sister, as Gregor becomes more effeminate and Grete becomes more emasculate, directly correlating with their societal and emotional transformation due to Gregor's physical change. From the moment, Gregor wakes up he has transformed. But not just as a vermin.
In The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka cruelty is what stemmed Gregor’s change into a large bug and subconsciously motivated him to end his life. Gregor’s new form was a depiction of how he already felt in his household, trapped, voiceless, and small. As Gregor’s metamorphosis developed so did the characters cruelty which affected both the perpetrators and the victims. The Samasa family’s cruelty was demonstrated both physically and mentally by Gregor’s father driving him back into his room, throwing apples at him and by Grete’s use of the word “it”.
As time goes by his family starts to not care for him any more they take out the chair that Gregor sits in and looks out the window and lays in. They have not feed him or came in the room for a few weeks know. Has he told himself over and over that nothing special was happening only a few pieces of furniture was getting moved out. They were cleaning out his room and taking everything that he loved. As his father beat him to death and put him back in the room to stay he had a hole in the back of his shell.
Gregor began to resent his father for throwing household items at him, squashing him like a bug. Even his beloved sister Grete began irritating Gregor by removing all of his belonging from his room, leaving him with nothing. The cruelty performed on Gregor by his own family sends him into a dark pit of despair. With nothing to live for he began to slowly end his life, making one final sacrifice for the ones he loves
1. Almost from the very beginning of Gregor’s metamorphosis, Mr. Samsa has been unwilling to accept Gregor as his son. Furthermore, Gregor’s transformation into an offensive form of an insect, constantly reminds Mr. Samsa of the grotesque, feeble, and pathetic aberration that he has fathered. Consequently, now that Gregor has genuinely revealed himself in all his audacious behavior, his cruel father is driven to destroy him. In his eyes, Gregor has become everything loathsome to him—scrawny, parasitic, and futile—not the kind of son this once successful and ambitious storekeeper could be proud of.
In the short story “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, the primary character Gregor, who has found himself in a variety of strange circumstances, seems generally unconcerned by the fact that he has transformed-or perhaps hasn’t-into a vermin. Perhaps he cannot fathom his situation, maybe he doesn’t care, or maybe he was always this way. He acts much more concerned with getting out of bed from his supine position. His father’s admonishments and fulminations only cause him to become anxious, as he plaintively writhes on the floor. His biggest harbinger of misfortune comes as the brusque knocks of his boss, trying to inquire concerning his whereabouts.
In any case, right now I have to get up. My train leaves at five o’clock.” (Kafka 3). Gregor lets his human life life pass him
Kafka, has suggested the most grotesque nature of this dung beetle, but most notably in the beginning of the book and eventually leading to his catastrophic death. Gregor Samsa patiently accepts the hardships that he has no option but to face as an insect or as a human being devoid of complaints. Gregor Samsa, even as a travelling salesman lacked the charisma of a contented cheerful life. The melancholic path in life choose him, for instance, all the other travelling salesmen in the hotel where he stayed, would arrive for breakfast just after Gregor was done with the placement of his order. This perspective of Gregor towards others, orient towards their duties and responsibilities which affected him, because of the unsatiated-ness that was there within him, because of the hard-work he was putting in to pay off his parents debts while the other travelling salesman just had a peaceful and joyful journey.
(Kafka 96). This part of the story explains how his mother knew his schedule and routine to work and realize how he is locked in the room with himself late to work. That relationship they have been bonded and caring towards each member of the family making sure they are ready to leave. During the time when the mother and Gregor spoke, came his father coming
Still inexperienced with his new bodily form, Gregor is unable to travel to his workplace. However, his absence is quickly noticed and the company’s attorney pays Gregor a visit within the hour. Begging for understanding, Mrs. Samsa exclaims, “The boy has nothing in his head except business…he never goes out at night” (Kafka 20). Despite eating, breathing, and living for his occupation as a traveling salesman, Gregor continues to be a replaceable minion within his company. Through his endless dedication to business endeavors, Gregor loses his sense of self, working mechanically around the clock.
The giant bug that Gregor wakes up as symbolizes the emptiness of Gregor’s life and how before turning into a repulsive bug, his life is just as insignificant as it is after. As a bug, Gregor ultimately sees himself as the insect his family thought of him as. He is supporting his family because his parents were too old and his sister too young, but in actuality when