the metamorphosis outsider essay

A Summary and Analysis of Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Metamorphosis’ is a short story (sometimes classed as a novella) by the Czech-born German-language author Franz Kafka (1883-1924). It is his best-known shorter work, published in German in 1915, with the first English translation appearing in 1933. ‘The Metamorphosis’ has attracted numerous interpretations, so it might be worth probing this fascinating story more closely.

You can read ‘The Metamorphosis’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of Kafka’s story below.

Plot Summary

Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman, wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed into a giant insect. Although he briefly considers this transformation, he quickly turns his thoughts to his work and his need to provide for his parents (he lives with them and his sister) so that they can pay off their debts. He also thinks about how much he hates travelling.

He realises he is already late for work, but hesitates to call in sick because he has never had a day off sick before, and knows this might raise alarm bells. When he responds through the bedroom door after his mother calls to him, he realises that his voice has become different as a result of his metamorphosis into an insect. When his family try to enter his bedroom, they find the door locked, and he refuses to let them in.

Then there’s a knock at the door and it’s the chief clerk for whom Gregor works, wondering where Gregor has got to.

Still Gregor refuses to open the door to his family or to his visitor. The chief clerk is affronted and tells Gregor through the door that his work has not been good enough and his position at the company may not be safe. Gregor seeks to defend himself, and assures the clerk that he will soon return to work. However, because Gregor’s voice has changed so much since his transformation, nobody can understand what he’s saying.

Gregor opens the door and his mother screams when she sees him. He asks the chief clerk to smooth things over at the office for him, explaining his … sudden metamorphosis into an insect.

Later that evening, having swooned and dozed all day, Gregor wakes up at twilight and finds that his sister had brought him milk with some bread in it. Gregor attempts to drink the milk, but finds the taste disgusting, so he leaves it. He climbs under the couch so his family don’t have to look at him, while his sister tries to find him food that he can eat.

Gregor overhears his family talking in the other room, and discovers that, despite their apparent debts, his parents have some money stashed away. He has been going to work to support them when he didn’t have to.

As well as the changes to his voice, Gregor also realises that his vision has got worse since his transformation. He also discovers that he enjoys climbing the walls and the ceiling of his bedroom. To help him, his sister gets rid of the furniture to create more space for him to climb; Gregor’s mother disagrees and is reluctant to throw out all of Gregor’s human possessions, because she still trusts that he will return to his former state one day.

When he comes out of the room, his mother faints and his sister locks him outside. His father arrives and throws apples at him, severely injuring him, because he believes Gregor must have attacked his own mother.

After his brush with death, the family change tack and vow to be more sympathetic towards Gregor, agreeing to leave the door open so he can watch them from outside the room as they talk together. But when three lodgers move in with the family, and his room is used to store all of the family’s furniture and junk, he finds that he cannot move around any more and goes off his food. He becomes shut off from his family and the lodgers.

When he hears his sister playing the violin for the lodgers, he opens the door to listen, and the lodgers, upon spotting this giant insect, are repulsed and declare they are going to move out immediately and will not pay the family any of their rent owed. Gregor’s sister tells her parents that they must get rid of their brother since, whilst they have tried to take care of him, he has become a liability. She switches from talking about him as her brother and as an ‘it’, a foreign creature that is unrecognisable as the brother they knew.

Gregor, overhearing this conversation, wants to do the right thing for his family, so he decides that he must do the honourable thing and disappear. He crawls off back to his room and dies.

Gregor’s family is relieved that he has died, and the body is disposed of. Mr Samsa kicks the lodgers out of the apartment. He, his wife, and their daughter are all happy with the jobs they have taken, and Mr and Mrs Samsa realise that their daughter is now of an age to marry.

The one thing people know about ‘The Metamorphosis’ is that it begins with Gregor Samsa waking up to find himself transformed into an insect. Many English translations use the word in the book’s famous opening line (and we follow convention by using the even more specific word ‘beetle’ in our summary of the story above).

But the German word Ungeziefer does not lend itself easily to translation. It roughly denotes any unclean being or creature, and ‘bug’ is a more accurate rendering of the original into English – though even ‘bug’ doesn’t quite do it, since (in English anyway) it still suggests an insect, or at least some sort of creepy-crawly.

