Existentialism In The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

The Metamorphosis is a short novel written by Franz Kafka. The short novel starts out by introducing the main character, Gregor Samsa. Greg Samsa woke up one morning only to find out that he has been transformed into a large insect. Making things worse, Samsa realizes that he has overslept and missed his train to work. Kafka incorporates qualities of existentialism in his short novel by Samsa constantly thinking about his life and how unhappy he is. At the beginning of the story Samsa talks like an existentialist but his actions do not show it. Only when he is transformed into an insect, does he finally start to figure out how to live his life for himself because he is isolated and start showing existentialist qualities though his action. Kafka …show more content…
They now do not have his money coming in and cannot even bare the sight of him. His sister, Grete, right after the metamorphosis starts to take care of him and is very protective over him, as “she Gregor’s spokesperson to his parents about the things that concerned him” (Kafka, 27). During the story the topic of taking the furniture out of Gregor’s room came up. Grete notices that Gregor needed a lot of room to crawl around, and this was her point-of-view on the topic. While her mother’s point of view on the topic was that, “…It’d be best to leave the room exactly the way it was before” (Kafka, 27). I think that it is common to find people thinking that they know what is best for other people. However, Gregor was the only one who knew what he wanted. He could do away with some stuff, but he wanted the writing desk to stay. I think Grete and Gregor’s mother thinking that they know what is best for Gregor and thinking that they know what he wants helps makes the story more relatable. Families often think that they know what is best for their kids and because of their strong point-of-view, they often find themselves not even asking their children what they