Metamorphosis By Franz Kafka Character Analysis

A Person’s Worth
Kierston Wareing once said, “If someone tells you often enough you’re worthless, you start to believe it.” This is often true especially if the negativity comes from family. Franz Kafka supports this idea of negative influence in his novella Metamorphosis. Gregor Samsa, the main character, turns into a life-sized bug and is isolated from his family, because of his transformation. Since Gregor can no longer be of any use to his family, he is separated from them in his locked room. In Metamorphosis, Kafka shows that the moment a person becomes worthless, society casts them aside.
Gregor was not segregated from his family in the beginning of the story. He was actually the family’s source of income to pay their expenses. He had to work a job he detested, even though his father could have paid the expenses without Gregor suffering. However, once Gregor transforms into the giant bug, his family is afraid and starts to seclude Gregor from the family. When he makes his first appearance, while Gregor’s manager is at the house, the family’s first reaction is not what he expected. His father, “…seized in his right hand the manager’s cane…picked up in his left hand a heavy

newspaper… and stamping his feet, started brandishing the cane and the newspaper to drive Gregor back into his room. No plea of Gregor’s helped, no plea was even understood…” (Kafka 1166-1167). Gregor’s father is astonished and confused when he sees this huge insect instead of his son. His first reaction is to hide him from sight before anything else happens. However, no matter how hard Gregor tries to communicate with his father, his dad just shoves him away and locks this insect in a room. His dad took the first step into secluding Gregor from his family and society. Gregor is shocked that his family is so terrified by him and tries to make them understand but to no avail. The Samsa’s have no reason in their eyes to keep their son a part of the family. If Gregor cannot provide for them in any way, why should they welcome him at all? These were the first steps the Samsa family took into isolating Gregor.
Gregor begins to understand what he can do to make things slightly easier on his family while he is isolated from them. He decides to hide whenever his sister comes in to feed him and clean, so she does not have to look at him. However, Grete, his sister, decides to move the furniture from his room, so he can crawl around. Once Gregor completely understands, he runs out of his hiding place and crawls on the wall causing his mother to faint at the sight of him. Grete takes her mother and rushes to get medicine. Gregor wants to help so he runs out of the room and ends up being assaulted by the father with apples. After the attack his family realized, “…Gregor was a member of the family, in spite of his present pathetic and repulsive shape, who could not be treated as an enemy; that, on the contrary, it was the commandment of family duty to swallow their disgust and endure him’ endure hi and nothing more” (Kafka 1179 Since Gregor can no longer do any good for the household, the household feels that they should not have to do a lot for him, only the minimum which is required by family duty. The family’s duty is only to provide something for him to eat; however that also means that they only have to endure him. They have no need to go out of their way for a bug since he can do no good for them. Gregor realizes that his family no longer views him as part of the household. This family of Gregor’s is detached and shows no compassion towards him other than what is necessary.
Towards the end of the story Grete has just about had it with Gregor and all the trouble he has caused.

The family had lost all three of their boarders because Gregor came out of his room and startled them. In Grete’s eyes, Gregor caused them to lose this major source of income and she is ready to get rid of him. Grete tells her parents, “’things can’t go on like this. Maybe you don’t realize it, but I do. I won’t pronounce the name of my brother in front of this monster, and so all I say is: we have to get rid of it.’ ‘She’s absolutely right,’” [said Grete’s father] (Kafka 1187). This family who has had to deal with this insect, which is still their son, has just agreed to remove him from their house and their support. They have taken the final steps into isolating their son

permanently.
Gregor has become worthless to his family and they see no need to include him anymore in anyway. In this novella, Kafka definitely proves that society casts away people who become useless. By Gregor’s original transformation in the beginning of the story Kafka shows the household’s original reaction to their son. Then he shows how Gregor tries to help his family and how he is assaulted by apples because of it. Finally, Kafka shows the final step the family took to ridding themselves of Gregor by deciding to kick him out. Kafka wants to show that once a human being loses his or her worth, the rest of humanity throws them aside with no second glances.