Sofia 1

Sofia Irfan

Jon Beadle

March 27, 2019

Eng115

Forever Alone

The Metamorphosis​ ​by Franz Kafka is a tale about a young man named Gregor who

wakes up to find that he has been turned into a large insect. Over the course of the novel, we

see his own and his family’s journey into dealing with Gregor’s transformation. The text

deals with many themes and motifs, but the two that are most present in the novel are

isolation and dehumanization, which can be read as an allegory for the isolation and

dehumanization that one feels in a modern day working class environment. This is significant

as it warns of the social consequences of staying in a capitalist system.

Gregor was a travelling salesman before he became an insect and could no longer

work, and we can decipher from the text that he was already lonely before his forced

isolation. The isolation he felt before turning into an insect was not technically forced, but his

conditions as a travelling salesman for which he had to go from door to door, never truly gave

him the opportunity to stay anywhere long enough to form a connection. As the text states he

was, ''Travelling day in and day out…contact with different people all the time so that you

can never get to know anyone or become friendly with them...​ ​temporary and constantly

changing human relationships which never come from the heart.” (Kafka, 4-5). Even the

picture he has hanging on the wall is not of a woman he knows or has any relationship with,

rather it is of a woman that he found in a magazine. His transformation into an insect thus is

an extreme and physically visible continuation of his feelings from before his metamorphosis.
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The modern working class life does not give Gregor or his family much in the way of

socialization. Due to the nature of their dependency on Gregor and their initial reluctance to

work, Gregor’s family stays home and enjoys the fruits of Gregor’s labour, but because they

stay home, it ensures that they too are isolated from the rest of the world. Although boarders

sometimes come and stay in their house, it is for short periods of time and this fleeting human

connection is not enough for them to form any real bonds. The last real connection that

Gregor had left was the relationship he shared with his family, and even that is taken away

once his family realizes that they have no use for him any longer. There is no place in this

modern world for someone who is not a productive member of society, and so his family

shuns him. Even Grete, someone who was sweet and caring in the beginning, is transformed

into someone who is ruthless and unforgiving by the end, changed fundamentally by the

world around her that gives her no choice in the matter. Grete can no longer be the soft

person she was in the beginning, she has to be harder in order to survive in the modern world,

and by the end of the novel she decides that since there is no longer any use for Gregor, he

needs to go; ​“We must try to get rid of it,’ the sister now said decisively to the father, for the

mother, in her coughing fit, wasn’t listening to anything, ‘it is killing you both. I see it

coming. When people have to work as hard as we all do, they cannot also tolerate this endless

torment at home. I just can’t go on any more,” (Kafka, 68). ​This is a view that modern society

often pushes; people who have no purpose other than to leech off others instead of being a

productive member of society have no reason to exist, and should thus leave somehow, as

Gregor does in the end by way of death.

Gregor’s own family would, perhaps, have shared a similar fate as Gregor had they

not changed themselves. Initially it is they who are the insects, the parasites that feed off of

Gregor’s life. Gregor is the only member of the household that works, and his family depends
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on this to survive. It is not clear whether Gregor resents this, but it is clear that once the tables

are turned and Gregor is the one is need of care and attention, his family does not appreciate

or reciprocate the way Gregor had cared for them, turning on him instead, as Grete says,

“You must try to get rid of the idea that this is Gregor. The fact that we have believed for so

long, that is truly our real misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would

have long ago realized that a communal life among human beings is not possible with such an

animal and would have gone away voluntarily” (Kafka, 69). What does not occur to Grete is

that Gregor had continued providing for them when it was his duty to care for them. Since

Gregor’s family has started to conform to society’s ruthless expectations, they do not believe

that Gregor’s needs are for them to deal with. Gregor has no purpose, is not a contributing

member of the family, and since it’s a eat or be eaten world, Grete is ready to get rid of her

now useless brother.

The way that modern society values people who work and devalue those who don’t is

an issue that sociologists have been trying to understand for decades. There are now schools

of thoughts that have considered that the model for society’s work today is not the only way

to live, and there have been ideas floated for alternatives means of existence, such as

“post-work.” Studies have shown that there in societies with less working hours and a higher

basic income, such as Scandinavian nations, have higher happiness levels. These nations have

given their population more leisure time, as well as money to spend it on this leisure, leading

to a more content population (Beckett).

When, in 1974 Britain, an international oil crisis caused energy shortage, the ruling

government announced that the nation would only work 3 days a week. There was a

noticeable difference that the citizens of Great Britain felt that the change in work days

created; their non-work lives were now much richer. The leisure activities that before the
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nation was able to only enjoy sparsely, were now a part of their daily lives. Society even

became ever so slightly more egalitarian as men began helping with the household chores and

taking up interest in their wives lives (Beckett). Although most were earning less than before,

and the work days became much longer, there was also a difference in the employee

productivity levels. Since there was now time to be mentally and intellectually stimulated, the

population became at least 5% more productive, an exponential number for Britain’s usually

lethargic and listless workforce (Beckett).​ However, since Gregor stops working completely

instead of just reducing his work to a few days a week, he becomes sloth-like. It does not

bode well for Gregor, who previously had been working all the time, to be staying at home,

doing nothing. There needs to be a balance between work and leisure time, which Gregor

does not get to experience, as he is thrown from a full time job to unemployment in an

instant.

