Interesting Literature

A Summary and Analysis of Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Metamorphosis’ is a short story (sometimes classed as a novella) by the Czech-born German-language author Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It is his best-known shorter work, published in German in 1915, with the first English translation appearing in 1933. ‘The Metamorphosis’ has attracted numerous interpretations, so it might be worth probing this fascinating story more closely.

You can read ‘The Metamorphosis’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Kafka’s story below.

Plot Summary

Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed into a giant insect. Although he briefly considers this transformation, he quickly turns his thoughts to his work and his need to provide for his parents (he lives with them and his sister) so that they can pay off their debts. He also thinks about how much he hates travelling.

He realises he is already late for work, but hesitates to call in sick because he has never had a day off sick before, and knows this might raise alarm bells. When he responds through the bedroom door after his mother calls to him, he realises that his voice has become different as a result of his metamorphosis into an insect. When his family try to enter his bedroom, they find the door locked, and he refuses to let them in.

Then there’s a knock at the door and it’s the chief clerk for whom Gregor works, wondering where Gregor has got to.

Still Gregor refuses to open the door to his family or to his visitor. The chief clerk is affronted and tells Gregor through the door that his work has not been good enough and his position at the company may not be safe. Gregor seeks to defend himself, and assures the clerk that he will soon return to work. However, because Gregor’s voice has changed so much since his transformation, nobody can understand what he’s saying.

Gregor opens the door and his mother screams when she sees him. He asks the chief clerk to smooth things over at the office for him, explaining his … sudden metamorphosis into an insect.

Later that evening, having swooned and dozed all day, Gregor wakes up at twilight and finds that his sister had brought him milk with some bread in it. Gregor attempts to drink the milk, but finds the taste disgusting, so he leaves it. He climbs under the couch so his family don’t have to look at him, while his sister tries to find him food that he can eat.

Gregor overhears his family talking in the other room, and discovers that, despite their apparent debts, his parents have some money stashed away. He has been going to work to support them when he didn’t have to.

As well as the changes to his voice, Gregor also realises that his vision has got worse since his transformation. He also discovers that he enjoys climbing the walls and the ceiling of his bedroom. To help him, his sister gets rid of the furniture to create more space for him to climb; Gregor’s mother disagrees and is reluctant to throw out all of Gregor’s human possessions, because she still trusts that he will return to his former state one day.

When he comes out of the room, his mother faints and his sister locks him outside. His father arrives and throws apples at him, severely injuring him, because he believes Gregor must have attacked his own mother.

After his brush with death, the family change tack and vow to be more sympathetic towards Gregor, agreeing to leave the door open so he can watch them from outside the room as they talk together. But when three lodgers move in with the family, and his room is used to store all of the family’s furniture and junk, he finds that he cannot move around any more and goes off his food. He becomes shut off from his family and the lodgers.

When he hears his sister playing the violin for the lodgers, he opens the door to listen, and the lodgers, upon spotting this giant insect, are repulsed and declare they are going to move out immediately and will not pay the family any of their rent owed. Gregor’s sister tells her parents that they must get rid of their brother since, whilst they have tried to take care of him, he has become a liability. She switches from talking about him as her brother and as an ‘it’, a foreign creature that is unrecognisable as the brother they knew.

Gregor, overhearing this conversation, wants to do the right thing for his family, so he decides that he must do the honourable thing and disappear. He crawls off back to his room and dies.

Gregor’s family is relieved that he has died, and the body is disposed of. Mr Samsa kicks the lodgers out of the apartment. He, his wife, and their daughter are all happy with the jobs they have taken, and Mr and Mrs Samsa realise that their daughter is now of an age to marry.

The one thing people know about ‘The Metamorphosis’ is that it begins with Gregor Samsa waking up to find himself transformed into an insect. Many English translations use the word in the book’s famous opening line (and we follow convention by using the even more specific word ‘beetle’ in our summary of the story above).

But the German word Ungeziefer does not lend itself easily to translation. It roughly denotes any unclean being or creature, and ‘bug’ is a more accurate rendering of the original into English – though even ‘bug’ doesn’t quite do it, since (in English anyway) it still suggests an insect, or at least some sort of creepy-crawly.

For this reason, some translators (such as David Wyllie in the one we have linked to above) reach for the word vermin , which is probably closer to the German original. Kafka did use the word Insekt in his correspondence discussing the book, but ordered that the creature must not be explicitly illustrated as such at any cost. The point is that we are not supposed to know the precise thing into which Gregor has metamorphosed.

