The Importance Of The Dream State In Kafka's The Metamorphosis

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In Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, the main character, Gregor Samsa, undergoes many transformations. Like the title suggest, changes have been done after the metamorphosis of Gregor into an insect. Like the physical transformation, his behavioral ones were so radical that he was wondering if it was not a dream. One thing we know about the dream state is that its meaning can be analyzed in different ways. According to Freud, the dream state is our unconscious revealing suppressed ideas or desires that one’s inner part was hiding. This theory can easily be seen in Gregor new way of acting as an insect. In Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, the animal life is connected to the dream state because they are both expressing suppressed ideas from an inner part …show more content…
However, Gregor is the only working family member which makes the financial support of the family. Each morning Gregor needs to go to work as a Salesman to provide for his family. We know that Gregor takes his job really seriously as he has been doing it for years now. The morning of the transformation, as he realizes that he will not be able to go to work, he analyzes his job for the first time. Indeed, Gregor was always waking up without thinking of staying home as the mother confirmed. Now that he is physically incapable of going to work, Gregor thinks of all the negative aspects of his job. The reader learns that he hates his job because the only reason he is going is to pay his parent’s debts. He doesn’t like his boss and his social conditions. Indeed, Gregor complains about the fact that he does not gate the time to become intimate with someone since he is always traveling. By now, the reader starts to understand that becoming an insect was relevant for him to understand how he hated his job. The same boss he hates came to the Samsa’s house to understand why he was not at work and by the same occasion informed the entire family that Gregor 's …show more content…
According to the mother, when Gregor was not working he used to spend the majority of his time at the table reading newspaper or in his room. It does not seem like the parents had some kind of relationship with their only son. Little after the transformation, Gregor 's sister stopped picking up the plates of food, his room became a storage room and his father threw some apples at him. No matter how his family was treating him, Gregor finds himself comfortable staying under the table or the couch without anyone seeing him. Indeed, Gregor 's family has isolated him in a way that he had no contact with his family. Not only that but the lack of communication Gregor was experiencing also contributed to his isolation. The fact that he could not talk let him no choice but to listen to everything his family was saying about him. This loneliness made him realized how unfaithful his family was. After a certain time, Gregor " would be not at all in a frame of mind to look after his family; instead, he was filled with rage at how poorly he was attended to [..]" (p.91) Taking in consideration that Gregor is dreaming, the reader can understand that the animal state made Gregor realized how he did not want to provide for his family anymore. The important aspect of that analysis is that Gregor 's family has probably always been unfaithful. Indeed,

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