"In front of this monstrous creature I refuse to pronounce my brother's name, and therefore I merely say: we have to get rid of it [emphasis mine]…All you have to do is try to shake off the idea that that's Gregor" (47), cries Grete to her father as tempers and patience flare at the end of Kafka's The Metamorphosis. This is due to Grete's and the Samsa family's inability to cope with the bothersome insect that dominates the family's life and that was once her brother and their son, Gregor. This marks an important and painful shift between the animal/human realms for Gregor as the family no longer has any human connections with him and view him merely as a burdensome bug that needs to be exterminated. This is especially painful as it comes from the family member that Gregor felt the strongest connections with after his metamorphosis.
[...] The turmoil of business is much greater than in the home office, and on top of that I'm subjected to this torment of traveling, to the worries about train connections, the bad meals at irregular hours, an intercourse with people that constantly changes, never lasts, never becomes cordial. The devil take it (11-12). However, as the novel progresses, Gregor finds delight in his new capabilities that comes with his new carapace: felt a sense of bodily comfort; his little legs had solid ground below them; they obeyed perfectly, as he noticed to his joy; in fact, they were eager to carry him wherever he wanted to and later on, amusement he acquired the habit of crawling in all directions across the walls and ceiling. [...]
[...] was half past six, and the hands were moving ahead peacefully'” However, towards the end of the novel, as Gregor's everyday becomes one of confinement, he experiences time in a less- segmented manner (“Christmas was over by now, wasn't it? His complete loss of sense for daily time is most apparent when he ventures out to hear his sister play the violin at the end of the novel where he uses infinitives and imagines a sense of timelessness for himself and his sister. [...]
[...] "Semiotic Excess, Semantic Vacuity and the Photograph of the Imaginary: The Interplay of Realism and the Fantastic in Kafka's Die Verwandlung." Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift Fur Literaturwissenschaft Und Geistesgeschichte (1991): 304-17. Ryan, Michael P. "Kafka's Die Söhne: The Range and Scope of Metaphor." Monatshefte Für Deutschsprachige Literatur Und Kultur (2001): 73-86. Ryan, Michael P. "Samsa and Samsara: Suffering, Death, and Rebirth in 'The Metamorphosis'." German Quarterly (1999): 133-52. Vaughan, Larry. "'The Metamorphosis' and 'The Transformation': Franz Kafka's Die Verwandlung." Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift (2006): 239-42. [...]
[...] This paints a portrait of Gregor's everyday home life where he has the appearance of having strong connections to his family and is content in staying home in his leisure time. He even had aspirations of sending his sister to the conservatory where she can have proper violin lessons. However, all is lost now as Gregor's everyday has been permanently disrupted by pain and suffering at the hands of his family due to his fantastic metempsychosis. This begs the question of what is Kafka doing by turning Gregor, a man dedicated to providing for his family and who took great pride in doing so, into a giant insect? [...]
[...] With its Christian connotations, the apple in Gregor's back serves as a reminder of his family's sins and his guilt for contributing to their idleness. However, Kafka may have had other religious teachings besides Christianity in mind when writing The Metamorphosis. According to Michael Ryan, Kafka was familiar with and intrigued by the writing of Rudolph Steiner who wrote extensively on the topic of karma and Eastern philosophy. According to Ryan, Karma is a moral causality that emphasizes the connection between one's past and present lives. [...]
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