The vagueness is part of the effect: Gregor Samsa is any and every unworthy or downtrodden creature, shunned by those closest to him. Much as those who wish to denigrate a particular group of people – immigrants, foreigners, a socio-economic underclass – often reach for words like ‘cockroaches’ or ‘vermin’, so Gregor’s transformation physically enacts and literalizes such emotive propaganda.

But of course, the supernatural or even surreal (though we should reject the term ‘Surrealist’) setup for the story also means that ‘The Metamorphosis’ is less a straightforward allegory (where X = Y) than it is a more rich and ambiguous exploration of the treatment of ‘the other’ (where X might = Y, Z, or even A, B, or C).

Gregor’s subsequent treatment at the hands of his family, his family’s lodgers, and their servants may well strike a chord with not just ethnic minorities living in some communities but also disabled people, people with different cultural or religious beliefs from ‘the mainstream’, struggling artists whose development is hindered by crass bourgeois capitalism and utilitarianism, and many other marginalised individuals.

This is one reason why ‘The Metamorphosis’ has become so widely discussed, analysed, and studied: its meaning is not straightforward, its fantastical scenario posing many questions.  What did Kafka mean by such a story? Is it a comedy, a tragedy, or both? Gregor’s social isolation from his nearest and dearest, and subsequent death (a death of despair, one suspects, as much as it is a noble sacrifice for the sake of his family), all suggest the story’s tragic undercurrents, and yet the way Kafka establishes Gregor’s transformation raises some intriguing questions.

Take that opening paragraph. The opening sentence – as with the very first sentence of Kafka’s novel, The Trial – is well-known, but what follows this arresting first statement is just as remarkable. For no sooner has Gregor discovered that he has been transformed, inexplicably, into a giant insect (or ‘vermin’), than his thoughts have turned from this incredible revelation to more day-to-day worries about his job and his travelling.

This is a trademark feature of Kafka’s writing, and one of the things the wide-ranging term ‘Kafkaesque’ should accommodate: the nightmarish and the everyday rubbing shoulders together. Indeed, the everyday already is a nightmare, and Samsa’s metamorphosis into an alien creature is just the latest in a long line of modernity’s hellish developments.

So the effect of this opening paragraph is to play down, as soon as it has been introduced, the shocking revelation that a man has been turned into a beetle (or similar creature).

Many subsequent details in Kafka’s story are similarly downplayed, or treated in a calm and ordinary way as if a man becoming a six-feet-tall insect is the most normal occurrence in the world, and this is part of the comedy of Kafka’s novella: an aspect of his work which many readers miss, partly because the comedic is so often the first thing lost in translation.

And, running contrariwise to the interpretation of ‘The Metamorphosis’ that sees it as ‘just’ a straightforward story about modern-day alienation and mistreatment of ‘the other’ is the plot itself, which sees Gregor Samsa freed from his life of servitude and duty, undertaking a job he doesn’t enjoy in order to support a family that, it turns out, are perfectly capable of supporting themselves (first by the father’s money which has been set aside, and then from the family’s jobs which the mother, father, and daughter all take, and discover they actually rather enjoy).

Even Gregor’s climbing of the walls and ceiling in his room, when he would have been travelling around doing his job, represents a liberation of sorts, even though he has physically become confined to one room. Perhaps, the grim humour of Kafka’s story appears to suggest, modernity is so hellish that such a transformation – even though it ends in death – is really the only liberation modern man can achieve.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Experimental Novels › Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 1, 2023

“As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” So begins The Metamorphosis , a sinister allegory of dehumanization and hopelessness in the modern world by Franz Kafka (1883–1924). Once rendered an insect, Gregor becomes a functionless and embarrassing eyesore in a household, whose members grow to resent and neglect him to the point of death. There is no place in domestic, social, and professional life, Kafka’s tale suggests, for the unproductive and the nonconformist.

