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Francisco Campos

Professor Beadle

English 115

26 March 2019

The Unfortunate Development of Relationships:

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka sees the deterioration of the many relationships that

Gregor had because of his condition. The readers see the development of his mom, dad, and

sister towards Gregor Samsa and the changes that they make to themselves once they find out

that Gregor has become a giant insect overnight. Gregor and his family have to adapt to a totally

different lifestyle than the one that they lived before Gregor became a giant bug. This complete

transformation that the family does can be read as an allegory in many ways through the various

themes that the story has. These themes include, but are not limited to, relationships, family,

dehumanization, and suffering. The reading of The Metamorphosis, for me, is a significant one in

literature because it is a very controversial piece of reading. It is controversial among many

scholars because they all have have different views on what the meaning of the article is. The

allegory of The Metamorphosis is something that has always been discussed by those that study

Franz Kafka and his work. Not everybody has the same thoughts as others when it comes to

seeking the allegory of this reading. The Metamorphosis is an allegory for evolution in

relationships, not only the evolution of Gregor, but also everybody else that is around him. This

reading is also very significant due to the fact that it causes controversy among those that read it.

The primary, and obvious way, in which the allegory of The Metamorphosis is brought

to reality is through the changes that occur to the body of Gregor. For those that do not know,

one day Gregor fell asleep and the next day he woke up and he was not the person he used to be,
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as a matter of fact he was not even a person anymore, but an insect. The readers are able to see

the evolution that he must go through in order to adjust to his new life as a large insect. For

example, all throughout the first half of the book, it is all about Gregor and him trying to adjust

to this new body that he has woken up with. This is where the audience begins to see the

evolution of the relationship that he has with his own self. He knows himself so well, yet he does

not realize that he has undergone a physical change. He realizes that something is off with him

when his mother calls at him to get up. He replies, but he notices that there is a change because

when he spoke some of the words that he said could not be understood and did not sound human.

The audience sees the evolution of Gregor’s relationship with his own self as he is just in his

room thinking to himself, about some of the things that have occured in his life, or something

that he is afraid of, such as being late to work. The entire time that the audience is reading about

him making the effort to get up, we are introduced to some characters that play a significant role

in the understanding of the evolution that occurs in the story.

The next characters that we are introduced to that have a relationship with Gregor are his

mother and his father. These are some of the main characters that the audience reads about

because the evolution of this relationship does have a great impact on the reading and what

happens to Gregor. The first stage of their relationship that we are introduced to is seeing how

much they actually care about Gregor. First, his mother goes and knocks on his door to tell him

that he should get up and then she asks him if he is well. Once his mother checks on him, Gregor

still takes a while to get up from his bed and “soon his father came knocking at one of the side

doors” (Kafka 6) as his father kept knocking, he asked Gregor “What’s wrong?... Gregor? Aren’t

you well? Do you need anything?” (Kafka 6), showing that he does care about the well being of

his son. Stage two of the evolution of their relationship begins when Gregor unlocks the door of
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his bedroom and reveals his new self to his mother, father, and the chief clerk from Gregor’s

workplace. Once gregor shows himself to the them, one can see that their relationship will have a

drastic change based off of the reactions that both his mother and his father gave when they saw

the new body that Gregor had. It’s safe to say that both were not accepting of the fact that Gregor

had turned into this giant vermin. When his mother say him “she unfolded her arms, took two

steps forward towards Gregor and sank down onto the floor into her skirts that spread themselves

out around her as her head disappeared onto her breast” (Kafka 14). Meanwhile his father was

having the same reaction as his mother because he “looked hostile, clenched his fist… covered

his eyes with his hands and wept so that his powerful chest shook” (Kafka 15). After seeing these

reactions it was safe to say that they would not be accepting of their new looking son, and we

were correct because the next stage of their relationship involved them leaving him locked in his

room. They changed all the locks that he would not get out of his bedroom. He was used to them

being in the living room, his mother and sister listening to his father tell them stories, and his

sister writing to Gregor and telling him about the many stories that their father had just told

them. The final stage of their relationship takes place when the parents, mainly the father, is tired

of Gregor and the way that he is so he dived to take action against Gregor. His dad decides to

take action by putting a lot of fruit in his pocket and throws all of it at Gregor until he dealt a

great amount of damage to Gregor. This would cause an apple tog te stuck in Gregor’s back and

soon it would make him lose much of his mobility. When Gregor was finally found dead by the

cleaning lady, it seemed as if his father did not care that his own son had died because all he said

was “let’s give thanks to God for that”, showing that the relationship that was once a close one

had evolved into one where there was no care at all.

