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The psychological causes of depression
The psychological causes of depression
Psychological causes of depression
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“Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,” from Kaiser Permanente, is a good quote to tell us the important of mental, physical, and social well-being for our health. If a person doesn’t have all of three conditions, he/she doesn’t have a healthy body and healthy life. Tuyen, my aunt’s brother in law, is an example. He needed to work twelve hours per day without day off and health care to take care of his family. Therefore, he often feel tired, stressed and depressed about his job over twenty years. One day of five years ago, Tuyen got a terrible sick and became mental retardation after that. So, he looked like a baby boy and couldn’t make money for the family …show more content…
So, they have lack of sleep, stressed, and unhappiness in their daily live. Like the patient in example, Gregor has some symptoms about depression when he wakes up with his new body as a giant bug. “Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel quite sad. "How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all this nonsense", he thought...and in his present state couldn 't get into that position” (Kafka). Gregor feels sad, feels tired in his mind, and feels down, so these are some symptoms of depression. Moreover, according to the article “Depressed”, “In addition, trauma, loss of a loved one, a difficult relationship, or any stressful situation may trigger a depressive episode. Other depressive episodes may occur with or without an obvious trigger” (National Institute of Mental Health). There are some causes of depression of many people in the world, and also the causes of Gregor’s depression. Before the transformation, Gregor has a “stressful situation” in his job. Although Gregor feels sad and tired about his job as a traveling salesman, he needs to go to work every single day. Therefore, Gregor feels stressed and depressed that make a lot negative effects for his mental health in future (the day when he turn into a bug). Plus, Gregor has a “difficult relationship” with his family’s members. …show more content…
First, after the transformation, Gregor lose his human voice, so both his family’s members and his manager cannot hear what Gregor said. ““Have you heard Gregor speak yet?” "That was an animal’s voice", said the manager” (Kafka 14). So, lose voice is a symptom of laryngitis that many people sometimes get in their live. According to the article “Diseases and Conditions Laryngitis,” “Laryngitis is an inflammation of your voice box (larynx) from overuse, irritation or infection.” Gregor is working hard every day, so he may get sick and easy to get laryngitis that make his voice loss and cannot talk with other person. Second, in Gregor’s transformation, we can recognize that stress makes Gregor has some negative effects in his physical health. As a result, it makes Gregor has trouble with his digestive system. After the transformation, he cannot eat like a human anymore, so he is gradually change in his appetite. According to Gregor Samsa in “The Metamorphosis”, “…but the milk did not taste at all nice. Milk like this was normally his favorite drink, and his sister had certainly left it there for him because of that, but he turned, almost against his own will, away from the dish and crawled back into the center of the room” (Kafka). Having a trouble with digestive system is a common symptom of a lot of employees who work a long time in their companies. They usually don’t have a suitable schedule for eat
Thirdly, he suffers isolation from the physical world, which he is no longer able to participate in due to his presence and lack of mobility. Lastly, he suffers isolation from other people around him, especially his family. By the end even his sister, Grete, the most compassionate member of the family, explanations that they should stop thoughtful of the creature as the person they knew. She says that “the fact that we’ve believed it so long is the root of our trouble” (Kafka 48), which can be taken to mean that at some point Gregor stopped being a person not only because of his entrance but since of his non-conformist actions. The beating he receives from his father shows the extent of the cruelty he endures, though his father knows that “family duty compulsory the conquest of disgust and the use of endurance, nothing but patience” (Kafka 36). The tragedy is that this alienation ends up killing Gregor, who “dies not as a vermin, but as a human being thinking of his family”. The transformation is an indication of the breakdown of Gregor’s psyche and alienation within his self. The reader is not told how the transformation
Gregor, prior to his metamorphosis, is stuck in a cycle of suffering. He is a slave to his obligations and is alienated emotionally from the outside world. His life, ruled by his families dependence on him, around a job he neither choose nor enjoys. Gregor’s work so engrosses his life that there is no time for rest. He has not “had a day’s illness in his five years at the firm.” and that “if it weren't for my parents I’d have handed in my notice long ago.” (Kafka 1967) Gregor lives alarm clock ...