Written in 1912, The Metamorphosis was one of the few works Kafka published in his lifetime. Owing to the author’s general reluctance to publish and editorial reservations about the story’s bizarre content, The Metamorphosis did not go to press until 1915.

the metamorphosis analysis essay

Like much of Kafka’s fiction, The Metamorphosis expresses dominant themes in the author’s own life. In a letter, Kafka mentioned the similarity between Samsa’s name and his own; both writer and character, furthermore, were pressured to take on largely pointless office jobs. Kafka’s anxieties about ill health and fear of physical collapse play out in the unfortunate Gregor, who dies from a wound inflicted on him by his father. But the story resonates most profoundly with the real circumstances of Kafka’s family life. Like his creation, Gregor, Kafka was continually berated by his imposing father, who considered his only son to be an unmitigated failure. Gregor, likewise, cowers in fear of his father, who finds him repulsive and attacks him at every turn. Although Kafka had earned a law degree in part to appease his father, he would remain an object of patriarchal disdain and repudiation—particularly in light of his fictional work, which his father deemed “a waste of time.” Kafka’s mother, like her alter ego in the story, was ever-deferential to her husband and offered little solace to her son; his sister, Ottla, was normally a compassionate ally, but on one occasion she joined the parents in insisting that Kafka increase his hours at the office; shortly thereafter, Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis, in which Gregor’s sister betrays him by insisting that the family get rid of him.

In addition to these autobiographical references, The Metamorphosis alludes to a number of literary works, including the Russian Nikolay Gogol’s The Nose, in which a man wakes up to find his nose missing; preposterously, the nose goes on to attain a high-ranking position in the civil service. Kafka’s text was also inspired by a Yiddish play, Gordin’s The Savage One. Kafka wrote extensively about the play in his diaries. All of the characters in The Metamorphosis find analogues in The Savage One. Gregor Samsa’s counterpart is an idiot son, who is unable to communicate with his family, stays locked in his room, and fears the wrath of his father. The Metamorphosis, furthermore, resembles Gordin’s drama in its entirely domestic setting and episodic narrative structure. All three texts connect materialism and status consciousness with the degradation of humanity.

In alignment with Kafka’s largely cynical philosophical views, The Metamorphosis supports a decidedly pessimistic interpretation of human nature. Speaking to his friend Max Brod, Kafka once explained that he thought human beings were God’s nihilistic thoughts. Brod asked whether there was hope elsewhere in the universe. To this, Kafka replied, “plenty of hope, for God—only not for us.” This dismal prognosis, a sense of terminal confinement, is represented by Gregor, whose only alternative to the world in which he has unintentionally entered is death. There are glimmers of hope in the concluding lines of The Metamorphosis, as the Samsa family sets about reconstructing itself, but this might also be seen to indicate the unfortunate perpetuation of the worst human qualities. In any case, after the story’s publication Kafka said that he regretted this ending, insisting that it was “unreadable.”

Along with the bleak determinism of The Metamorphosis , the surrealistic scenario depicted—its particular mixture of the impossible and the real—is typically “Kafkaesque.” In several works, Kafka posits an unlikely situation and portrays its development in realistic detail, both psychologically and materially. In his novel The Trial , for example, a man is accused and found guilty of a crime without ever being informed of the charge’s precise nature; in “Before the Law,” a man passes decades waiting to enter the gates of Justice, only to have the guardian, finally, close them in his face. The realist aspect of these texts encourages the reader to probe beyond the specific circumstance—a man, for example, literally becoming an insect—to uncover its symbolic and allegorical implications.

The image of the insect is evocative on several levels. As early as 1907, Kafka described the best part of his creative self as a “beautiful beetle”; he imagined his body moving around in the world while his “true writing self”—a beetle—remained behind. In later years, when his idealism faded, this authorial image was replaced by “filth and slime,” a phrase he applied to his piece “The Judgment” (it tells of a rebellious son condemned to suicide by his father). Gregor Samsa, a giant insect who becomes progressively more and more filthy, may be interpreted as a metaphor for disillusionment.

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Novels
Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Stories

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bridgewater, Patrick. Kafka’s Novels: An Interpretation. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003. Greenberg, Martin. The Terror of Art: Kafka and Modern Literature. New York: Basic Books, 1968. Stach, Reiner. Kafka: The Decisive Years. Translated by Shelley Frisch. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2005. Stern, J. P., ed. The World of Franz Kafka. New York: Holt, Rinehard, 1980. Weinberg, Helen. The New Novel in America: The Kafkan Mode in Contemporary Fiction. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1970.

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About the Book

Themes and Analysis

The metamorphosis, by franz kafka.

'The Metamorphosis' is a masterpiece on hitting important themes, such as transformation, alienation, and responsibility.

