Gregor's Change In The Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka

The story "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka opens with the realization that the main character, Gregor Samsa, has awoken as a giant bug. The reader is introduced to this extreme metamorphosis right from the start. However, does the title "The Metamorphosis" really refer to this blatant and quite literal change, or does it refer to something less obvious and more subtle? After reading into the story deeper the reader is often left wondering, "To what does the title 'The Metamorphosis ' really refer to?" By indentifying Gregor 's relationships and perceptions of himself as well as his family members, particularily his father, Mr. Samsa, and his sister, Grete it becomes apparent that the Metamorphosis has less to do with Gregor 's literal appearance …show more content…
Samsa takes that contradicts Gregor 's perception of him occurs towards the beginning, when Mr. Samsa uses a walking stick and newspaper to force Gregor back into his room. It seems unlikely for a "fat and sluggish man" to so agilely begin "stamping his feet and flourishing the stick and the newspaper to drive Gregor back into his room." (103). This is the first instance where Gregor 's perception of his father, and his father 's actions don 't quite add up. Although this greatly contrasts Gregor 's image of his father, it is not until further into his transformation that Gregor realizes to what extent his view on his father was incorrect. When Gregor leaves his room after his mother and sister attempt to remove his furniture from his room, Mr. Samsa goes into another episode of outrage, resulting in him tossing an apple and lodging it into Gregor 's back. During this outcry, Gregor is surprised to see his father is not so helpless as he imagined him. Kafka writes, "Truly, this was not the father he had imagined to himself; admittedly he had been to absorbed of late in his new recreation of crawling over the ceiling to take the same interest as before in what was happening elsewhere in the flat… And yet, and yet, could that be his father?" (120). This is when Gregor beings to realize that perhaps the image of his father was incorrect. At this point the reader might conclude that the "The Metamorphosis" relates more to the father 's transformation than …show more content…
Prior to his transformation Gregor held the belief that his family relied on him completely for survival. Tragically for Gregor, this belief is shattered as he begins to realize he is not as important to his family as he thought. After the failure of his father 's business, it is explained that "Gregor 's sole desire was to do his utmost to help the family to forget as soon as possible the catastrophe that had overwelmed the business and thrown them all into a state of complete despair." (110) and that "later on Gregor had earned so much money that he was able to meet the expenses of the whole household, and did so." (110). These quotes show how Gregor believed that after his father 's failure in business, his family solely relied on him, but there is evidence in the text against this. At the end of the story, after Gregor has passed, his family comes to the realization that they actually have more money than they expected. Kafka writes, "Leaning comfortably back in their seats they canvassed their prospects for the future, and it appeared on closer insepction that these were not all bad, for the jobs they had got, which so far they had never really discussed with other, were all three admirable and likely to lead to better things later on." (139). This shows how once Gregor is out of the picture, the family is being seen as they really are. Gregor had believed that family relied on him, but once he is passed