For this reason, some translators (such as David Wyllie in the one we have linked to above) reach for the word vermin , which is probably closer to the German original. Kafka did use the word Insekt in his correspondence discussing the book, but ordered that the creature must not be explicitly illustrated as such at any cost. The point is that we are not supposed to know the precise thing into which Gregor has metamorphosed.

The vagueness is part of the effect: Gregor Samsa is any and every unworthy or downtrodden creature, shunned by those closest to him. Much as those who wish to denigrate a particular group of people – immigrants, foreigners, a socio-economic underclass – often reach for words like ‘cockroaches’ or ‘vermin’, so Gregor’s transformation physically enacts and literalizes such emotive propaganda.

But of course, the supernatural or even surreal (though we should reject the term ‘Surrealist’) setup for the story also means that ‘The Metamorphosis’ is less a straightforward allegory (where X = Y) than it is a more rich and ambiguous exploration of the treatment of ‘the other’ (where X might = Y, Z, or even A, B, or C).

Gregor’s subsequent treatment at the hands of his family, his family’s lodgers, and their servants may well strike a chord with not just ethnic minorities living in some communities but also disabled people, people with different cultural or religious beliefs from ‘the mainstream’, struggling artists whose development is hindered by crass bourgeois capitalism and utilitarianism, and many other marginalised individuals.

This is one reason why ‘The Metamorphosis’ has become so widely discussed, analysed, and studied: its meaning is not straightforward, its fantastical scenario posing many questions.  What did Kafka mean by such a story? Is it a comedy, a tragedy, or both? Gregor’s social isolation from his nearest and dearest, and subsequent death (a death of despair, one suspects, as much as it is a noble sacrifice for the sake of his family), all suggest the story’s tragic undercurrents, and yet the way Kafka establishes Gregor’s transformation raises some intriguing questions.

Take that opening paragraph. The opening sentence – as with the very first sentence of Kafka’s novel, The Trial – is well-known, but what follows this arresting first statement is just as remarkable. For no sooner has Gregor discovered that he has been transformed, inexplicably, into a giant insect (or ‘vermin’), than his thoughts have turned from this incredible revelation to more day-to-day worries about his job and his travelling.

This is a trademark feature of Kafka’s writing, and one of the things the wide-ranging term ‘Kafkaesque’ should accommodate: the nightmarish and the everyday rubbing shoulders together. Indeed, the everyday already is a nightmare, and Samsa’s metamorphosis into an alien creature is just the latest in a long line of modernity’s hellish developments.

So the effect of this opening paragraph is to play down, as soon as it has been introduced, the shocking revelation that a man has been turned into a beetle (or similar creature).

Many subsequent details in Kafka’s story are similarly downplayed, or treated in a calm and ordinary way as if a man becoming a six-feet-tall insect is the most normal occurrence in the world, and this is part of the comedy of Kafka’s novella: an aspect of his work which many readers miss, partly because the comedic is so often the first thing lost in translation.

And, running contrariwise to the interpretation of ‘The Metamorphosis’ that sees it as ‘just’ a straightforward story about modern-day alienation and mistreatment of ‘the other’ is the plot itself, which sees Gregor Samsa freed from his life of servitude and duty, undertaking a job he doesn’t enjoy in order to support a family that, it turns out, are perfectly capable of supporting themselves (first by the father’s money which has been set aside, and then from the family’s jobs which the mother, father, and daughter all take, and discover they actually rather enjoy).

Even Gregor’s climbing of the walls and ceiling in his room, when he would have been travelling around doing his job, represents a liberation of sorts, even though he has physically become confined to one room. Perhaps, the grim humour of Kafka’s story appears to suggest, modernity is so hellish that such a transformation – even though it ends in death – is really the only liberation modern man can achieve.

