Solitude In Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

Decent Essays
After awhile Gregor was starting to feel an effect of solitude in his condition . As mentioned by Kafka, Gregor was beginning to be mobile and move around the house (ch.1). He was accepting his body and found solace in climbing up the walls. Gregor wasn't entirely sure why this transition was happening. His family wasn't content with his transition. Gregor's sister Grete started to become distant and uncomfortable with his presence alone. His solitude began to change when he realized the uncomforted he brought to his family. For instance, Kafka mentions how Gregor would start to peak out the room where only half his body was out the room (ch.1). He knew his transition didn't appeal to his family. Gregor's family didn't adjust to the sight of

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    However, Grete becomes more distant from Gregor the more Gregor pains and inconveniences the family. When Gregor finally dies, Grete only looks back at his corpse for a moment, looking back at her old life. She does not help to remove Gregor or perform any memorial for Gregor, which showcases how significantly Grete changes. As Grete follows her parents, it is her first step into a new life. They move to the country and act like Gregor was never a person.…

    • 1923 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Gregor was obviously being neglected, and somehow his family still thought they were the ones being treated unfairly. In Gregor's final days, the support from Grete had entirely disappeared. The one person Gregor trusted the most had ultimately betrayed him, pushing Gregor to starve himself. “’It has to go,’ cried his sister. ‘That’s the only answer, Father’” (Kafka…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Grete, Gregor’s sister, would care for him and bring him food and clean his room. Bread and milk was left for him but he wouldn’t have those things and would rather eat moldy foods and kitchen scraps instead of fresh vegetables. Being in the room alone all the time, Gregor got used to crawling and found the satisfaction in being on the ceiling and under close, dark places, like under the sofa. The bug life was replacing his old human life and there wasn’t much left of that to hold onto after Grete thought he would enjoy more space in his room if his furniture was taken out of it. Gregor clung onto the last piece and human evidence he had that was a picture of a women in furs on his wall.…

    • 574 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Have you ever heard of a bug being social or a bug who talks too much? I’ve never met such a bug in my life. In Metamorphosis Gregor morphs into a cockroach, thus his family is greatly affected. Gregors isolation is not shown in the story before he becomes a cockroach as everything seems fine about him to his family. As Gregor becomes a cockroach, his isolation comes to light as bugs are not very social and keep to themselves.…

    • 474 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The turn of the twentieth century sparked the change of European culture as people experienced the power struggle between nations. As World War I heightened in the early 1900s, devastation was brought to many families when the men were sent to battle, while the remaining working class struggled to control their own lives at home. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis exemplifies the constraints wrapped around the working class as World War I was underway beginning in 1914. Gregor Samsa’s bug transformation depicts his isolation from his world and his family since he is not able to work.…

    • 1586 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It has become an obvious chore for his sister who no longer remembers human Gregor. The family no longer wishes to care for him. They hired a charwomen to do the interaction with Gregor for them. This goes to extremes when the family come to realize that Gregor is not going to transform back into human form; they start to contemplate killing him. Rhodes, author of “The Limits of Generosity: Lessons on Ethics, Economy, and Reciprocity in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis” states that the reason why Grete’s kindness and generosity is become impossible for her to achieve because her to, Gregor no longer has the voice or appearance of a human.…

    • 1650 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    It is his sister, Grete’s idea to move all of the furniture out of his room. This will allow him more room to scurry without leaving residue behind. Even though Gregor appreciated the extra room, he was worried that he was losing any tie to his human self he had left. In an effort to save his morality Gregor crawled onto the wall to protect the first thing he could think of, a picture frame on the wall of a lady all dressed up in fur, so his family would not take it away. When his mother entered the room and saw him there, she did not see her son but a vermin monster.…

