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There have been several interpretations of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” and the titular transformation within it. Gregor Samsa begins the story with the belief that he transformed into an insect, and towards the end he suffers a lonely death from an injury inflicted by his father. On the surface, the story appears to be about a man transforming into a monster, but upon further examination a deeper meaning is revealed. In “Metamorphosis,” Kafka describes a man attempting to escape from his depression into his schizophrenic delusions and reveals how the environment played a role in his worsening symptoms.
While to most people a transformation like the one Gregor goes through would be terrifying, Kafka includes reasons that Gregor would want to escape from his life and dive into his delusions. At points in the story it is shown that “Gregor is characterized by escapist tendencies. Given that, by virtue of his self-denial, he is forced to indefinitely postpone the satisfactory existence he longs for, he cannot accept real life” (Bermejo-Rubio 284).
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It can be reasoned that in Gregor’s unhappiness, he latched onto whatever would grant him a second of relief. In this instance, however, “in order to compensate his state of unhappiness, [he] escapes from reality by making do with fantasizing and self-deceiving substitutive elements” (Bermejo-Rubio 284). Gregor’s escape into his delusions creates a larger problem, as now he has begun to reject reality. His rejection of reality is what allows his symptoms to worsen and his mental health to continue to decline.
With that decline comes more detailed and reality altering hallucinations.
With his condition worsening, Gregor begins to believe that his transformation, too, is worsening, but Kafka includes some clues that the transformation is only in his mind. Key moments in the story reveal that “Gregor’s body is made out of flesh and blood, has a neck, and possibly hair. Gregor moves his head in many ways (almost twenty different verbs are used to describe these movements), can look at other people out of the corner of his eye and can also close his eyes” (Bermejo-Rubio 281). Gregor’s anatomy is different from the insect he describes himself to be, hinting that he is merely hallucinating his transformation rather than actually no longer being human. Outside of his direct anatomy, there are human functions Gregor performs that the insect would not be able to do. At points in the story, Gregor “smiles and sheds tears (proving that he has lachrymal glands), and he coughs and pants” (Bermejo-Rubio 281). Gregor’s delusions have strengthened by this point in the story, but even though mentally he sees himself as an insect, he still physically acts in a human manner and demonstrates human qualities. However, Gregor continues to act as though he has transformed, as Kafka subtly hints with the manipulation of the environment.
Though Gregor remains consciously aware, the audience is shown through Kafka’s expert use of imagery that the world around Gregor seems to change as he delves further into his madness. “With care and a great deal of fantastical realism, Kafka portrays shifts in spatial relations which suddenly circumscribe Gregor’s movements and world. His bed is an immense obstacle. He can hardly reach the door-handle” (Kohzadi, Azizmoohammadi, Nouri 1606). As parts of his reality change to support him being an insect, the audience begins to see Gregor’s belief no longer as madness but as a genuine vision from a relatively sane man. It is this change in how the audience sees Gregor’s visions that allows Kafka to properly capture the nature of schizophrenia. To those suffering from schizophrenia, the visions are as real as everything physically around them. It could be easily explained that the changes in environment are as a result of Gregor losing his sanity, but “these changes are not wholly generated from within Gregor’s transformed shell. They are also conditioned by the world’s reactions to his condition” (Kohzadi, Azizmoohammadi, Nouri 1606). The people around Gregor are also part of his environment and as a result slowly begin to treat him as a monster. Serving the dual purpose of slowly changing to match the physical obstacles and reinforce the validity of the transformation, the people around Gregor are what truly cause his symptoms to grow worse. This leads to those arguably responsible for Gregor not being able to recover properly from his illness: his family.
It would be easy at this point to blame Gregor for all of his symptoms, but his family abandoning him causes his symptoms to grow even worse over time. At first the family didn’t seem bothered by Gregor’s transformation terribly as “initially, it was the sister who did the most, to take care of her metamorphosed brother. Mother supported her, while the father was just a distant onlooker. By and by, the attitude changed in everybody, and all three reached the same mindset; the “dear one” does not any more evoke any tender feelings in them. Finally, one day when the “despicable creature” dies in abject misery, the family feels a great sense of relief” (Antony 1). Gregor appears to be a burden to them in this scenario, and while that may be the case, his belief that he is a burden makes his condition deteriorate. When examining the scenario according to modern medicine, it’s clear that as a result of the family turning him away that Gregor may have “[lost] his emotional nearness and warmth toward close relatives as a direct effect of the disease process” (Antony 3). Left without his family, Gregor is forced to either stay alone in his room or invent a reason why they would abandon him. As his symptoms grow worse, with his delusions growing to match why he is being isolated, his family has more and more of a reason to turn their backs to him. Eventually the family sees him as he sees himself in his delusions. Then once Gregor dies, the family feels free of a burden instead of guilty for not helping their family member in need.
Gregor is not an insect, but is in fact a man suffering from hallucinations that he has transformed, caused by schizophrenia. He wants to escape his miserable existence, which led to him embracing his hallucinations instead of reality. His family feels burdened as a result and doesn’t help him get treated. Shunned from the world, Gregor only grows worse until his family sees him as the monster his fractured mind makes him believe he has transformed into. This is an important topic because it turns “Metamorphosis” into a cautionary tale that can be applicable to families in the modern era. It teaches loved ones what can happen if they turn away, and helps to teach victims to try to get help, rather than just accept their condition.
Works Cited
1.Antony, James T. “Metamorphosis: A Reason Why Many Chronic Schizophrenics Get Abandoned by Their Dear Ones.” Indian Journal of Psychiatry, vol. 59, no. 1, Jan. 2017, pp. 10–13. EBSCOhost, doi:10.4103/0019-5545.204446.
2.Bermejo-Rubio, Fernando. “Does Gregor Samsa Crawl Over the Ceiling and Walls? Intra-Narrative Fiction in Kafka’s Die Verwandlung.” Monatshefte, vol. 105, no. 2, 2013, pp. 278–314. EBSCOhost, library.collin.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mzh&AN=2013200723&site=ehost-live.
3.Kohzadi, Hamedreza, et al. “A Study of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis.” Journal of Basic and Applied Scientific Research, 2012, pp. 1600–1607. ISSN: 2090-4304 https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c6ae/f7ea2f821780fc72a401a01cc9bbcfed1776.pdf
Analysis of “The Metamorphosis” By Franz Kafka. (2024, Feb 09). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/analysis-of-the-metamorphosis-by-franz-kafka-essay
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