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The Absurdity of Existence: Franz Kafka and Albert Camus

September 16, 2015 | yalepress | Literature

Absurdist literature is notoriously difficult to read. Take, for example, Kafka’s short story, “The Metamorphosis,” in which the main character turns into a giant cockroach. Critics have produced countless different theories to explain the significance of Gregor Samsa’s transformation—and this diversity of interpretive meanings, John Sutherland proposes in A Little History of Literature , is the paradoxical result of a type of literature that takes the meaninglessness of life as its premise. In the following excerpt, Sutherland introduces Kafka’s literary mission to assert the pointlessness of literature, and discusses his influence on another writer who grappled constantly with the problems of existentialism and absurdism, Albert Camus. Check out the rest of our Little Histories here .

If you made a list of the most gripping opening lines in literature, the following would surely make it into the top ten:

As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.

It is from a short story, “The Metamorphosis,” by Franz Kafka (1883–1924). It’s probable that Kafka did not much care whether we read this sentence or anything that he wrote. He instructed his friend and executor Max Brod to burn his literary remains “preferably unread” after his death—he died prematurely, aged forty, from tuberculosis. Brod, thankfully, defied the instruction. Kafka speaks to us despite Kafka.

The human condition, for Kafka, is well beyond tragic or depressed. It is “absurd.” He believed that the whole human race was the product of one of “God’s bad days.” There is no “meaning” to make sense of our lives. Paradoxically that meaninglessness allows us to read into Kafka’s novels such as The Trial (which is about a legal “process” which doesn’t process anything), or his stories like “The Metamorphosis,” whatever meanings we please. For example, critics have viewed Gregor Samsa’s transformation into a cockroach as an allegory of anti-Semitism, a grim forecast of the criminal extermination of a supposedly “verminous” race. (Kafka was Jewish, and just a little older than Adolf Hitler.) Writers often foresee such things coming before other people do. “The Metamorphosis,” published in 1915, has also been seen as foreshadowing the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918, after the First World War. Kafka and his fellow citizens in Bohemia, centered in Prague, had lived under that vast empire. They woke up suddenly to find their identities had vanished. Others have read the story in terms of Kafka’s problematic relationship with his father, a coarse-grained businessman. Whenever Franz nervously gave his father one of his works, it would be returned unread. His father despised his son.

But any such “meanings” crumple because there is no larger or underlying meaning in the Kafka universe to underpin them. Yet absurdist literature still had a mission—to assert that literature is, like everything else, pointless. Kafka’s disciple, the playwright Samuel Beckett, put it well: the writer “has nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express, no power to express, no desire to express, together with the obligation to express.”

Albert Camus’s opening proposition in his best-known essay, “The Myth of Sisyphus,” is that “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” It echoes Kafka’s bleak aphorism: “A first sign of the beginning of understanding is the wish to die.” Why not, when life is pointless? Camus’s essay pictures the human condition in the mythical figure Sisyphus, doomed for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, only for it to fall down again. Pointless. Only two responses are feasible in the face of man’s Sisyphean fate: suicide or rebellion. Camus appended a long note—”Hope and the Absurd in the Works of Franz Kafka”—to his Sisyphus essay, commemorating the writer to whose influence he was indebted.

Kafka’s influence is evident in Camus’s fictional masterpiece The Outsider , written and published under Nazi occupation censorship. The action is set in Algiers, nominally part of Metropolitan France. The narrative opens bleakly: “Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday: I can’t be sure.” Nor does the French Algerian hero, Meursault, care. He cares about nothing. He has, he confides, “lost the habit of noting his feelings.” For no particular reason, he shoots an Arab. His only explanation, not that he troubles to come up with explanations, even to save his life, is that it was very hot that day. He goes to the guillotine, not even caring about that. He hopes the crowd watching the execution will jeer.

It was Camus’s comrade in philosophy, Jean-Paul Sartre, who perceived, most clearly, what drastic things Kafka had done to fiction’s rule book. Generically, as Sartre wrote in a digression in his novel Nausea (1938), the novel presumes to makes sense, fully aware that life doesn’t make sense. This “bad faith” is its “secret power.” Novels, said Sartre, are “machines that secrete spurious meaning into the world.” They are necessary, but intrinsically dishonest. What else do we have in life other than the “spurious meanings” we invent?