    • 859 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the quote stated above, it is evident that Gregor is not happy in the work he is doing now; however, Gregor feels as if he must endure the misery for his family. After going further into The Metamorphosis, the story reveals that Gregor 's father had the capability to pay off his own debts entire time. Not only did Mr. Samsa abuse Gregor by having him pay off the debts, he used Gregor for his own selfish ways. His father failed as a parent by holding him back from having a successful, happy life. Throughout Gregor’s life, he was often treated like a bug, causing him to turn into one.…

    • 1009 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He endeavors anyway. This really exemplifies Gregor 's motivation to remain alive, but while still alive knowing he is in a hopeless battle against something no person can fight. Gregor can’t connect on deeper level with anybody. A lack of time is his major roadblock in developing friendship before his metamorphosis. Then after his transformation He has plenty of time, but he is unable to speak.…

    • 1210 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    This point is the first part of his dis-conjunction of body and mind. His slow metamorphosis into a bug slowly turned into a battle of whether or not to embrace his bug like shell, or hang onto his human mind. “Did he really want the warm room, so cozily appointed with heirlooms, transformed into a lair, where he might, of course, be able to creep, unimpeded, in any direction, though forgetting his human past swiftly and totally?” (Pg.26). This is the climax of Gregor’s struggles,and Resonates with many as the great inner struggle.…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    People like Gregor with depression will often feel stuck and have no motivation to move or try something new. Another point would be, he was incapable of talking to express his physical and emotional needs or communicate with his family, which leads to fights and Gregor being isolated. Towards the end of the novella, he loses almost all of his vision, mobility, and appetite, leading to a quite a trivial, hopeless life. Even when Gregor was lying still on the floor for days, his family’s housekeeper thought he was “playing the martyr,” (Kafka 58). When someone is suicidal or having hopeless thoughts, they are generally encouraged to talk to family or close friends which Gregor could not do.…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    “It is not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it,” states Hans Selye. In The Metamorphosis, the novella by Franz Kafka and the graphic novel by Peter Kuper, Gregor Samsa does not react well to the daily stress of life. The stress causes him to feel isolated from others. The daily stress of Gregor Samsa’s work, family, and personal life choices are the reasons for his feelings of isolation.…

    • 1113 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Symbolism In The Metamorphosis Kafka

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited

    In the beginning of the story Gregor is described as “squirming” (3) and “shocked to hear his own voice,” (5) which resembles his struggle of finding out who he is because he has turned into what family/society wants him to be. The fact that he is “shocked to hear his own voice” justifies that Gregor is not only confused on he has become, but it exposes the reality that Gregor never voices his concerns on being someone he isn’t. It startles him to realize that he is a prisoner within his own body and can’t figure out who he has become, which Kafka makes the reader feel sympathy for him because of his confusion in his mind. Towards the middle of the story Gregor “inconsistently darted madly” (18) around the room when his father was chasing him, which symbolizes Gregor’s chaotic state of trying to live up to his father’s approval because he “didn’t want to let his family down” (11) and how he feels “useless in his present state” (27). Kafka describes Gregor as “simply happy” when Gregor finds solitude in his own body, which shows that Gregor can accept who he is only in his bug form and doesn’t dwell too heavily on the expectations that has been set before him, which makes him authentic because he doesn’t feel he needs to meet his family’s expectations anymore (32).…

    • 1048 Words
    • 5 Pages
    • 1 Works Cited
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    “Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness” (Alejandro Jodorowsky). People who have always lacked freedom fail to understand the importance of being able to grow and find individuality. Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis explores the role of the individual, and what it takes as well as what must be sacrificed in order to find contentment in a capitalistic society. Individuals find that society constantly imposes limitations upon them, most since birth.…

    • 1855 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He was always busy with work. The only person that could be said to be close to him was his sister, who would turn on him later in the story. Upon metamorphosis, Gregor could no longer provide for himself, which wasn't a problem, or his family who, he was most worried about. From the point of this major physical change from a human to a beetle, his family starts to turn on him. This is due to the fact that Gregor had no longer acquired the ability to work to work and provide for his family.…

    • 529 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays