Please enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=755f0iUuJY0
Usually when I think of a metamorphosis I think of the transformation being a positive one without any bad consequences. Like a caterpillar changing to a beautiful butterfly, for example. Gregor changing into a beetle doesn't sound very positive, but it does have some benefits. There is also something negative about it. In becoming an insect, he is finally freed from a lifestyle of constantly working and giving his money to his ungrateful family. Not only does he have all the freedom he's ever wanted, but he is being given some of the attention from his parents he never had. Unfortunately, this attention is not exactly the greatest. His family has no desire to be around him as they are disgusted by his appearance. He suffers from the same cruelty and neglect he suffered from before his transformation.
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4 comments:
Throughout the story I was expecting something to come out of him being a bug. I expected there to be some lesson to be learned or ironic cure to be found, instead, it was just sad and there wasn't much to think about. It was only about his family rejecting him and no changes in his condition or his happiness.
Which made the story different from others, which I liked, however it was weird that such an unfortunate series of events with no real sense of relief or excitedment from good happenings in Gregory life as a bug.
I agree with the fact that I was expecting something bigger to happen in the end. I was actually prepared for Gregor to genuinely be happy with the fact that he had turned into a bug. I thought this because maybe he would finally be relieved of his hefty obligations towards the family. But then again, Gregor is so selfless that maybe he could never be happy without helping his family out financially. I also can't help but think that Gregor could never be happy as a bug due to his family's cruelty towards him. If they were a little more accepting towards the situation, his attitude probably would've been different.
The headnotes mentioned something about readers trying to find underlying messages in Kafka's stories, and I can definitely understand why we should be tempted to look for a greater significance behind Gregor being changed into a bug in The Metamorphosis. I, too, was expecting some lesson to be learned or something to come out of Gregor transforming into a "beetle," like Cheyenne pointed out. I looked up what some people figured the hidden message could be. One example I found was that Kafka was writing about "the propaganda that portrayed Jews as vermin." Being a German speaking Jew, Kafka was born into cultural alienation. It's hard to believe Kafka didn't write this story without considering the real world issues and prejudice he experienced firsthand. I wish there was a way of knowing for sure what exactly Kafka had in mind when he composed The Metamorphosis.
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