Kafka himself struggled with the problems of the modern work environment. After

completing his studies in law, Kafka got a job at an insurance company and was forced to set

aside his passion for writing, only having the chance to do it every once in a while. In letters

of correspondence in the year of 1907, Kafka wrote of his unhappiness with the schedule that

he was forced to work at, his hours lasting from eight in the morning to six in the evening

(Karl, p210). This theme is obviously woven into The Metamorphosis, mentioned briefly

first, “This getting up early,’ he thought, ‘makes a man quite idiotic. A man must have his

sleep. Other traveling salesmen live like harem women.” And when he thinks about how his

boss would react if he slacked off like that, this is the conclusion he arrives at; “If I were to

try that with my boss, I’d be thrown out on the spot” (Kafka, p4-5). The strict clock and long

hours that one has to work in the modern world is a problem for Kafka, just as it’s a problem

for Gregor. Though Gregor is not able to enjoy the free time he now has after his
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transformation, he probably would not have realized that not working is a good thing even if

he had been human when he was forced to stop working. The modern working environment

is dependent on people who assume that not working is the pinnacle of lazy living, always

providing the capitalist system with workers willing to buy into their way of living, which

does not see people as humans, rather small parts of a bigger machine (Thompson). It is

dehumanization.

This aforementioned dehumanization is shown in Gregor’s transformation into a

literal insect. Gregor is turned into something that society already views him as- he is

subhuman as far as the capitalist system is concerned (Zeynep). There is no voice for the

small time workers in our society, only the higher ups get to decide our fates. Gregor cannot

even for a minute consider calling in sick, as he says, “He was the boss’s minion, without

backbone or intelligence. Well then, what if he reported in sick? But that would be extremely

embarrassing and suspicious, because during his five years’ service Gregor hadn’t been sick

even once” (Kafka, p5-6). Even calling in sick is seen as a lazy man’s way out. Gregor’s boss

goes so far as to “reproach his (Gregor’s) parents for their lazy son… for him everyone was

completely healthy but really lazy about work” (Kafka, p6). The myth that working hard is a

way of life, and that one should constantly strive to work hard is a relatively modern way of

thinking. Before the industrial revolution, history reveals that work was always seen more as

a means to an end rather than an end in and of itself. Often, labour was pushed upon the

poorer people, or else humanity invented their way out of having to do work, just as

technology is progressing at rapid speeds now to accommodate for our even increasing need

for labour (Thompson). The industrial revolution changed the way that humanity worked

because suddenly, obedient workers and laborers were required by the hundreds and
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thousands, and it would not do to have people who wanted more time for leisure when that

time could be spent working in the newly minted, mass production factories.

There are those that argue that The Metamorphosis was written far too early to be an

accurate prediction of what the modern working life would be like, and that the modern

working environment actually brought about million of jobs that would not be possible

otherwise. ​When the novel was written, the world was on the brink of new technological

developments, the industrial revolution bringing about great change and prosperity for many.

This new technology created a strict working environment that while many did not appreciate

the conditions of, others found gave them opportunities that were unavailable to them

previously. Nine to five jobs were a new and sometimes problematic concept, but they were

necessary to keep the factories running that produced millions of revolutionary products,

giving millions of people jobs and income that many needed. However, the industrial

revolution had been underway a long enough time for Kafka to understand the damage that

these capitalist jobs was causing and would continue to for the coming years.

Thus, it is crucial and significant to read the Metamorphosis as an allegory for

criticism on the modern working environment, because Gregor’s fate acts as a warning for

the long term negative effects of staying in the capitalist system. Not only is Gregor’s agency

and respect as a person taken away, but his bonds to other people are weakened too, leaving

him a hollow shell of what he once was. The capitalist system demands this of their workers,

draining them of every resource they have to offer, before discarding them as useless if they

are no longer contributing. One is given the impression that they are always replaceable, and

in fact one will be replaced should they “slack off.” This ruthless system creates people who

also do not see others as people, but only value them as much as their working ability. This is

why when Gregor’s family, his sister and father, enter the workforce, there is a shift in the
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way they treat Gregor. They have purpose in society now, while Gregor does not. They are

useful, while Gregor is useless. It is a toxic way of thinking that must end in order to change

the way that humanity progresses (Zeynep). In a world where Gregor’s value was not put

entirely on how much work he could do or how much money he could earn for his family

would perhaps have made him a happier person, and he would not have had to suffer the

gruesome fate he does in the Metamorphosis.

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Works Cited

Beckett, Andy. “Post-Work: the Radical Idea of a World without Jobs.” The

Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Jan. 2018.Web.

Karl, Frederick R. “Franz Kafka: Representative Man.” Boston: Ticknor & Fields,

1991. Print.

Kafka, Franz. “The Metamorphosis” 1915. Arcturus Publishing LTD, 2018. Print

Thompson, Derek. “A World Without Work.” ​The Atlantic​, Atlantic Media Company,

6 Nov. 2017. Web.

Zafer, Zeynep. “The Tragedy of Modern Individual in Society: A Kafkaesque View.”

Academia.edu, 2012. Web.