Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is about the evolution of a family due to the metamorphosis of that family’s son from human to vermin.
The son, Gregor Samsa, awakens one morning to find himself transformed. He is a bug, with limited mobility and limited ability to communicate. Prior to this metamorphosis, Gregor is the source of the family’s financial stability and hence the person responsible for their economic (and therefore the social) stability.
The Samsa family included Gregor, his father, his mother, and his sister (Grete). Gregor was depended upon to work in order to support the family. Everything Gregor did was for someone else. He did what was both wanted and expected of him. In that, in fulfilling the wants of others, he forgets or loses or never has his own wants (save sending his sister to the conservatory), which in turn leads to the loss of his identity.
Upon the realization that Gregor has turned into a bug, each member of the family has different reactions and deals differently with the change. Though shocked by the appearance of Gregor, both the mother and the father realized almost immediately that the vermin exiting the room of their once human son was indeed him. The mother was initially overwhelmed, dropping her head to her dress as she sank to the ground. The father’s initial reaction was to clench his fists in anger, ready to hurl back the vermin into the son’s room. Following that, however, came heavy sobs, perhaps in realization that this bug was his son.
The roles of the members of the family changed because of Gregor’s change.
Grete, who until now had been coddled and not given responsibility, has an opportunity to grow. The mother and the father, who were at first both terrified and ashamed of the vermin, take no initiative to care for Gregor. Therefore, Grete takes care of him. It was she who searched for Gregor’s newly acquired tastes in food. It was she who at first searched for small comforts for Gregor. In a sense, she had taken the role of caring for her sibling, which once belonged to Gregor when he took care of her. In taking care of Gregor, she becomes the expert on Gregor’s conditions and therefore commands some authority as to what happens to him. Also, she takes on a small job, financially helping in a small way.
Gregor’s father literally has to get off his couch. Prior to Gregor’s metamorphosis, the family could not justifiably be called a patriarchy. The reader has the sense that the father looked to the mother upon every decision. Indeed, much of the father’s time was spent reading the daily newspaper. After Gregor’s change, the father starts to manage the family. He had to take care of his family financially for now there was no source of money. He begins to manage the family by first acknowledging the existence of leftover money from the collapse of his former business. Then he gets a job. In beginning to work again and “bringing in the money,” he asserts (or reasserts) himself as the head of the family.
The effects on the mother are not as easily categorized. She weeps at first at the realization that her son has turned into a bug, but then becomes incredibly horrified. She soon wants, however, to see her son and speaks with the father about this. She has seemingly relinquished some control, as evidenced by her need to request to see her son and her need to see him when the father was not present because his answer was no. Later, she once again grows fearful of Gregor and goes to the father for help. Gregor’s metamorphosis reveals the mother’s frailty and her need for her family.
The change of Gregor’s appearance and his eventual death lead to many changes in the family. The family grows, each member individually and together as a whole. At the completion of the novella, the father, the mother, and the daughter all take the day off from their ensuing lives to ride the trolley into the country, discussing their prospects ahead – none of which, they concluded, were bad. They were together as a family in contrast to what they were in the beginning. In the end, Gregor’s metamorphosis and death led to the rebirth of the family.
Reference:
- Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis”