Emma Baldwin

Written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

Such themes in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis touch on what it means to be human and what happens when those around you stop regarding you as such.  

The Metamorphosis Themes and Analysis 🪳 1

The Metamorphosis Themes  

Transformation  .

The first and most important theme in The Metamorphosis is transformation. There is the primary transformation in the novel, that of Gregor, a human man, into a large insect , but there are several others as well. As the novel progresses, Gregor struggles to hang onto his humanity, it slips from him as he turns to the things that bring him pleasure in his new form. He finds sanctuary in dark places, joy in crawling on the ceilings and the walls, and is only able to stomach rotten food.  

Additionally, there is the transformation that his family members undergo. It is seen most prominently in Grete, his sister . At first, she cares for Gregor’s needs, feeding and visiting him. But as time goes on, Grete grows older and her priorities change. It becomes easier for the family to ignore the fact that Gregor exists than to continue caring for him.  

Gregor’s transformation brings with it a series of emotional transitions and obstacles that he has to overcome. The main one being the separation from his family, job, and previous role as the main breadwinner. Gregor is alienated from his former humanity, generally, as well as his former personality and role, specifically.  

Gregor is also physically alienated in his prison cell-like room. It is from there, separate from the family, that he listens to their lives carry on without him.  

Responsibility

When Gregor first discovers that he’s no longer in his human body, his first thought is for his family. He worries immediately that he’s not going to be able to get to work on time and is going to lose his job. The first pages of the novel are devoted to Gregor’s struggle to force his new body to do what his old one could easily. He cares about the responsibility he has to his family, to pay off his father’s debts and support his sister and mother.  

A reader should also consider what responsibility his family has for him after his transformation and how they didn’t fulfill it. His generosity was not repaid.

Analysis of Key Moments in The Metamorphosis

  • Gregor wakes up and discovers that he’s been transformed into a giant insect.  
  • Gregor’s family and boss come to check on him.  
  • The family is confronted by Gregor’s new form.  
  • Grete feeds Gregor and he discovers he loves rotten food.  
  • Gregor leans to climb the walls and they take the furniture out of the room.  
  • Gregor tries to save the image of the woman in furs.  
  • Mr. Samsa attacks Gregor believing he hurt Mrs. Samsa. Gregor is badly injured.  
  • Lodgers move into the house and Gregor watches his family from his room.  
  • Gregor decides his family will be better off without him and he dies.  
  • The family feels relief now that Gregor is gone, they move on with their lives.

Point of View and Poetic Techniques in The Metamorphosis

Narrative point of view.

As a modernist novel, there are several techniques that will likely be familiar with in The Metamorphosis. These are related to the point of view, language, and poetic techniques. The point of view employed by Franz Kafka in the novel is third-person/limited omniscient. This means the main perspective of the story comes from Gregor Samsa. The reader is within Gregor’s mind, hearing his thoughts and discovering what happened to his body at the same time as he does. Information is given to the reader when it’s available to Gregor, we are not aware of anything he isn’t. For example, Gregor struggles with eating and what it is, after his transformation, that he’s interested in.  

The reader doesn’t become aware until he is that he wants to eat rotten foods. All that being said, there are a few moments in the novel in which Kafka moves outside Gregor’s mind to give the reader a bit of information from the perspective of the other characters. These are rare moments and are reserved for occasions that benefit from the change in perspective.

Poetic Techniques

The Metamorphosis was originally written in German and titled Die Verwnadlung, this means that some poetic techniques will be lost or devised in the translation into English. Within the novel, a close reader can find examples of metaphor, irony, and symbolism. The first on this list, metaphor, is a comparison between two unlike things that does not use “like” or “as” is also present in the text.  

When using this technique a writer is saying that one thing is another thing, they aren’t just similar. It’s quite important in this novel and immediately confronts the reader. The theme of imprisonment is woven throughout the story. Metaphors reveal to the reader that Gregor is at once a prisoner of society, money, his family, and the most obvious, his new bug body. He’s trapped, in one way or another, but his prison varies.  

Another less obvious example is the weather. One moment, in particular, comes to mind at the beginning of the story when Gregor is waking up. He notes that he’s waking up late, feels poorly, and there is “still such a fog” outside. The fog lays heavy on the city. Its dreary, dark, and it obscures warmth and light. It is used as a metaphor and allusion to what is to come. His future lies within the house, not without, and it’s going to be just as dark as the weather that morning.  

