Gutierrez 1

Richard Gutierrez

Professor Beadle

English 115

11 April 2019

Stuck a bug

Feeling isolated is common between humans, but it is also a emotion bugs can relate too.

In The Metamorphosis Gregor , the main character, provides for his family by working a dead

end job and one day wakes up as a gigantic insect. This revelation causes dramatic change with

Gregor and his relationship with his family. The allegory to the book is how humans can isolate

themself and or others when introduced to something that is different. Kafka illustrates this in

The Metamorphosis by having Gregor’s relationship with his family change overtime physically

and emotionally. Over time Gregor starts to lose his connection to humanity. Although people

have argued for multiple allegories from the book Kafka shows progressive stages of isolation

that challenges Gregor’s ability to keep a connection.

Gregor was the main focus when it came to feeling alienation, his transformation and

sense of unfamiliarity with his new body put him in a defensive state. He wanted to figure out

what was happening with him before he made contact with anyone else. When his parents were

knocking on the door Gregor refused to open, the unfamiliarity with his new insect body is what

stopped him from opening the door. He had no direct control of his body making it difficult to

accomplish simple task. “Believe me, sir, there's something the matter with him.”(Kafka 10) said

Gregor's mother to the office manager. She knew that something had changed with gregor

without having to see him. Because Gregors schedule required him to get up so early for the train

his mother knew something was different since he had still been in bed at seven in the morning.
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The manager added stress to this whole situation and Gregor knew that his job was on the line.

“...Gregor’s sole desire was to do his utmost to help the family...”(Kafka 18) so there was no

benefit for him to stay in bed because it would cause him to lose his job. Since he provided for

his whole family Gregor wanted to open the door and relieve himself and his family from this

stressful situation. “He was eager to find out what the others would say at the sight of

him”(Kafka 12). Gregor wanted to see if this change was physical and presentable to others, or if

it was just all in his head.

When Gregor presented himself there was a change in emotion with everyone, the

manager had fear due to the fact that “without letting gregor out his sight, he backed towards the

door”(Kafka 15) and eventually ran away down the stairs in such a rush that he even leaped

down the last few steps. His mother ran for her life after gregor snapped his jaws at her and

fainted into his dad's arms. Thinking that Gregor meant harm, his dad used the managers cane

that had been left behind and newspaper to chase Gregor back into his room. “The door was

slammed shut with the cane”(Kafka 19) This created the first physical isolation between Gregor

and his family, turning the room into a sort of cage. Gregor had little clue of what was happening

and was too caught up in catching the manager to realize the horrors he struck upon others.

Starting the second chapter of the book, where gregor awakens in his room and runs through his

thoughts to try and figure out what is happening.

“Gregor's disunity with the human world, on the other hand, expresses itself in

dissonance”(Ben-Ephraim). Before the transformation we knew that Gregor was a full time

traveling salesman who hardly had any time for leisure. Anytime he spent not working he would

give to his family. Kafka mentions no friends or significant other that Gregor might have had at

the time so we are left to assume his family was the only relationship he had cherished.
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“Restricted to his quarters throughout his brief lifespan”(Ben-Ephraim) Which ties back to

isolation, which we know Gregor had felt even before he transformed because his job was filled

with unmeaningful encounters with others. And the transformation takes away the ability for him

to connect with his family inevitably leading to isolation from human contact. “In an ironic

Typology, the insect brings to fruition Gregor's earlier roles”(Ben-Ephraim). Making the

connection between gregor before the transformation and after, the article is stating that he is

inevitably the same, Isolated from social interaction.

Arguments over the allegory for the metamorphosis have caused a spark for deeper

analyzation of the reading. Though it may seem like a simple story about a man turned into a

bug, Kafka was a major figure of twentieth century writing. Many argue that Kafka used this

story to portray an insight to the horrors of the Holocaust. Anne Roiphe in the article How

Kafka’s ‘Metamorphosis’ Anticipated The Holocaust states “The ultimate extermination of the

Jews began as a campaign to make them seem nonhuman”(Roiphe). This argument uses

alienation to connect how jews were feeling with Gregors emotions after he had transformed.

Jews felt alienated and were at fear for their lives, thousands killed and many tried anything they

could to flee the country and become refugees. Being casted out from their home and society

jews faced one of the worst genocides in history. Gregor shares similarities with this, not having

time to socially interact he is casted out of the world and soon out of his family. But in The

Metamorphosis Gregor is the first to experience this transformation, and is not at fear for his life.

He in fact was more than eager to expose himself to everyone unlike how Jews were feeling

during the Holocaust. “Here, the Jews would become bugs, pictured as such in cartoons and

editorials, pests on the body civic of the gentile world”(Roiphe). The transformation Gregor

faces physically is from human body into insect, but unlike someone who might not want to be
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seen as a vermin Gregor starts to enjoy his new body, going so far as to crawl all over the walls

and hang from the ceiling during his leisure time. The allegory for this book cannot be what

Roiphe states it is although they share similarities.

Gregors unfortunate position as a full time salesman left him to revolve his life around

two things, work and his family. Gregor's job consisted of meeting new people at a rapid pace so

he never had time to connect to them emotionally.Gregor's transformation into an insect finalized

his isolation from any human, since most thought he was too disgusting to look at Gregor spent

his isolation in his room. Along with not being able to communicate it proved to be a strong

challenge for Gregor and his family which lead to his death, riding his family of his burden.

Unlike what Jews felt during the holocaust gregor was never in full fear for his life but instead

feared losing the humanity in him.

Work Cited
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Ben - Ephraim, G. "Making and Breaking Meaning: Deconstruction, Four-level All." The

Midwest Quarterly 35.4 (1994): 450. Web.

Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Arcturus Publishing LTD, 2018.

Roiphe, Anne. “How Kafka's 'Metamorphosis' Anticipated The Holocaust.” The Forward, 9 May

2017,