In Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, awakes one morning and finds that his human form has been transformed into a gigantic insect-like creature. The line: “...his brown, arched abdomen divided up into rigid bow-like sections.” (page 1, para 1, line 4) gives us an idea of what kind of insect Gregor might resemble. From the said description and by our general understanding of insects, one of the presumptions we can make is that Gregor has turned into a giant brown coloured beetle.
It is not stated clearly the process of Gregor’s transformation; we are merely told that Gregor awoke one morning and found himself in his insect-like state. However, it is stated that in the previous night, he might have experienced something unnatural: “One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams...” (page 1, para 1, line 1). It may be that something in Gregor’s ‘anxious dreams’, his subconscious mind must have triggered something which made such an impact that it literally morphed his physical form from that of a human into that of an insect. This, of course, would be unexplainable by common sense and logic; this explanation is merely an interpretation of what Kafka might imagine or want to depict.
Another interesting thing to note is that Gregor transforms into a creature whose appearance is fairly common in our real life, i.e., a beetle. Why does he not transform into something else which no human has ever seen or even imagined before? It is sensible to say that it is impossible to imagine the unimaginable, and hence, Gregor must be only able to dream of something he has encountered before in real life (and thus be able to dream of it), and, presuming that his ‘dream’ on the previous night affects what kind of creature he transforms into (or else it would be redundant for Kafka to state that Gregor had anxious dreams on the night prior to his transformation) can only be able transform into something which is imaginable, for instance, a beetle.
In the whole course of the story, Gregor does not show much dismay or shock over his transformation. When Gregor first awakens, he first notices his physical body, but he does not get overly surprised about it. In fact, one can even notice that he is calm enough not to overreact by struggling or exclaiming; instead, his attention diverts to his surroundings in his room and is even observant enough to notice that it is raining outside: “The dreary weather (the rain drops were falling audibly down on the metal window ledge) made him quite melancholy” (page 1, para 3, line 1).
One way of explaining his calm nature of reaction is probably due to his expectations. It may be that in the night before, in his ‘anxious dreams’, he already had in his subconscious mind the expectation that he would find himself turned into an insect when he awoke in the morning, thus, lessening his shock when he consciously finds himself in the state of one in the morning. In other words, it may be said that Gregor might have already known in his subconscious mind that he would transform into a giant insect.
His other family members, however, were evidently not prepared for this. At first sight of Gregor, his mother collapsed “she then went two steps towards Gregor and collapsed...” (page 19, para 1, line 11) and his father was stunned so that he became uncertain of how to react.
Later in the story, his mother remained helpless about the situation while his father became hostile towards him. Even at the start, his father had already been rough towards Gregor by hastily forcing him back into his room, injuring Gregor in the process: “Then his father gave him one really strong liberating push from behind, and he scurried, bleeding severely...” (page 26, para 1, line 4). As time goes by, his father becomes more and more violent, to the point of injuring him badly by sinking an apple into Gregor’s back, which presumably becomes the (debatable) cause of his death. For the most part though, Gregor’s parents seemed to be avoiding him as much as possible, as though ignoring him would make the situation normal again.
As human beings, we have different reactions towards something we have never encountered before. Mixed feelings of surprise and fear may lead us to unleash our most basic instinct: to defend and if necessary, fight for our own safety. This would be the case of Gregor’s father, where he does not know what to do with the giant insect and hence, plays safe by reacting violently towards it.
Gregor’s mother, however, still loves her son and with the hopes that her son will return to normal again: “...so that, when Gregor returns to us, he finds everything unchanged...” (page 43 para 2 line 10). She finds it hard to accept the fact that Gregor has transformed into a giant insect, and so the best she can do is to pretend the problem is not there by avoiding it, i.e., Gregor himself.
His sister, on the other hand, tried her best to be positive about it by taking it upon herself to care for him. Shocked as she was, she maintained her calmness and did the best she could for Gregor, despite her obvious disgust and detest at the mere glimpse of him: “...but when she noticed him... she got such a shock that... she slammed the door shut...” (page 30, para 2 line 5). However, towards the end, Gregor’s sister was the one who raised the idea of getting rid of him (this, I had expected Gregor’s father to do), despite the fact that at the beginning she was the one who cared most for him.
When Gregor overhears this proposition by his sister “...this monster, and thus I say only that we must try to get rid of it.” (page 68, para 1, line 1 ), he feels a pang of disappointment and hopelessness that even his sister has given up on him. With no more will to live on, plus with his injury from the sunken rotting apple in his back, he becomes weak and dies.
“In this business, his own thought that he had to disappear was, if possible, even more decisive than his sister’s.” (page 71, para 2, line 12).
By,
Rachel Liew
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