The Great Change in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Although Gregor turned into a bug, the real Metamorphosis occurred before the change and with the whole family. Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis reflects the ideals about industrialization and existentialism during the turn of the century. In the novella, Gregor turns into a bug, and the whole family has to deal with it in different ways. Many characters go through a metamorphosis in the novella. Although the changes may not be physical the changes occurred greatly in Gregor, Mr. Samsa, and Grete.

Gregor’s major transformation occurred not when he turned into a bug, but through the changes in his life. Gregor’s life before the changed into some sort of bug was like a bumble bee. He would go through life doing as others told him. In the story Gregor said, “For the time being, however, I must get up because my train leaves at five” (Kafka 4), which explains how he was just someone going through life on a schedule, just like a worker bee. But even before his time as a traveling salesman, he was someone else, “On the wall just opposite hung a photograph of Gregor from the time of his military service” (16). He was a military man, so at this point; he has already changed from someone who was in the military, to a boring worker in a modern industrial world. The greatest change that happened to Gregor was of his appreciated for music. Before, Gregor hardly noted his sister’s violin playing, but at the end of the novella, he said, “Was he a beast if music could move him so? He felt as though the path to his unknown hungers was being cleared” (49). Gregor was never so appreciative towards music in his entire life, but the changes he went through, came out with a new lenience towards it. The obvious assumption about Gregor’s metamorp...

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..., she felt strongly towards her brother, and she loved him, but at the end, the greatest change in to story happened. “It has to go…that’s the only way…we have no brother…it obviously wants to take over the whole apartment” (53). She wanted to kill her brother, because of the work and pain he has brought the family. She even went so far as to say, “We have to get rid of it” (52). In conclusion, the greatest change in the novella was of a kind and loving sister, to a murderous human, who has no brother anymore.

Although Gregor may seem like the only one who went through a metamorphosis, his whole family was along for the ride. So what if everybody looked at their own lives this way, and instead of turning into a bug, just changed in a slight way. What effect would that have on your family if you woke up a different person?

Works Cited

Kafka- The Metamorphosis