Character Analysis Of Franz Kafka's 'The Metamorphosis'

Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” depicts the tragic fate of a person whose only focus in life was to provide financial support to his family. Gregor, the family’s sole breadwinner, is trapped in a meaningless job, which is of necessity and not choice, and is isolated from the human beings. He is bonded to a company that owns his body and soul and treats him no better than insect. His life is spent in service of others: “The boy has nothing in his head but the company.” The family is careless about the imbalance in family responsibility. They don’t try to work in order to support themselves, to contribute the family’s income and to relieve Gregor’s life. They are responsible for Gregor’s totally materialistic existence and do nothing about …show more content…
He loses human dimensions and is equipped with all the features of an insect. The insect represent all the aspects of his existence and is a symbol of his miserable life. He was like an insect when he still was a human being physically. Gregor, as a human had few emotions, which play an extremely important role in human life. The distinction between humans and other beings is that much of human emotional life is distinctly human in life, clearly not portable to systems without humanlike bodies. The effort which he spent while at job doesn’t bring positive emotions to Gregor. His transformation into an insect is a logic end of clash between his unbearable situation at the company and his existence as a human. It is ironic that in his new, doomed condition he stays surprisingly calm and tries to continue life as a salesman. He plans the day ahead as if he could start it like every other day and is upset only because of his awkwardness. He is so concerned to support to his family that even when he turns into insect he does worry about keeping his job which he hates intensely and begs the deputy director for the precisely situation which caused him to lose human face. His response is very inadequate. He reacts like a human being and doesn’t identify himself with an …show more content…
They lose moral perspective and live in their dark world their income matters most. Gregor’s father and mother have no idea of their son’s predicament and his sacrifice for them. They don’t understand that they drove Gregor to lose his direction in life and to lose the place as a member of society. The fact that they don’t understand their son’s tragedy shows how estranged is Gregor from the family. So, their response to Gregor’s disaster is very poor. At first, Grete takes care of Gregor. She is the only contact with humanity for Gregor and her attentiveness rather than food seems to nourish him. Her reaction to her mother’s plan shows that she cares about being the one responsible for Gregor. Then, as the time passes Grete begins to resent Gregor. When she starts working outside the home Gregor creates inconvenience for her. During the story she goes through dramatic changes, undergoes a metamorphosis from special kindness to uncaring and indifferent. In contrast to Grete, Mr. Samsa remains same, merciless person during the whole story. He cruelly hides the fact he has a saving in order to make Gregor feel totally responsible to them and for them. As a result his son to a company that makes him miserable and doesn’t appreciate him. Moreover, he becomes even more aggressive after metamorphosis and throws apple to his son. He even doesn’t hide disgust against his pitiful son. The third member of the family,