Metamorphosis

1
Metamorphosis

• Section III

2
Metamorphosis

• Suppose all that you have always valued in your
  lives was shown to you to be illusion. What
  would it be like to turn truth on her head? To
  have your precious beliefs, maxims, platitudes,
  and traditions inverted and distorted beyond
  recognition? To suddenly realize that what is
  good, is bad what is beauty, is foul what is
  virtue, vice? What if all your points of
  reference were to shift North becomes South
  black becomes white deviant becomes saint saint
  becomes deviant. Suppose that this
  transformation--a metamorphosis of perception
  were to come to you -- and you alone. Suddenly
  you awake -- and in utter solitude -- you
  discover that the world is its opposite.

3
Metamorphosis

• Two realities strike you all at once One, you
  define yourself in terms of your values. With
  your values now reversed, so too are you
  reversed you are a roach! Two, what you have
  become is apparent to everyone else. Gregor Samsa
  has burrowed his way out of the value set that
  defined his social setting. The metamorphosis was
  inevitable. Look at where his values were
  anchored servant to the needs of an oppressive
  boss in order to meet the needs of an exploitive
  family. So, he ceases to serve. With new values
  opposing those of the family, the employer, and
  society at large, Gregor emerges as a deviant. He
  has entered the world of the despised. Never
  forget, my friends, that "truth" is in the eye of
  the beholder. In Gregor's world the despised and
  the beloved are reversed.

4
Themes

• Alienation and isolation
• Father son relationship
• Self-sacrifice

5
Gregors Transformation

• Father may realize actions- remorse
• They will endure Gregor
• Autobiographical- Kafkas relationship with his
  father
• since no one ventured to remove the apple, it
  remained in his flesh as a visible reminder-
  seemed by itself to have reminded the father
  that, in spite of his present unhappy and hateful
  appearance, Gregor was a member of the family,
  something one should not treat as an enemy, and
  that it was on the contrary, a requirement of
  family duty to suppress ones aversion to endure
  nothing else, just endure(20)

6
Transformation

• Family constantly reminded of Gregors burden
• This is a life. This is the peace and quiet of
  my old age (21)
• Gregor never complained of his burden
• In this overworked and exhausted family who had
  time to worry any longer about Gregor more than
  was absolutely necessary (21)

7
Transformation

• The main thing holding the family back from a
  change in living quarters was far more their
  complete hopelessness and the idea that they had
  been struck by a misfortune like no one else in
  their entire circle of relatives and
  acquaintances (21)
• So was Gregor
• Could have moved earlier to help alleviate
  Gregors burden

8
Gregors Transformation

• Gregors thoughts begin to change
• But then he was in no mood to worry about his
  family. He was filled with sheer anger over the
  wretched care he was getting, even though he
  couldnt imagine anything which he might have an
  appetite for. (22)
• He becomes angry
• No self-sacrifice?

9
Gregors Transformation

• Gregor ate hardly anything anymore. (23)
• Use room for storage
• Lodgers
• They sat down at the head of the table, where in
  earlier days the mother, the father, and Gregor
  had eaten (23)
• Isolation and alienation

10
Gregors Transformation

• Family reached low point
• Gregor holds them hostage as they once did him
• Gregor has seem to given up hope
• I really do have an appetite but not for these
  things. How these lodgers stuff themselves, and
  I am dying (24)
• He was indifferent to everything (24)

11
Gregors Decline

• He has disappeared as a human and now Grete wants
  him to disappear altogether
• " 'He must go,' cried Gregor's sister, 'that's
  the only solution, Father. You must just try to
  get rid of the idea that this is Gregor. The fact
  that we've believed it for so long is the root of
  all our trouble. But how can it be Gregor? If
  this were Gregor, he would have realized long ago
  that human beings can't live with such a creature
  and he'd have gone away on his own accord. Then
  we wouldn't have any brother, but wed be able to
  go on living and keep his memory in honor. As it
  is, this creature persecutes us, drives away our
  lodgers, obviously wants the whole apartment to
  himself and would have us all sleep in the
  gutter.' " (26)
• He has been rejected for the final time.

12
Gregors Death

• Then without willing it, his head sank all the
  way down, and from his nostrils flowed out weakly
  his last breath (27)
• Dies alone, isolated and alienated
• Same as before transformation
• Irony
• She thought he lay so immobile there because he
  wanted to play the offended partyshe tried to
  tickle Gregor with it from the door (25-26)
• Sad life sad death

13
Gregors Death

• Family is relieved of the burden and may begin
  their new lives
• Leaning back comfortably in their seats, they
  talked to each other about future prospects, and
  they discovered that on closer observation these
  were not at all bad, for the three of them had
  employment, about which they had not really
  questioned each other at all, which was extremely
  favorable and with especially promising
  prospects (29)
• And it was something of a confirmation of their
  new dreams and good intentions when at the end of
  their journey their daughter got up first and
  stretched her young body(30)