After months of being an insect and being increasingly mistreated by his family, Gregor Samsa finally collapses from fatigue and starvation in his room, promptly dying. In the very early morning, the maid of the house comes across Gregor’s carcass, but rather than be mortified and sob, she uses an idiom and yells the fact that Gregor has passed away. The maid’s use of the idiom “dead as a doornail” in such a morbid context is a form of black humour that attempts to make light of a situation that has no positive aspect of it. In fact, the use of such language, alongside calling Gregor “it” rather than his name is incredibly audacious and further highlighting how out of place the maid’s attitude is. Although, initially, it seems as if such a
