The Metamorphosis

5 Pages 1224 Words

The Metamorphosis By: Franz Kafka


Gregor Samsa has gone through a metamorphosis. This change has turned Gregor into a “monstrous vermin”. The anxieties, inner terrors, and cynicism, which fill Gregor’s life, are expressed by Kafka throughout the novel, metamorphosis. Franz Kafka uses these feelings as an element of Expressionism to convey Gregor’s attitudes towards his life and society. Examples depicting this element of Expressionism used in the novel are Gregor’s feelings towards his job, the effect his job has on his family, and the cruelty that his family displays.
The novel opens with Gregor in his monstrous state, late for work. He infers that his job as a traveling salesman is very consequential, yet he is growing tired and frustrated, “The upset of doing business is much worse than the actual business in the home office, and, besides, I’ve got the torture of traveling, worrying about changing trains, eating miserable food at all hours, constantly seeing new faces, no relationships that last or get more intimate. To the devil with it all!” (Kafka 12). Gregor has a great amount of fury towards his job, which eventually led to his anger towards society as a whole. The fact that his office manager showed up at Gregor’s house plays an immense role in creating trepidation and anxieties in Gregor’s mind. Gregor feels strangled by his job and is too weak to tolerate the pressure.
In addition to the pressure created by his office manager and society, the Samsa’s, especially Gregor’s father, take advantage of him. Gregor earns the basic income to support his family. “But of course he actually could have paid off more of his father’s debt to the boss with this extra money, and the clay on which he could have gotten rid of his job would have been much closer, but now things were undoubtedly better, the way his father had arranged them.” (Kafka 76). The superficiality of the Samsa’s has put Gregor ...