Metamorphosis Essay, Research Paper

Metamorphosis: Response

Gregor had alienated himself long before his metamorphosis into abeetle. His obsession with his job had dehumanized him, made himless personal and more mechanical. While on business trips, he

began to lock his doors at night in the hotels. He carried this

action back to his homelife. His family did not know him anymore

partially because they took him for granted for making their money

for them and partially because that was simply how he wanted in to

be. Gregor’s metamorphosis into a beetle only allowed his family

and himself to consciously alienate him from society and the

world.

As someone said to meI can’t remember who it was-it is really

remarkable that when you wake up in the morning you nearly always

find everything in exactly the same place as the night before. For

when asleep and dreaming you are, apparently at least, in as

essentially different state from that of wakefulness; and

therefore, as that man truly said, it requires enormous, presence

of mind or rather quickness of wit, when opening your eyes to

seize hold as it were of everything in the room at exactly the

same place where you had let it go on the previous evening. That

was why, he said, the moment of waking up was the riskiest moment

of the say. Once that was well over without deflecting you from

your orbit, you could take heart of grace for the rest of your

day.

Gregor woke up one morning to find himself turned from a human

being to a beetle. People found that to be extremely hard to

grasp. Many felt as though Gregor should have been more shocked at

this change, or at least less understanding towards it. But

really, why should he? The only part about being a beetle that

seemed to truly negatively shock Gregor was that he could no

longer attend to his job at the office. Gregor’s family life did

not change drastically. His loss of relation with his family was

nothing very new, there was a lacking of personal connection with

his parents for quite awhile before hand. His parents treated him

as a form of hired help since he had taken the job to pay for his

father’s debts. Grete, Gregor’s sister, seemed to be the only

family member to change her perception of Gregor. She went from

being the overemotional, little seventeen-year-old girl to a

bitter, matured stranger_the first in the Samsa household to

declare that Gregor needed to be exterminated.

Gregor did not seemed shocked that his family wanted to kill him

off either, almost as if he had been expecting it. He was only

upset because he had scared his sister. It was as though Gregor

had removed himself completely from his self, bordering on

indifference. Self-alienation was the word commonly used to

describe Gregor’s state in the end. Although this self-alienation

came strongest in the end of his life, it had been occurring from

the moment Gregor accepted his life at the office. Alienation

coming from his family had been occurring from the moment as well.

Could anything have been done to stop either?

Pessimistically speaking, no. Gregor accepted the office thinking

that it would later lead to a happier and more self-fulfilling

future. Most people do this in everyday life. We do one thing

after another, building stepping stones that we will rarely

achieve only because we will never be satisfied with what we have

in the end and force ourselves to keep going. This is the way of a

vast portion of the world’s population. Lack of satisfaction is

what keeps us going. Should we ever achieve full satisfaction, we

will have no purpose.