Now, obviously not everybody interprets the allegory of The Metamorphosis the same

way that I understand it. Some people may disagree and say that the allegory of the

metamorphosis is revelation and sacrifice and not about the evolution of relationships. The

revelation that occurs in the reading is one that should have happened before the transformation

of Gregor, but of course it did not occur that way, it occurred after he had transformed into the

giant insect. To paraphrase the words of Gavriel Ben-Ephraim on The Midwest Quarterly

(Summer 1994), the revelation that happens after his transformation, at least from his

perspective, is the revelation about his life and the fact the he never actually had a life. Even

before the change that happened to his body, he never really took time to do most of the things

that most people do. He didn’t really talk to many people because all he did was work. He would

wake up really early and work a lot just to get enough money for himself and for his parents. It

also has to do with sacrifice because of the fact that he sacrificed his personal life for the well

being of his family. After he had transformed, nobody in his family wanted to sacrifice

themselves for him and they no longer wanted to claim him. Of course they had to sacrifice the

normal lives that they once had, but the did not willingly want to do it, it was more forced than

anything because they had to adapt to the fact their son was no longer going to look or be the

same as he did before.

While those are some very valid points on revelation and sacrifice, there is still a large

part of me that believes the allegory is about the evolution of people and relationships. Not only

does it have to do with him and animate objects, but also with his relationship of inanimate

objects. According to Making and Breaking Meaning: Deconstruction, Four-Level Allegory and

the Metamorphosis, the relationship of Gregor has become one sided with animate objects. It is

completely one sided because of the fact that there are three elements that one must have when in
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a relationship with animate objects and they are “an agent of delivery, a mutually

comprehensible agency, and a target agent”(Caldwell 269), in other words a person you talk to

and they respond. Seeing that most of those elements are are not present with Gregor in his

current state it means that his relationship with animate objects is nonexistent. According to the

scholarly article, all he has now is a relationship with inanimate objects. The example that he

uses is the way in which Gregor uses the sheets to conceal himself. He changed the original

purpose of the sheets and it is used in a meaningful manner, showing that he only has inanimate

objects by his side. But over time all his relationships come to an end. With the end of all of his

relationship, we also see the end of Gregor’s relationship with the story.

Overall, there are many perceptions of The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, for example

there was the counterargument in the essay about Sacrifice and revelation, that was a good

allegory that a reader can perceive and the argument had many valid points. But the one allegory

that stands out above all else for me is the allegory of the evolution of relationships. It is the

evolution of Gregor’s relationship with himself and his family that make The Metamorphosis

what it really is. If it was not for the relationships that are in this story then there really wouldn't

be much of a story. The experiences and emotions would not be felt by those that read this story.

The audience gets to see the development of their lives over time after the changes that happened

to Gregor. This is meaningful because it gives the audience a better understanding of the reading

and the message that Kafka was probably trying to get across, which is that as you evolve, so

will most of your relationships.

Works Cited:

Caldwell, Richard. "Kafka and Orpheus: The Metamorphosis." Short Story Criticism, edited by

Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 186, Gale, 2013. Literature Criticism Online,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/XLQBDA941687439/LCO?u=csunorthridge&sid=LCO&xid

=2c06a780. Accessed 28 Mar. 2019. Originally published in The Dove and the Mole, edited by

Moshe Lazar and Ronald Gottesman, Undena, 1987, pp. 47-59.

Ben-Ephraim, Gavriel. "Making and Breaking Meaning: Deconstruction, Four-Level Allegory

and the Metamorphosis." Short Story Criticism, edited by Anna Sheets-Nesbitt, vol. 35, Gale,

2000. Literature Criticism Online,

http://link.galegroup.com.libproxy.csun.edu/apps/doc/YCUJDH266619275/LCO?u=csunorthridg

e&sid=LCO&xid=30da1a00. Accessed 2 Apr. 2019. Originally published in The Midwest

Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 4, Summer 1994, pp. 450-467.

“Metamorphosis Franz Kafka.” Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Accessed 2 Apr. 2019.

Originally Published in 1915.