Summary The Metamorphosis, ISBN: 9798553216092 ENG521
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Course
ENG521
Institution
Kristu Jayanti College
Book
The Metamorphosis
The document consist of a brief summary and analysis of the novel Metamorphosis authored by Franz Kafka. It also looks into the themes and motifs present in the story.
Part 1
Summary
Gregor Samsa wakes in his bed and discovers he has transformed into a giant bug.
Wondering what has happened, he looks around his small room, where everything appears
normal. He sees the fabric samples that he uses in his job as a traveling salesman, a picture of
a woman in furs that he tore out of a magazine and framed, and the rain dripping down
outside his window. He tries to roll over and go back to sleep in order to forget about what
has happened, but because of the shape of his back, he can only rock from side to side.
Feeling sore from his effort, Gregor thinks about what a difficult job he has and the fact that
his constant traveling prevents him from making any lasting friendships. He thinks that he
would leave his overbearing employer but he has to work off a debt that his parents incurred.
He suddenly realizes that he has overslept and does not have a good excuse to give his boss.
Gregor’s mother reminds him that he has to catch his train to work. When Gregor responds,
he finds his voice has changed. His father and Grete, his sister, join his mother at the door,
urging him to get up and unlock it. Gregor twists and rocks, managing to turn sideways and
dangle off the bed. Then the doorbell rings. It is the office manager, come to check on
Gregor. Gregor rocks his body violently and finally tumbles to the floor. His family and the
office manager come to the door to inquire if he is all right.
Gregor’s mother pleads with the office manager, telling him what a devoted worker Gregor
is, while Grete cries in the next room. The office manager calls through the door and
demands an explanation. He hints that Gregor’s recent work has not been satisfactory and
that Gregor’s current behavior looks very bad, especially in light of rumors that Gregor may
have stolen money from the company. Gregor claims that he had a dizzy spell and asks the
office manager to spare his parents any undue concern. While Gregor tries to lift himself off
the floor, the office manager and his family discuss the strange change in his voice, and his
sister leaves to fetch a doctor and a locksmith.
Gregor reaches the door, turns the lock with his mouth, and slowly pulls open the door.
Seeing that Gregor is now a giant insect, the terrified office manager backs away, the mother
passes out, and the father cries. Gregor delivers a long speech asking the office manager to
put in a good word for him at work, since traveling salesmen often become the subjects of
negative gossip, but the office manager continues to back out of the apartment. Gregor
unsuccessfully tries to catch him as he flees and discovers how easily he can crawl on his
new legs. The father then picks up a newspaper and the office manager’s cane and drives
Gregor back into his bedroom. Gregor injures himself when he becomes stuck in the
doorway, but the father shoves him through and slams the door.
Analysis
The opening line of The Metamorphosis, which reports Gregor’s discovery that he has
become a giant insect, sets the tone for the rest of the story. The line recounts the bizarre
event of Gregor’s transformation in a sober, straightforward manner, and this contrast
between an extraordinary situation and the ordinary terms used to describe it creates the sense
that the narrator expects the world in the story to be absurd and chaotic, rather than rational
and orderly. Gregor embodies this absurdist tone from the very beginning. When he first
recognizes his transformation, he doesn’t appear significantly bothered by it, and treats it
almost like any ordinary disturbance to his sleep, as if it were not entirely out of the ordinary.
, As the story progresses, he remains focused on largely ordinary concerns, such as losing his
job, his physical comfort, and his family’s financial situation, thus maintaining the story’s
absurdist overtone throughout.
In this section, we also begin to learn the details of Gregor’s human life, and we get the first
glimpses into his feeling of alienation from those around him. As Gregor lies in bed, unable
to get himself up, he begins thinking of his job as a traveling salesman, and we learn that he
only continues at it because of his parents’ debt. In fact, he greatly dislikes the office
manager, who has come to the house to check on him. Furthermore, the friendships he makes
because of his work are only casual and never intimate, since he must always be traveling.
The mother hints at Gregor’s lack of friends when she tries to explain to the office manager
what a good employee Gregor is. She says Gregor never goes out in the evenings, but sits
home reading a newspaper or checking the train timetables, suggesting that Gregor already
lives predominantly in isolation. Now, Gregor is no longer even physically human. In his new
form, he is unable to go to work, and his voice is so altered that he can’t even communicate
with those around him. In addition, when he opens the door and the office manager and his
family members see him, they are horrified, and together these details foreshadow that
Gregor’s isolation from other people will only continue to grow.
The section also establishes the motif of money in the story, and hints at the major role
money plays in the Samsa family. Gregor’s greatest concern after discovering his
metamorphosis is that he will lose his job, which we quickly learn he only continues at so he
can pay off his parents’ debt. (We also know that debt is substantial since he says it will take
him five or six years to pay it off.) As the section continues, we receive indications that, of
the members of the Samsa family, only Gregor works, and that the father stays at home.
Though it remains unclear at this point why the family is in so much debt, it is evident that
they are not wealthy and that their debts hamper them. Because he is responsible for paying
these debts, Gregor feels trapped in his job. Finally, the office manager also brings up money
when he tells Gregor that the chief suspects him of stealing from the company.
Analysis of Part II
The question of how much of Gregor’s humanity remains dominates the second section of the
story. As the members of the Samsa family adapt to the new situation with Gregor, each one
appears to develop a different perception of how much humanity remains in him. At the
beginning of the section, for instance, Grete leaves milk for Gregor, apparently assuming that
his preference for milk while he was human continues now that he’s a bug. The assumption
suggests that Grete believes, at least initially, that some part of Gregor remains the same. But
as she recognizes that Gregor’s tastes in food have changed and that he now likes to crawl
about the walls of his room, Grete gradually begins to conceive of Gregor as an insect. In
response, she suggests taking all Gregor’s possessions out of his room to eliminate obstacles
to his crawling and to make the space more suitable to an insect. The mother, on the other
hand, protests that Gregor will want his things when he returns to his former self, and earlier
in the section she even refers to Gregor as her “unfortunate son,” implying she still believes
Gregor to be fundamentally the same despite his appearance. The father gives no indication
that he regards Gregor as the same, and attacks him as though he were a wild animal when he
escapes his room.
This confusion regarding Gregor’s humanity extends to Gregor himself, and much of the
section involves Gregor trying to reconcile his human emotions and history with the physical
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