How Does Kafka Respond To Fear

Change is hard for most people. Change is uncertain and takes time to get used to, so when an event occurs, and there is something new and different, people tend to become fearful and repulsed. Kafka illustrates problems he saw in society through Gregor's transformation into a human-sized beetle, in his short story "The Metamorphosis".

In "The Metamorphosis", Gregor's family responds to his transformation fearfully rather than attempt to understand him; Kafka reveals that the best way to respond to change is to embrace it and try to understand it rather than fear it. Gregor's family is very scared of him. Gregor's "mother was not used to the sight of him; it might make her sick" (Kafka 513). Gregor's mother, who is supposed to be one of his closest and understanding family members, changes her perception of him completely when he transforms into a large beetle. Gregor's

mother is so fearful due to the change, that she completely disregards the situation and tells Gregor's sister, Grete, that, "‘I think it would be best if we tried to keep the room just as it was, so that when Gregor comes back to us, everything will be unchanged and it can be easier to forget what happened in the meantime'" (Kafka 512).

Gregor's mother illustrates how fear and anxiety can get in the way of change and progress. People in society are often too scared of the unknown that they would rather ignore the problem, rather than try to fix it. The only person in the story who attempts to understand Gregor after his transformation is his sister. Gregor's sister "to find out what he liked, she brought him a wide selection [of food] that she spread out on an old newspaper" (Kafka 507). While his other family members were

utterly repulsed by him, Grete took the time to understand Gregor. Grete illustrates that understanding new, different, and weird things are a positive thing, and something that society should encourage. Kafka uses Grete to emphasize his point that attempting to understand change and different things is good, rather than fear or fight them.

Kafka illustrates the ludicrousness of certain aspects of the society he lived in by the absurdity of Gregor's metamorphosis into a dung-beetle. Kafka published "The Metamorphosis" in 1915, during World War One, in Russia. Kafka saw the absurdities of society and war. Innocent people dying is almost as absurd as a man waking up as a beetle. When "Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed into a monstrous insect" (Kafka 494). The absurdities Kafka observed in society are reflected in this quote, for the writing is very calm and smooth juxtaposing the ridiculousness of the problem. Gregor also thinks his metamorphosis is not a huge deal, for he still wants to go to work rather than figure out how to become human again. Gregor is consumed with thoughts of work like "even if he did catch the train, he wouldn't escape a scene with his boss" (Kafka 496) rather than of his metamorphosis. The senselessness of Gregor's desire to go to work, when he had bigger problems to solve reveals the absurdity of societal expectations and values.

Kafka used Gregor’s metamorphosis to illustrate problems that he saw in society. The problems of fear of change and absurdities of war and societies values are still issues in the twenty-first century, making Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” applicable even 100 years later.