Symbols in The Metamorphosis  

The picture of the woman  .

One of the most poignant symbols in The Metamorphosis is the picture of the woman on the wall of Gregor’s room. In the photo, she’s wearing furs, a hat, and a boa. It’s unclear who she’s supposed to be, but she’s there as a reminder of Gregor’s lost future, the warmth of human company, and his own distant humanity. More than anything else, the fact that he acquired, hung, and admired the photo while he was still human is important to him.  

When the furniture is removed from his room Gregor begins to panic. Gregor turns to the picture as the single thing he’s going to fight to keep. He’s desperate at this moment, and through his actions, a reader should interpret a need to hang on to some piece of his humanity.  

Gregor as an Insect  

The creature Gregor turns into, sometimes referred to as a giant insect, bug, or vermin, is representative of the life that Gregor led before he was transformed. His human day-to-day life was made physical. Once transformed, the toll that his job, family, colleagues, and money worries had on him is realized in the real world.

Food  

Food is a symbol of the Gregor’s family’s remaining regard for their son. Grete, the most important secondary character in the novel takes on the responsibility for feeding and checking on Gregor. It is due to Grete that he’s able to eat and maintain a shred of his humanity. At first, they believe he’s going to eat the same things he did when he was human, but they soon discover that he’s only able to eat rotten food. As time passes, the family loses interest in Gregor and become exhausted from remembering that he’s there. They stop feeding him and he is forced to suffer, starving, as the new lodgers eat in his kitchen.  

Emma Baldwin

About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

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The Metamorphosis: an Analysis of Franz Kafka's Classic

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Table of contents

Analysis of the protagonist's transformation, exploration of familial relationships and societal expectations, examination of the role of work and the dehumanization of labor, interpretation of the existential themes in the text.

  • Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Schocken Books, 2008.
  • Fleishman, Avrom. "Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Contemporary Criticism." The Kenyon Review, vol. 29, no. 4, 1967, pp. 491–514. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4334805.
  • Duncan, Edward. "Kafka's Metamorphosis: Rebellion and Punishment." German Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 1, 1974, pp. 48–59. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/405433.

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Analysis: Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis

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they even dismiss the idea of calling a doctor which occurred to them before they knew what happened.), and they never wonder why and how this happened in the first place, including Gregor, they all try to adapt to the situation which gives startle a range of thoughts:

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Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is too long to be a short story and again shorter for a novel. Like the form of novella, the story also dwindles between choices: whether to accept the transformed life or to keep on living the same life that Gregor can no longer stand a moment. The novella is a process – a transformation along with its many problems and the incapacity of actually going for what is needed the most. The need perhaps is very ambiguous, considering the need of Gregor’s family and the need of Gregor’s, something which he only realized but could not have the means to fulfil.

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The present document takes into account the human dilemma in modern society, this dilemma leads to desolation and dejection in the life of a person who is dedicated to feeding, protecting, and providing for his family. The situation in man's life comes when he fails to earn and provide and is considered useless. Gregor Samsa in Metamorphosis was the only breadwinner for his sister, mother, and father. He worked as a travelling salesman, who was content with his earnings. Franz Kafka shows the very staunch reality of Gregor when he wakes one day as transformed into an insect, unable to move, eat and go outside, he fails to bring bread or earn for his family, which eventually leads them into poverty as well as shame due to his appearance. Gregor becomes useless and a liability to his family, which forced him to commit suicide. Kafka moulded a story that shows how our society works for a man who doesn't earn and provide. Gregor's life becomes much more miserable due to his family's attitude toward him.

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This research is focused on Jacques Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, which is described in the main character in Franz Kafka's novel The Metamorphosis. Gregor Samsa is the main character of The Metamorphosis. Gregor was a traveling salesman who was the Samsa family's sole son and earner. He mysteriously transforms into a massive bug, causing him to be estranged from his family. The author finds out why Gregor’s family members do not care about him and can't perceive him as a complicated human being with his own needs. As a result, Gregor has been estranged from his family and himself. The author argues that Gregor has another alienation from his physical reality after the transformation. His family views him as a terrifying, unpleasant monster, as seen by their fear of his existence and their decision to get rid of him. Gregor, who suffers from humiliation, views himself in the same light. He and his family unwittingly reject Gregor's potential as an individual, ma...

