The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka quickly became one of the best works of literature I've ever read. It is a short novella, only about 90 pages long, that tells the story of a young man, Gregor Samsa, who wakes up one day apparently transformed into a roach of some sort. The story does not go into detail about how or why this change occurred, only that it happened.
The novella is told from the perspective of Gregor Samsa. Gregor is first introduced as a traveling salesman working for a company to pay off an "ancient debt" that his family owed to the company's owners. The story begins with Gregor waking up one morning late for work and with aches all over his body. He does not immediately realize that he has undergone a metamorphosis, instead, he attempts to get up. Interestingly, he does not seem very surprised at his transformation and immediately assesses the situation logically. The way he approaches his dilemma says a lot about Gregor's character throughout the story. He is incredibly work-oriented and the only thing he concerns himself with providing for his family. For the past five years, since an incident that his family had with the owners of his company, Gregor has been working tirelessly to make sure his family has everything they need. Throughout the book, we see Gregor sacrificing and working himself to the brink just to make his family's lives easier. However, as altruistic and kind as Gregor's actions seem, his narrative is written dryly, almost as if he is emotionless. I believe this was done on purpose.
Franz Kafka, in some of his other writings, tends to be witty, and humourous and seems to make light of bad situations. However, The Metamorphosis, in particular, has a very ominous and impassive writing style. The main character seems to lose hope about his situation quickly and is shown as almost indifferent to what is happening to him. There are few times throughout the story in which we see sparks of emotion from Gregor and even those get less and less frequent. The few examples in which he does show signs of being human usually have to do with his family. For instance, to prevent his family from being disgusted at the way he looks after the metamorphosis, even though he has no control over it whatsoever, he hides himself under a bedsheet and crams himself under a sofa just to spare his mother and sister the sight of him.
Gregor's selflessness, to a fault, can also be interpreted as giving up on himself. For the last couple of years, before the metamorphosis took place, Gregor had been consistently putting his own happiness and his needs after his family. One interesting idea that I observed while I was reading was that the entire story seemed to be a metaphor for Gregor's declining mental health. This prompts the idea that a physical "metamorphosis" never actually occurred.
From the first few paragraphs of the story, it is clear that Gregor has not woken up as he usually has. However, the only evidence of a change occurring overnight is that Gregor describes himself as having a hard shell on his back and small feet. The story does not go into much detail about his physical changes which hints at the fact that this story had a focus on his mental state.
Before the story was set to begin, Gregor already seemed to be in a depressive state. His internal monolouge was incredibily dry to begin with, and he always seemed on the edge of giving up. When his family completely outcasted him, he wasn't disappointed. It was almost as if he had no expections for anyone around him to respect him. He tried to hide himself and the changes that were happening to him from his family as much as he could. This also follows the assumption that the novella is told as a metaphor of depression as it is natural for those with mental conditions to go to great lengths to hide their conditions. This sort of behavior makes sense as the time period this was written in (the early 1900's) shunned those with mental disorders.
The Metamorphosis ended with Gregor Samsa, while still in his roach-like form, dying after getting incredibly weak and hopeless. In the pages leading up to his death, Gregor's thoughts seemed to get less and less rational as he completely gave up. He saw himself as a useless member of his family who was better off dead. The resolution of the novella, although sad, seemed to fit the story. Gregor was spiraling throughout the story made the end quite forseeable.
Using a roach what Gregor metamorphosizes into was supposed to signify how he felt like he was a burden or a parasite on his family as time went on. Every detail in the story, from his family members to the setting all seemed to fit the metaphor of how one feels when they are falling into depression. The way Kafka embedded this message in the story made The Metamorphosis a beautiful and thought-provoking read.
