Metamorphosis

Question 1: Gregor, before the transformation, was a person who was miserable on the inside but reluctant to show it because he lived and worked to support his family. He had never missed a work day and even when he transformed he was thinking that he should find a way to get to work. He was a workaholic who had time for no one but his family who greedily spent his paychecks. Having his family take advantage of him and not appreciate anything would kind of make him seem like some kind-of bug. They want him but don’t want to actually care for him. They treated him like some kind of work-pet that just got up and automatically went to work and came home to a loud cheering of people when he brought home a paycheck, which was quickly spent. Question 2: I find this story to be one of the finest examples of the adjective “Kafkaesque”. Kafka writes in a way that takes a person’s reality and gives every detail a whole new meaning, making obstacles and rewards for the character to overcome and reap. One example would be how he takes Gregor’s “bug life” and literally transforms it from him being treated as a bug-like slave to becoming an actual bug. What’s so unique about these stories is that they start of just like any other predictable story and then it suddenly changes with the entire plot by use of some magic/fantasy element and clear, vivid details that send the reader’s mind from the couch into the book. Question 3: Gregor becomes lonely, even though he is with his family all the time now because first when he went to work he couldn’t see them because he was at work, but now when he’s home, although transformed, his family refuses to look at him, they try to pretend he doesn’t exist. Only his sister Grete, comes in his room and stays with him and plays her violin. But she eventually gets tired of the burden and stops seeing him too. The family, now sick of doing work for Gregor now that he was useless to them, waited for him to die and then left the house forever pretending that nothing had ever happened and that Gregor never existed.