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This article explores Sartre’s concept of shame and alienation in Kafka’s The Metamorphosis through the portrayal of the protagonist. By focusing on the interpretation of the characteristics of Gregor Samsa through New Criticism approach, this article reveals that shame and alienation may occur when a person realizes that one is judged by others and sees oneself through the eyes of others. This way of looking at one’s identity is problematic because it creates complexity within the existence of the self. Through his fantastical transformation into an insect, Gregor cannot help but seeing himself from his family’s point of view. Instead of fighting for himself, he is made to believe that he deserves to be alienated. From the analysis of the protagonist, it is revealed that his being selfess and dutiful in a way trigger the shame and alienation that result in his submission to death. Keywords: alienation, Kafka, Sartre, shame

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The Metamorphosis is a brilliant work of Franz Kafka. Several critics tried to identify different aspects of this novella from different point of views. Apparently, the title of this novel The Metamorphosis refers to the transformation of the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, into a bug, considering the whole story readers can finally discover that not only Gregor but every character gets through some transformation, though physically not at all. Readers can also identify the transcendental quality of human being almost in all the characters especially in the characterization of Gregor's sister, Grete. The paper aimed to analyze one of the most significant characters of this novel, Grete, from transcendental perspective where the transcendental quality of this character is twisted for the sake of society and its regulations and thus to find out a reflection of transcendentalism in The Metamorphosis.

Stanley Corngold

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“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin.” Franz Kafka opens his novella The Metamorphosis with this powerful phrase and presents implicitly the deepest problems of being an individual in modern life, from the perspective of an insect which is the protagonist of the tale. The most significant appearance of an person in the crowd is the fact of belonging to society including social forces, culture, historical heritage and technical developments makes someone a part of the herd. And society is something more than merely the sum of individuals who composed it. It has a different power on an individual more than a quantitative majority which then becomes a pressure. Gregor Samsa works as a salesman who sacrifices himself to his family’s livelihood. He is never recognized by his family and expected to support them without considering his personal needs. Kafka uses Gregor's family to show how inhumane society can be. He can not accept this transformation that happens suddenly without his demand, but his parents can do after a while. However he can’t look from the same point of view to his work, parents and life any longer with the isolation. The Metamorphosis tells the tragedy of an individual in society under the appearance of the relationship of family members. It shows the fact that we establish slave and master relations with each other in society. So it has to be interpreted as the rebellion and alienation of a human being who becomes free with the transformation. Gregor the insect is no longer a part of the herd nor the server of social roles. Metamorphosis is nothing but a symbol. Kafka uses it to attract people’s attention to the problem of alienation which happens unnoticeably every day to millions of people. The most important fact is the alienation doesn’t start after Gregor has turned into insect. Metamorphosis only shapes out the problems, which have existed before. Alienation from the society and other people is merely a part of the problem. But alienation of an individual from himself is the most serious problem. Gregor is an instance of people who lose their identity in the chase for money, popularity, and wish to correspond to the expectations of others that cause omission of the meaning of existence. So the “metamorphosis” is as a reaction against bourgeois society and being imprisoned by its social and economical demands.

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Psychoanalytic Perspective on Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” Essay (Critical Writing)

Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis is one of the most outstanding literature pieces written in the twentieth century. It has attracted significant attention among readers and researchers due to its unprecedented imagery, emotionally-charged story, and relevance to challenging existential experiences resonating with readers. There is no doubt that Kafka’s novella can be analyzed from various critical perspectives, adding to the interpretation of a heart-breaking plot about a human’s transformation into an insect. Considering the idea of change explicitly present in the plot, it appears interesting to analyze how implicit psychological changes in characters are displayed. The analysis of Kafka’s Metamorphosis based on Psychoanalysis highlights the main themes of the Superego-Id changes in the main character’s psyche, the repressed desires mirrored in the character’s behaviors, and the Oedipal complex present in Gregor’s father.

Psychoanalysis theory is based on the research of Sigmund Freud, who was one of the first psychologists whose view on the human psyche’s structure remains topical in modern science. Psychoanalytic theory suggests that there are three fundamental aspects of the psyche, including the Id, Ego, and Superego (Yadav 47). It is responsible for the gratification of human desires connected to instincts, such as the need for food and sex. Superego appears as opposed to Id, relies on social norms and rules, and can even provoke a sense of guilt in a person when they act according to Id violating Superego at the same time (Yadav 47). Hence, Ego serves as a balancing aspect between Id and Superego responsible for delayed forms of gratification, and it prioritizes the reality in which a personality exists (Yadav 47). Therefore, the human psyche experiences a constant confrontation between three structures, and psychological tension depends on one’s ability to satisfy specific desires in the given circumstances with the consideration of morality norms.