—Excerpt from A Little History of Literature , John Sutherland

John Sutherland , Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus of Modern English Literature, University College London, has taught students at every level and is the author or editor of more than 20 books. He lives in London.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Experimental Novels › Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on August 1, 2023

“As Gregor Samsa awoke from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.” So begins The Metamorphosis , a sinister allegory of dehumanization and hopelessness in the modern world by Franz Kafka (1883–1924). Once rendered an insect, Gregor becomes a functionless and embarrassing eyesore in a household, whose members grow to resent and neglect him to the point of death. There is no place in domestic, social, and professional life, Kafka’s tale suggests, for the unproductive and the nonconformist.

Written in 1912, The Metamorphosis was one of the few works Kafka published in his lifetime. Owing to the author’s general reluctance to publish and editorial reservations about the story’s bizarre content, The Metamorphosis did not go to press until 1915.

Like much of Kafka’s fiction, The Metamorphosis expresses dominant themes in the author’s own life. In a letter, Kafka mentioned the similarity between Samsa’s name and his own; both writer and character, furthermore, were pressured to take on largely pointless office jobs. Kafka’s anxieties about ill health and fear of physical collapse play out in the unfortunate Gregor, who dies from a wound inflicted on him by his father. But the story resonates most profoundly with the real circumstances of Kafka’s family life. Like his creation, Gregor, Kafka was continually berated by his imposing father, who considered his only son to be an unmitigated failure. Gregor, likewise, cowers in fear of his father, who finds him repulsive and attacks him at every turn. Although Kafka had earned a law degree in part to appease his father, he would remain an object of patriarchal disdain and repudiation—particularly in light of his fictional work, which his father deemed “a waste of time.” Kafka’s mother, like her alter ego in the story, was ever-deferential to her husband and offered little solace to her son; his sister, Ottla, was normally a compassionate ally, but on one occasion she joined the parents in insisting that Kafka increase his hours at the office; shortly thereafter, Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis, in which Gregor’s sister betrays him by insisting that the family get rid of him.

In addition to these autobiographical references, The Metamorphosis alludes to a number of literary works, including the Russian Nikolay Gogol’s The Nose, in which a man wakes up to find his nose missing; preposterously, the nose goes on to attain a high-ranking position in the civil service. Kafka’s text was also inspired by a Yiddish play, Gordin’s The Savage One. Kafka wrote extensively about the play in his diaries. All of the characters in The Metamorphosis find analogues in The Savage One. Gregor Samsa’s counterpart is an idiot son, who is unable to communicate with his family, stays locked in his room, and fears the wrath of his father. The Metamorphosis, furthermore, resembles Gordin’s drama in its entirely domestic setting and episodic narrative structure. All three texts connect materialism and status consciousness with the degradation of humanity.

In alignment with Kafka’s largely cynical philosophical views, The Metamorphosis supports a decidedly pessimistic interpretation of human nature. Speaking to his friend Max Brod, Kafka once explained that he thought human beings were God’s nihilistic thoughts. Brod asked whether there was hope elsewhere in the universe. To this, Kafka replied, “plenty of hope, for God—only not for us.” This dismal prognosis, a sense of terminal confinement, is represented by Gregor, whose only alternative to the world in which he has unintentionally entered is death. There are glimmers of hope in the concluding lines of The Metamorphosis, as the Samsa family sets about reconstructing itself, but this might also be seen to indicate the unfortunate perpetuation of the worst human qualities. In any case, after the story’s publication Kafka said that he regretted this ending, insisting that it was “unreadable.”

Along with the bleak determinism of The Metamorphosis , the surrealistic scenario depicted—its particular mixture of the impossible and the real—is typically “Kafkaesque.” In several works, Kafka posits an unlikely situation and portrays its development in realistic detail, both psychologically and materially. In his novel The Trial , for example, a man is accused and found guilty of a crime without ever being informed of the charge’s precise nature; in “Before the Law,” a man passes decades waiting to enter the gates of Justice, only to have the guardian, finally, close them in his face. The realist aspect of these texts encourages the reader to probe beyond the specific circumstance—a man, for example, literally becoming an insect—to uncover its symbolic and allegorical implications.

