Tuesday, November 16, 2010
A better day
I have to wonder about Gregor in the story Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Gregor is very melancholy and doesn’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation he woke up in. He is a dung beetle for goodness sake! All he seems to worry about is how he is going to go to work and about his family not how it will affect him and his future. This made me think. Did Gregor ever think of himself? I found myself thinking about how sad his life had been and then to end up as a dung beetle. Gregor was completely selfless and warranted a lot better than he ended up. Although I am not sure if living a life completely for other people and never thinking of yourself may not have been so great either. He also seemed to be holding his family back and his absence made them have to get a life. He at first enable his family and kept them in the security of knowing he would take care of them. Then he became the burden in the bedroom. I think that the metamorphosis for the family and Gregor was necessary even though the ending was sad for him. The family grew resentful. Even the sister that cared for him said “things cannot go on like this. You may not realize it , but I do. I will not pronounce my brother’s name in front of this monstrosity, and so all I will say is: We must try to get rid of it” (Kafka 2026). In the end I have to wonder if the family quit seeing the beetle as Gregor but as a bug instead. Grete’s metamorphosis was probably the most poignant. She learned from her brother and still understood that she needed to have a life. This is expressed very well in the last line “And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions that at the end of their ride the daughter was the first to get up, stretching her young body” (2030). Gregor’s death gave her a chance at a life and a brighter future.
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This story has a sad twist that unfortunately happens quite often in real life. Someone happy and healthy can go from being the center of attention, loved and respected to someone they just want to get rid of even his own family! In the beginning, before Gregor’s family found out about his condition and they learned something was wrong, they worried and even his mother said: “’For Goodness’ sake,’ the mother exclaimed, already weeping, ‘he may be seriously ill and we’re torturing him. Grete! Grete!' she then shouted. 'Mother?' the sister called from the other side. They were communicating across Gregor's room. 'You have to go to the doctor immediately. Gregor is sick.'” (Kafka 2005). First they do everything they can to help, and then when they realize it’s a permanent thing, they don’t have the patience and want to get rid of him. Which is really sad, even more because that is something that we see going on in today’s society; with the terminally ill and the elderly.
ReplyDeleteI think the story is so sad! He is so wrapped up in the lives that he is trying to support (his family) that he has no idea of the severity of his situation. Gregor acts completely ignorant to the fact that he has cravings for trash and that he is crawling on the walls. During his transformation Gregor never talks of how upset he might be about the changes, but only speaks of his families feelings… “It thus dawned on him that his looks were still unbearable to her and were bound to remain unbearable, which meant that it must have taken a lot of self-control for her not to run away upon glimpsing even the tiny scrap of his body that protruded from under the settee” (Kafka 2015). If Gregor was not able to turn back to his human form at the end of the story, I think he is much better off as a dead bug!
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