In the beginning, Gregor Samsa, the main character of Metamorphosis , appears as a personality whose behavior is impacted mainly by Superego. After realizing that his body has changed to a vermin’s, he reflects on his life, predominantly mentioning his work as a “commercial traveler” exhausted with overwhelming obligations and an inhumane schedule (Kafka Chapter 1). The reader learns that Gregor is the primary breadwinner for his family, including his parents and sister, Grete. Thus, Gregor displays his belonging to the system and his complete obedience to it, which is evidence of Superego dominance in his psyche (Yadav 48). After Gregor receives the vermin’s body, his Superego continues to display itself on various occasions, for instance, when he hides from the eyesight of his family. He assumes that his look may make his mother “ill,” and he hides behind the sofa when Grete enters his room (Kafka Chapter 2). Gregor loves his mother and sister, and one might assume he would like to see them, which would refer to Id’s desires. However, the idea of showing them his “ugly” appearance is unbearable for Gregor and is accompanied by a sense of guilt, which is peculiar to the Superego.

Interestingly, unlike the main character, Gregor’s family appears to be driven mainly by the Id and Ego aspects of their psyches. It seems that Gregor’s family had some sense of respect toward him since he earned money and provided for them. They aligned their desires for decent living with the reality of not having jobs themselves and, therefore, the need to rely on Gregor. The main character outlines he was responsible “to pay off [his] parents’ debt,” which would take five to six years (Kafka Chapter 1). As a result, he is displayed as bonded to the system (because he cannot tell his boss what he truly thinks) and to his family (he cannot reject paying off their debt). Things start to change since his physical transformation, and a reader may witness the change in the family’s behaviors. In the beginning, Gregor is worried about the idea that his parents and sister are thinking of finding jobs because his father is “elderly,” his mother has asthma, and Grete is “just a child of seventeen” (Kafka Chapter 2). Eventually, they decide to rent some of their rooms to lodgers, and after that, their attitude towards Gregor changes significantly. They are to be “structured to function on their superego” and neglect their family feelings (Yadav 49). It is noticeable when Grete, who was kind and loving to Gregor, starts naming him “it” and suggests that the family should “get rid of it” (Kafka Chapter 3). Unlike Gregor, who was exhausted by the system and his Superego dominance but managed to take care of his family, they neglect their family emotions and are under Ego and Id rule.

The opposite change occurs in Gregor’s psyche, leading him from Superego-driven behavior to Id dominance, followed by the exploration of his unconscious desires. According to psychoanalysis, desires that are born in Id are filtered by Superego and Ego (Gould 150). If Superego finds a desire socially acceptable, it travels to the Ego part so that a person becomes conscious of their need and can use adequate instruments to achieve it. In case that Superego finds a desire violating social norms and Ego thinks that social consequences could be “dangerous” to a person, the desire is moved to the unconscious (Gould 150). In such a way, a person’s needs are repressed, and one is commonly unaware of it. However, the energy produced by desire remains in one’s psyche and creates inner tension, which sometimes leads to over-reactive and compulsive behaviors.

In Gregor, repressed desires and emotions come to the surface when he becomes a vermin. At first, he thinks of his work and boss negatively, living this way through emotions that he does not allow himself in everyday life (Kafka Chapter 1). Since he does not go to work, he spends much time on his own, which actualizes his inner self. At the same time, he tries to control his desires; for instance, despite his love for his family and the longing for interaction with them, he hides from them. Such behavior demonstrates the idea of alienation – a psychological response to traumatic experiences that one cannot cope with (Amir 155). It appears that Gregor alienates himself from others because he deeply fears non-acceptance. Alienation occurs in the case of a “conflict between [individual’s] social role or setting,” which corresponds to Gregor’s situation as he is no longer aligned with the role he used to have (Asriningtyas and Mustofa 261). The distance he creates adds to the distance between him as an insect and his family as humans, increasing the repression of his true desires, eventually leading to their display of hardly-controlled Gregor’s behavior.

