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Maria Gamez Garcia

Professor Jon Beadle

English 115

November 1, 2021

The Metamorphosis: Freedom of Life

Some of the most desirable things that there are in the world are having the freedom of

being oneself. We can see a similar type of freedom in the book written by Franz Kafka titled

“The Metamorphosis” where we read about the life of Gregor Samsa after waking up one

morning being transformed into a vermin and his struggles as he grows into getting comfortable

with how he is now. We see throughout the book how Gregor’s family react to his

transformation, how he starts to change, questioning at some point about his identity, and details

about his life before he woke up that morning. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor’s transformation

can be seen in a way of being freed from the responsibilities he had as the head of his family and

the job he despises, which at the beginning it was a desirable freedom but towards the end it

became undesirable for him because his family became distant.

Just at the beginning of the first few paragraphs of Kafka’s first chapter of the book “The

Metamorphosis” we can start to get an image of how Gregor Samsa’s life was before his sudden

transformation and how he felt. One of the very first things he does after waking up transformed

into a bug was to think about how his job was so miserable. He says, “what a grueling job I’ve

picked!” (Kafka 3) he continues describing his job in a negative way that gives the audience the

feeling of Gregor disliking it a lot. Some might say that if he disliked his job so much why

wouldn’t he just quit and find a new one? Wouldn’t that have made him not hate his job so much

and freed him from the burden it was for him? It is an acceptable question if it wasn’t because in
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Gregor’s life, he had really no other choice, he says “if I didn’t hold back for my parent’s sake, I

would have quit long ago” (Kafka 4) this provides the reason why Gregor worked there in the

first place, because of his family. Gregor had the responsibility of being the head of his family,

the one who provided the money for his parents and in a way being transformed gave him the

freedom he needed for so long. But at the same time this freedom becomes undesirable. His

family was completely different than him toward his transformation. At first his family,

especially his sister took care of him as if he was ill, bringing him his favorite food, to which

Kafka says, “if Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her for everything she

had to do for him” (Kafka 28). As time went on it was more difficult for them to be around

Gregor since they didn’t know how to treat him.

Gregor’s family had difficulty communicating with him since they could not understand

anything he said. They didn’t know how to treat him or interact with him. When we analyze

Jeffrey Jerome Cohen article “Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire” we can see a

connection of what he says with Gregor’s state. Cohen says, “the monster is the abjected

fragment that enables the formation of all kinds of identities- personal, national, cultural,

economic, sexual, psychological…” (Cohen 193). Gregor’s identity was in a way missing before

he was changed and this transformation gave him a way to explore himself, but at the same time

he begins to lose himself. Towards to end of the story he imagined himself as a vermin giving his

sister the news of sending her to a music academy (Kafka), he begins to loose his humanity. The

language used on the book also implies that his human identity is sometimes taken over by what

he is now. After his sister and his mother take out the furniture of his room so he could have

more space he’s more often described as “crawling” instead of walking. Kafka says, “… after all,

he left behind traces of his sticky substance wherever he crawled…” (Kafka 30). He becomes
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more comfortable with the body he now has, but it was also making him be less human,

something that shows how this freedom he now had was changing him, ultimately making it

undesirable.

We can see throughout the book the difficulties that Gregor’s family had when it came to

him after his transformation. His mother’s first thought was that Gregor was sick, showing how

his mother was going to be towards him in the story. In the article, “A consideration of Kafka’s

Metamorphosis as a metaphor for existential anxiety about aging” written by Ciaran O’Connor

an existential psychotherapist, who talks about how The Metamorphosis could be interpreted as

portraying old age on Gregor’s transformation. The article supports the claim of the freedom that

Gregor’s metamorphosis brings him, saying that “Kafka perhaps picks this unusual setup in order

to best contrast Gregor as switching so violently from a role of being the central cog of the

family” (O’Connor). This adds into Gregor’s release from responsibilities being desirable at first

but slowly changing because of the distant he becomes from his family. O’Connor continues to

say in her article that “Gregor is portrayed as physically disabled following his transformation”

(O’Connor) which eventually leads to his only caregiver, his sister, to change about taking care

of Gregor to wanting to get rid of him. This comes to show how she lost any hope of getting her

brother back, thinking that Gregor was gone and all that was left was only a bug.

The language used in the book, as mentioned before, changes as the story progresses at

the same time as Gregor’s humanity becomes less and less than what he was at the beginning.

The article written by Micah Sadigh a Professor of Psychology, “The nightmare of becoming

human: Metaphors and reflections for individuals in search of authentic self” talks about the

psychology behind the work of Franz Kafka. Sadigh says, “… what he had in mind was to delve

deeply into the human psyche as a search for identity and perhaps even a sense of meaning”
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(Sadigh) which connects back into Gregor’s story and how not being a human anymore end up

affecting him as time goes by. Sadigh also says in the article, “The Metamorphosis as a metaphor

for when psychotherapy fails” (Sadigh). At the end of Gregor’s tragic story, he dies lonely on his

room, and after this his family moves on. This brings us once again back to his freedom being

temporarily desirable as he didn’t have all the responsibilities he had with his family, but also

this leads to him becoming lonely, losing his identity and at the end, dying neglected by his

loved ones and alone.

As a result, we can conclude that the freedom that Gregor was given when transformed

into a vermin was just a temporary release from the limitations that he felt on his life. Gregor

was freed from the burden it was for him to be the one to bring the money to the house for his

family as he didn’t enjoy the job he had and how his relationship with his parents wasn’t the

best. But at the same time all this freedom became what eventually would kill him. His

transformation made him question his identity and his relationships. Gregor didn’t just die when

he was hit by an apple that injured him badly when it was thrown by his father. But he also died

emotionally as he was rejected by the people he cared for the most, as it was his sister, who he

loved but also changed to become the one who loses all hopes and says he’s not there anymore,

letting him emotionally suffer. Proving that eventually the freedom he had after transforming

was undesirable in the way it was formed and by how it made Gregor feel at the end of his story.
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Works Cited

Kafka, Franz. “The Metamorphosis.” Edited by Stanley Corngold. New York, NY, Bantam Dell,

1915. Print.

Cohen, Jeffrey Jerome. "Fear of the Monster is Really a Kind of Desire.” Monsters, edited by

Andrew J. Hoffman, Bedford St. Martins, 2016, pp. 190-195

Sadigh, Micah. "The nightmare of becoming human: Metaphors and reflections for individuals in

search of authentic self." Existential Analysis, vol. 28, no. 2, July 2017

O'Connor, Ciaran. "A consideration of Kafka's Metamorphosis as a metaphor for existential

anxiety about ageing." Existential Analysis, vol. 23, no. 1, Jan. 2012