Before the transformation, Gregor was a human form of nonchalant reclusiveness. It’s almost as if it was crucial for him to go through the conversion so he could become more emotionally aware despite the irony of him not even being human but a bug. For someone who has been human for about 20 years with absolutely no experience of being an insect, then suddenly become more humane as a creature is odd and outlandish. Gregor’s care for his family increases and begins to worry about their loss of financial and emotional security. He fears that what “if all the peace, the comfort, the contentment were to come to a horrible end?” Gregor’s attitude towards his transformation is hopelessly mundane: he does not question why he has been transformed into a cockroach. Significantly, he fails to find the horror and the absurdity in the situation. Right before his death, Gregor feels all kinds of warm and fuzzy feelings about his family members. Despite his pathetic condition, he seems more humane than the rest of the characters. In a way, Gregor’s transformation and all of the events after that day illustrates both the rewards and sacrifices of defying social convention and living the extraordinary
First and foremost Gregor was betrayed by his own parents who failed to care for him after his transformation. The initial reaction of the parents, especially his father, set the tone for the whole novel. Instead of trying to resolve the issue with a reasonable solution, his father physically abuses him, “when from behind, his father gave him a hard
In The Metamorphosis Gregor was a working class man who only concerned himself with working and providing for his family. He had no friends, no life or love interest. Gregor was capital to his boss and his family. Without his labor his boss had no product to sell or money to make and without Gregory money his family would not have had a comfortable lifestyle. Once Gregor transformed into giant vermin he became useless to society and his family. He could no longer provide for his family, which in turn like the bourgeois, began treating him like a worthless nobody by not caring for him when he needed it the most.
Traveling was a major priority in Gregor's life. It practically consisted of it. He had the lonely life of a traveling businessman. Because his work did require constant movement, he was unable to develop any real friendships Gregor did come off to possess a lypophrenia attitude, which means to have sadness without any real cause. He was very quiet, and secluded. His room was his sanctuary and his body was his carrier. "His room, a regular human room, only a little on the small side, lay quiet between the four familiar walls." (Page 1157, column 1). His personality was odd, therefore it might have contributed to the fact of him...
Gregor is only seen as a handicapped individual, only his physical is judged, his mental capacity is never tested. “His parents didn't want Gregor to start any more than a sister did, but perhaps for them to be directly involved in his feeding was more than they could bear, or perhaps a sister wanted to shield them even from what might prove to be no more than a minor
His family used to care about him but after the transformation, they were no longer concerned for him. Every time the family talks about money, Gregor feels guilty and embarrassed because he can no longer provide for them. When he was able to work before, he had brought money home and “They had simply got used to it, both the family and Gregor; the money was gratefully accepted and gladly given, but there was no special uprush of warm feeling” (Kafka Ch 2 pg 6). Now that he can no longer provide, the family had to come up with ways to keep up with finances. Gregor is dehumanized each time his sister Grete walks into the room to look after him because she cannot bear the sight of him so he hides each time. Each day following Gregor’s transformation, the family’s behavior towards him became more cynical and resentful towards him. They do not allow him to leave his room and worry about how they can go on living with him. They think of him as being a creature, losing their view of him as a human being and no longer important. When Grete decided to take his furniture out of his room, Gregor feels he is dehumanized because they are taking away the link to his humanity. When it came to Gregor’s father, Gregor would “run before his father, stopping when he stopped and scuttling forward again when his father made any kind of move.” His father then threw at apple at him which ‘landed right on his back and sank in; Gregor wanted to drag himself forward, as if this startling, incredible pain could be left behind him” (Kafka Ch 2 pg
With Gregor’s transformation comes a lot of minor and major changes with each character in the novella. These characters change both physically and mentally with the big events that happen. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor is not the only one who experiences a change; instead all of the characters go through mental and physical changes. Besides the obvious transformation of a human into a bug, Gregor’s changes throughout the novella are very minimal. When the change happens, the first thing that comes to his mind is pleasing his family by going to work so he can support them.