The most peculiar example of repressed feelings coming to the surface is Gregor’s obsession with the portrait of a lady in furs. This picture is mentioned at the beginning of Metamorphosis and then appears when Gregor fiercely fights for it against Grete, who wants to take it from the wall (Kafka Chapter 2). From the psychoanalytic perspective, it was a desire to have a relationship with a woman because the image serves as a metaphor for a real woman he could not have (Asriningtyas and Mustofa 270). Unfortunately, Gregor does not have any solution to satisfy his repressed desire, and, as a result, he behaves aggressively and is ready to “make a leap for Grete’s face” (Kafka Chapter 2). Such action might be seen as rebellious against the system because Gregor’s family was a part of the system he obeyed. Protecting the picture then demonstrates the dominance of Id in Gregor’s psyche, suggesting that psychological transformation followed the physical change.

Another peculiar highlight from psychoanalysis refers to the Oedipal complex displayed in the character of Gregor’s father. Interestingly, the Oedipal complex usually refers to a psychological conflict in a son who aspires to usurp his mother’s love at a particular stage of development and starts to perceive his father as a competitor (Islam et al. 306). On the one hand, Gregor himself displays some traits of the Oedipal complex because, in their family, he took the leading role that initially belonged to his father. On the other hand, the aggression of Mr. Samsa towards Gregor demonstrates that he had suppressed feelings towards his son in the triangle of Gregor and his parents (Islam et al. 306). When one day, Mr. Samsa returns home from work and learns that Mrs. Samsa fainted, he does not clarify the details but only explodes in anger and wants to kill his son (Kafka Chapter 2). The story continues as the mother appears between them and asks Mr. Samsa not to kill Gregor. However, Mr. Samsa splashes out his emotions by throwing apples at Gregor, which causes severe wounds and eventually leads to the main character’s death (Kafka Chapter 2). At the end of the novella, Mr. Samsa obtains a job and has a manager to report to, similar to Gregor’s situation when he was a traveler. Accordingly, he takes the role of the leader of their family, and it seems that “Gregor’s descent is absolutely balanced by his father’s rise” (Islam et al. 308). In the final scene, Mrs. Samsa and Grete obey Mr. Samsa’s order to finish their writing and follow him, so they have time together in the countryside (Kafka Chapter 3). Kafka portrays the affection parents have for their daughter and their oblivion of Gregor, which appears as if the obstacle (or the competitor, from the father’s point of view) has been removed.

Conclusively, the psychoanalytic lens highlights the collision between Superego and Id dominants in the characters of Metamorphosis , along with the display of repressed feelings and the impact of the Oedipal complex on family relationships. Franz Kafka depicts the physical transformation of a human to an insect, and this event catalyzes the psychological conversion from Superego to Id dominance in the main character and vice versa in his family. Moreover, the story contains scenes that reveal the topic of repressed feelings and emotions, including the consequences of the Oedipal complex for relationships between a father and a son. Eventually, psychoanalysis enables the discovery of implicit motives and feelings behind the behaviors of the novella’s characters and serves for a deeper understanding of Kafka’s work.

Works Cited

Amir, Danah. Bearing Witness to the Witness: A Psychoanalytic Perspective on Four Modes of Traumatic Testimony . Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019.

Asriningtyas, Devicha Lidya, and Ali Mustofa. “Gregor Samsa’s Self Alienation in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis: Lacanian Psychoanalysis.” Humanitatis: Journal of Language and Literature , vol. 8, no. 2, 2022, pp. 261–276.

Gould, Caron Steinberg. “Psychoanalysis, Imagination, and Imaginative Resistance: A Genesis of the Post-Freudian World.” Imagination and Art: Explorations in Contemporary Theory , by Keith A. Moser and Ananta Charana Sukla, Brill Rodopi, 2020, pp. 139–155.

Islam, Saddam, et al. “Gregor’s Father: A Confirmation of the Oedipal Complex.” Global Language Review , VI, no. II, 2021, pp. 304–309.

Kafka, Franz, and Joyce Crick. The Metamorphosis and Other Stories . Oxford University Press, 2009.

Yadav, Parth Chandrakant. “Gregor Samsa’s Psyco-Metamorphosis: franz Kafka’s Critique of Systemic Subjugation of Modern Man ”. Multidisciplinary Research Trends , edited by Mohd Shaikhul Ashraf et al., vol. 3, Red Shine, 2022, pp. 46–51.

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