The Metamorphosis

THE METAMORPHOSIS

In the opening lines of German author Franz Kafkas' short story narrative "The Metamorphosis", the protagonist Gregor Samsa a disgruntled traveling salesman who lives with and supports his parents and little sister, awakens from a night of unpleasant dreams to find that he has been metamorphosed into a cockroach he calls a "monstrous vermin" (Kafka, page 89). This particularly strange opening sets the stage for in my opinion, a very strange and very vague play. I say this because throughout the whole story we never find out much less are given any clue of how or why he managed to be metamorphosed into this insect. Not to mention what the moral of the story is or the fact that this whole book reads like one big nauseating, joke. As the story begins we basically from the get go are introduced to the daily gist of the book which is Gregor's everyday struggle with his newly acquired body.

This is evident when Gregor try's to crawl out of bed but cannot because he is laid down on his back and as a cockroach does not have the means to get himself up and into a upright poistion. To make things worst when he awakens at half-past six o'clock and is immediately late for the five o'clock train he was destined to be on for his meeting with the porter. Gregor is now running the risk of being unemployed if he doesn't make his appointed rounds as a traveling salesman. It is right before this point that we find out about Gregor's utter contempt for not only his job and his boss but his special loan workout wage setup as well. You see Gregor's parents are in debt to his boss who is only referred to as the "chief" (Kafka, page 90) of his firm. Gregor himself who is a returning veteran of our country yearns to be free his Indentured like servitude to his chief so that he can feel free to pursue other goals. This to me I find quite peculiar because it is never stated what he plans on doing after he pays the debt, nor does he seem to have any remarkable talents about him.

As the story proceeds we again find Gregor desperately trying to get up from out of his bed with all his family members inquiring about his early morning agenda through his locked bedroom doors. From that point on as if things were not already bad to begin with, Gregor's whole world went on a downward spiral the moment the chief clerk makes his way round to the Samsa's residence to see why Gregor did not make his scheduled trip. Gregor then starts to convey to the chief clerk that he was not in the right frame of mind earlier but is all ready to go now. However Gregor fails to realize that the metamorphic change into a cockroach has not only affected his appearance but it has changed his speech pattern as well. He not only looks like a cockroach but his voice which sounds normal to him translates to others in the sound of a cockroach. Upon hearing this insect like sound and seeing Gregor as he now is the chief clerk leaves the Sama's residence never to return taking not only Gregor's job with him but all hopes of Gregor ever repaying the family debt. Gregor is then chased into his room by his dad and forced to basically spend most of his time there until his time was up.

During the time that Gregor was forced to live out the remainder of his existence in his now prison like room, many family matters occur. For one his younger sister whom he is used to taking care of now trades places with him as far as roles in responsibility go. She now after years of good loving and nurturing feels obligated to repay Gregor for all his years of dedication. Since Gregor in his current metamorphosed state cannot do his every day activities, she sees to it that he is feed and his room is kept clean though she personally finds it hard to look at him for undisclosed reasons. While she is doing this it is interesting to see how much utter disgust and loath his father looks at him with, and not for just physical reasons either. This after years of Gregor putting aside his own personal life and ambitions and working hard to repay a debt that is not his to begin with, you would think there would be some form of compassion on his father's part. However some parental compassion does not fall on deaf ears for Gregor's mother openly voices her concern for the now grimacing state her son is in.

These actions however mean nothing because as the story goes on each family members character begins to build due to the fact of responsibility that has now befallen them. Each member must take up now take up jobs to keep the family afloat. As the story builds the father has now taken back his former position as head of the household with Gregor's sister a close second. The mother with her asthma proves to be just too physically and emotionally weak to hold much weight, even though her wifely duties are much appreciated by her husband. As time goes on everyone except for Gregor's mother basically looks at him like an "invalid" (Kafka, page 122) and wants this nightmare he's brought to the household to end. At one point Gregor and his father get into another physical altercation which sees Gregor taking on cockroach like qualities like scurrying back and forth to avoid danger in the from of apples being thrown at him, one of which becomes resident in Gregor's back. To compensate for the lack of monetary gain the Samsa's rent out one of their rooms to lodgers to help cover the slack. At the climax of the story we find not a physical altercation but a verbal one between all talking members of the family which excludes Gregor for two reasons but still involves him.

When Gregor decides to leave his room to try to share a moment with his talented violinist of a sister it is mistaken for an attack on the lodgers and all hell breaks loose. Hell in the form of his once guardian angel of a sister, this time stating that "he must go," (Kafka, page 134). At the end the charwoman who used to go to Gregor's room to tease him finds him flattened in his room dead apparently from starvation, Gregor hardly ate once his relationship with his family deteriorated. Even though it is hinted at that the Samsa's weep together in a room they still showed no compassion when the charwoman proclaimed that she threw Gregor in the garbage. In the end the Samsa's talked about moving when they went on a family stroll and looked at their daughter with signs of hope. Perhaps they now want her to solely work off their debt. I personally did not like this story that much for its lack of information and its handling of the situation. I also find tales of giant sized cockroaches running rampant to be quite disgusting. I believe that Kafkas' moral can easily be distorted by a trained or untrained eye in literature because of