Before Gregor’s transformation, he was functioning. In other words, Gregor was working as a salesman, which helped him to provide for his family and paying off their debts. “ Gregor set to work with unusual ardor and almost overnight had become a traveling salesman instead of a little clerk, with of course much greater chance of earning money, and his success was immediately transformed into hard cash which he could lay on the table before his amazed and happy family” (Kafka 442). Gregor providing for his family gave him control over family issues or them, thus making his family to not function.
Being alone for so long caused Gregor to become very depressed and somewhat suicidal when he wouldn't eat his food. The maid and the three men were rather rude to gregor whenever they saw him, such as when the maid called Gregor a “old dung-beetle” (kafka 34). Or when the maid smacks gregor's lifeless body around the room trying to see if he would wake up. Another time would be when the three men asked for their breakfast while the Samsa’s were looking at Gregor's corpse.
Before the metamorphosis Gregor is at the top of Hierarchy pyramid. He’s dating with a girl, does well in his occupation, his boss trust him, and is never late in his workday. However, after he woke up late in the morning, he recognizes that he transform into a giant bug. This metamorphosis show that his Hierarchy chart is down to Self Esteem part. Gregor Samsa thinks to himself : "What's happened to me?"(line 7) this quotation showed that Gregor was upset after he found that he cannot be human anymore. After that everything in his life is getting worse, his
Prior to his metamorphosis Gregor was physically alienated from any semblance of a social life due to his job and financial obligation to his family afterward the transformation and he was deemed a burden to his family that he had provided for countless months he was psychologically isolated from them as well. Notably while he had finally been emancipated from his dreaded job as a salesman, instead of being filled with happiness he realized he has become a parasitic to his family and without being labeled as a provider they slowly began to turn against him only worsening his mental state and exile. The family dynamic of the Samsa’s only revolves around who can bring home the largest paycheck while allowing the rest of the family to reap the benefits. Prior to the metamorphosis Gregor’s family was parasitic and cared little for his quality of life as long as he was supporting the family. Once Gregor was incapacitated Mr. and Mrs. Samsa turned their attention towards Grete to take their son’s
Throughout our healthy brains, healthy bodies course so far, we have learned time and time again about the strong and important relationship between our brains and our bodies. Health and wellness is not one single thing, it is a collection of practices, attitudes and ways of being in the world, which help us cultivate the best form of ourselves. Finding and understanding the ways in which we can best take care of ourselves, and then applying them, gives us the opportunity to improve our physical, cognitive, mental and emotional wellbeing. Embodying our healthiest selves helps not only us, it helps those around us by providing a positive example about how to exist within our own bodies, and exist within the world. Throughout this paper, we will
In my situation, my transformation began as a result of dissatisfaction I had with my peers and overall life. I wasn't with happy where I was, who I was, and I wanted to change that. The people I had surrounded myself with I also wasn't very fond of because I feel that they had a negative effect on my behaviour. Therefore I decided I should force myself to make an active personality change to counteract this poor influence. Gregor's change began as an alteration in his physique which caused his environment to change, due to the fact that it no longer treated him the same as when he was a human. “Gregor was startled when he heard his voice answering. It was clearly and unmistakably his earlier voice, but in it was intermingled, as if from below, an irrepressibly painful squeaking which left the words positively distinct only in the first moment and distorted them in the reverberation, so that one didn’t know if one had heard correctly.” He can no longer move, walk, talk communicate, and exist in the same way, which ultimately leads to his mental transformation into a bug. Gregor’s second transformation later occurred as a result of his family exposing a new side of themselves, and their lack in concern, as well as what could be looked at as hatred and disregard for Gregor. “The sister now kicked some food or other very quickly into his room in the morning and at