Loneliness And Isolation In Metamorphosis, By Franz Kafka

A Separate World
“It 's clear to me that anyone, anywhere, can experience loneliness, isolation, solitude, and estrangement; and most people probably do encounter these things at some point in their lives.” (Brendan Myers). Isolation could be a theme in any story because everyone experiences at one point in their life. In the story Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Gregor, like almost everyone else in the world, experienced isolation in his life. Gregor is a pretty normal man that is living with his family and working hard in order to pay off a debt to them. One day, he wakes up as a giant cockroach and has to live like that. His family tries to help him at first, but he is very lonely. Soon, the whole family does not think of that vermin as …show more content…
When Gregor was laying in bed as a bug, he was thinking about how bad his job was. His job really made sure he did not have a lot of time to socialize. But also, he was frustrated that he could not make friends, and he could not find a girlfriend that loved him. He was thinking, “I have to cope with… constant changing human relationships that never come from the heart” (Kafka 1). He is very isolated in this story, and it is explained well in this quote. He meets so many new people as he travels around selling things, but he is still very lonely. He never goes out with friends, he mostly just stays in his room alone. As a bug, Gregor is also very socially isolated. He does not even talk to his family as much as he should, and definitely does not have any friends visit him. This is a metaphor for how little friends he had as a human. When he was laying in his room as a bug, he was debating whether he could show his family what had happened to him when he thought, “Well, leaving out the fact that the doors were locked, should he really call for help?”(Kafka 2). He really felt isolated from the rest of his family. Most normal people should be able to trust their own family with their problems. He did not want to get them involved at first because he did not really feel like part of the family. This isolation as a bug is just a metaphor for how he felt before he became a bug. Gregor was very …show more content…
Right when Gregor woke up and found out he was a bug, it was already way past the time he needed to be out the door and on a train to work. His family was worried about him and wanted to check and see if he was alright. They could not open the door because it was locked. “Gregor […] complimented himself instead on the precaution that he had adopted on his business trips, of locking all the doors during the night even at home”(Kafka 2). His job was one reason that he was so isolated as a human. When he was at hotels while traveling for work, he always had to make sure the door was locked. He did this so much that even while he was safe in his own home, he still isolated himself in his room. If he had chosen another job that did not require this, he would not have been so alone at home. This is one way that the fact that Gregor was isolated as a human is represented in the way he is isolated as a bug. What starts as him locking himself in his room when he was a human turns into his family locking him in the room when he was a bug. Also, he was isolated while he was doing his job. His boss made him get up very early in the morning every day to get out and sell his goods. He was very angry about how everyone was freaking out about him being late one day, after he turned into a bug, and he thought to himself, “Other traveling salesmen live like harem women. For instance, when I go back to the hotel