Darn, Our Son Died...

So I thought that Gregor was pretty chill about the fact he got turned into a bug. To be honest, I'd expect him to freak out considerably over something that affected him so much. But that's enough about that...I've already made a blog post on that subject.

So after that incident, I didn't think it would be possible for anybody to be anywhere near as chill, heaven forbid be even more chill, about something as supposedly important to their lives. And like most literary predictions I've made in the history of blogging, I was proven wrong.

When Gregor dies, saddened with the fact that his family now sees him as a burden and as a pain, and doesn't give him the love and acceptance he had been hoping for, his family doesn't seem to care, despite the fact that their son, or what was once their son depending on who's view you're looking at it from, has just died.

And not only do they not let Gregor's death affect their lives, they don't treat Gregor's corpse with the respect typically given to a dead human. Heck, his post-mortem treatment is worse than that given to household pets! He's literally pushed around with a broom before being disposed of, like you'd treat a pest or garbage, and nothing like how one's son should be treated.

I guess this shows the divide that's grown between Gregor and his family. From his pre-bug stage, where he provided entirely for his family and his family relied completely on him, his importance has shriveled away to nothing, possibly even a negative value since he's a pain, has to be taken care of, and could potentially scare away boarders. Gregor's family has gone from caring for him, as their source of money and resources rather than as a relative seemingly, to not caring about him at all, now that he can no longer provide for them, and actually has to be provided for without providing them any benefits. It came across to me that Gregor never had the healthiest relationship with his family, existing only for their dependence in their minds rather than as a family member, so while it doesn't surprise me that they gradually stop caring about Gregor as a human and as family all together, it still saddens me because of the fact that he is not only family, but has done so much for his family, appreciated or not, and is treated so poorly after his tragic transformation.

Gregor's death is the ultimate sadness in a novel that tells the end of Gregor's life, the saddest stage of an already sad life, but not only is his death sad in that his hopes and aspirations are not met, but in that his family sees and treats his death as inconsequential and unimportant, simply moving along in their lives as if nothing has happened.

The Most Interesting Insect/Man in the World

He travels the region selling carpet.
His bedroom has three doors, giving him direct access to most of his house.
He turned into a human-sized insect, and didn't flip out.
Some know him as the "Most Interesting Man in the World", and now as the "Most Interesting Insect in the World".

This man is Gregor Samsa.

In The Metamorphosis, Kafka gets straight to the point: "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect" (Kafka 64). He does not freak out, he does not scream, but just realizes how much of an inonvenience this is. Going to work and getting to the train will be difficult, but dealing with the health insurance doctor if he was to miss work would be a pain too...plus his streak of work without days missed would come to an end. Isn't that a shame? If only he hadn't had the misfortune of being turned into a bug, was the way I interpreted Samsa's reaction.


To be honest, if I woke up one morning having been turned into a bug, work/school would be the absolute least of my concerns. I'd be trying to figure out what was going on, what caused it (Kafka has not elaborated on the nature of his condition so far, and I personally doubt that he'll explain it...if the expression Kafka-esque has any weight, he'll probably leave it up in the air to confuse people more), and how I could stop being a bug. Chances are I would think it's a dream, and that might just be the case here...after all, The Metamorphosis came out long before it became an annoying cliche to have everything end up happily ever after, following the main character waking up from some sort of strange, elaborate nighmare.

Anyways, as we learn pretty quickly, being a huge bug sucks. You have scratches in weird places, you can't curl up in a fetal position (does rolling over onto its back and flailing its legs have the same effect though?), and most importantly, interaction in human society would be next to impossible. Human instinct is to smash a bug when they see it...imagine what would happen if you came across a human-sized bug. Depending on who you came across, they'd either run away screaming or try to kill you on the spot. And especially with a job based so heavily in human interactions (travelling salesmens' jobs are based entirely in working with the public) it'd be pretty hard to sell your product if you either were being ran away from or being attacked...I guess we'll just have to see what happens.



I'm really liking The Metamorphosis so far. It opens immediately with an event which drew me in, and now I'm really interested to see what happens with poor Gregor and the misfortune he'll face as a giant bug.