Metamorphosis Essay

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Have you ever thought about how humans are dependent creatures? Humans tend to depend to things like environment, financial situation, social status and even other humans. For example, when I moved to the United States from Liberia, Arica, I had to change in order to survive. In Frank Kafka’s Metamorphosis, the transformation of Gregor Samsa from human to bug led to the transformation of his family. Gregor was the head of his family while he was human. He was a salesman, which helped paid his family’s debts. Gregor’s family was dependent on him and when he changed into a bug, his family had to change in order to survive without Gregor. This illustrates two metamorphoses: Gregor functioning as human led to his family dysfunction and his dysfunction led to his family functioning. The illustration shows how Gregor and his family are depending on each other.
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.
However, immediately with Gregor transformation into a bug led to his dysfunctional behavior. Gregor woke up and noticed that he was a bug. Instead of Gregor freaking out about his current state, he worried about how he would go to work. Gregor tried many ways to get off his bed but...

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... note: Mr. Samsa to his board of management, Mrs. Samsa to her employer and Grete to the head of her firm, to go on a vacation (Kafka 459).
To sum it up Frank Kafka’s Metamorphosis symbolizes the dependence of humans on things. The relationship between Gregor and his family clearly show how dependence changes between human when their environment or surrounding changes. When Gregor function, his family dysfunction and vise verse. Throughout the story, Gregor’s metamorphosis became his family’s metamorphosis. However, the family independence was different from Gregor because Gregor always depend on his family financial issues as a motivation to work, while his family depends on Gregor’s dysfunctional behavior, which ended until he died. In a way Gregor depending on his family ended with his death. Gregor’s and his family’s metamorphosis was Gregor’s transformation.

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