The image of the insect is evocative on several levels. As early as 1907, Kafka described the best part of his creative self as a “beautiful beetle”; he imagined his body moving around in the world while his “true writing self”—a beetle—remained behind. In later years, when his idealism faded, this authorial image was replaced by “filth and slime,” a phrase he applied to his piece “The Judgment” (it tells of a rebellious son condemned to suicide by his father). Gregor Samsa, a giant insect who becomes progressively more and more filthy, may be interpreted as a metaphor for disillusionment.

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Novels

Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Stories

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bridgewater, Patrick. Kafka’s Novels: An Interpretation. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2003. Greenberg, Martin. The Terror of Art: Kafka and Modern Literature. New York: Basic Books, 1968. Stach, Reiner. Kafka: The Decisive Years. Translated by Shelley Frisch. Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 2005. Stern, J. P., ed. The World of Franz Kafka. New York: Holt, Rinehard, 1980. Weinberg, Helen. The New Novel in America: The Kafkan Mode in Contemporary Fiction. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1970.

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Metamorphosis — The Metamorphosis: An Analysis of Franz Kafka’s Classic

The Metamorphosis: an Analysis of Franz Kafka's Classic

• Categories: Metamorphosis

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Words: 773 |

Published: Jan 29, 2024

Words: 773 | Pages: 2 | 4 min read

Table of contents

Analysis of the protagonist's transformation, exploration of familial relationships and societal expectations, examination of the role of work and the dehumanization of labor, interpretation of the existential themes in the text.

• Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis. Schocken Books, 2008.
• Fleishman, Avrom. "Kafka's "Metamorphosis" and Contemporary Criticism." The Kenyon Review, vol. 29, no. 4, 1967, pp. 491–514. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4334805.
• Duncan, Edward. "Kafka's Metamorphosis: Rebellion and Punishment." German Quarterly, vol. 47, no. 1, 1974, pp. 48–59. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/405433.

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Themes and Analysis

The metamorphosis, by franz kafka.

'The Metamorphosis' is a masterpiece on hitting important themes, such as transformation, alienation, and responsibility.

Article written by Emma Baldwin

B.A. in English, B.F.A. in Fine Art, and B.A. in Art Histories from East Carolina University.

Such themes in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis touch on what it means to be human and what happens when those around you stop regarding you as such.  

The Metamorphosis Themes  

Transformation  .

The first and most important theme in The Metamorphosis is transformation. There is the primary transformation in the novel, that of Gregor, a human man, into a large insect , but there are several others as well. As the novel progresses, Gregor struggles to hang onto his humanity, it slips from him as he turns to the things that bring him pleasure in his new form. He finds sanctuary in dark places, joy in crawling on the ceilings and the walls, and is only able to stomach rotten food.  

Additionally, there is the transformation that his family members undergo. It is seen most prominently in Grete, his sister . At first, she cares for Gregor’s needs, feeding and visiting him. But as time goes on, Grete grows older and her priorities change. It becomes easier for the family to ignore the fact that Gregor exists than to continue caring for him.  

Gregor’s transformation brings with it a series of emotional transitions and obstacles that he has to overcome. The main one being the separation from his family, job, and previous role as the main breadwinner. Gregor is alienated from his former humanity, generally, as well as his former personality and role, specifically.  

Gregor is also physically alienated in his prison cell-like room. It is from there, separate from the family, that he listens to their lives carry on without him.  

Responsibility

When Gregor first discovers that he’s no longer in his human body, his first thought is for his family. He worries immediately that he’s not going to be able to get to work on time and is going to lose his job. The first pages of the novel are devoted to Gregor’s struggle to force his new body to do what his old one could easily. He cares about the responsibility he has to his family, to pay off his father’s debts and support his sister and mother.  

A reader should also consider what responsibility his family has for him after his transformation and how they didn’t fulfill it. His generosity was not repaid.

Analysis of Key Moments in The Metamorphosis

• Gregor wakes up and discovers that he’s been transformed into a giant insect.  
• Gregor’s family and boss come to check on him.  
• The family is confronted by Gregor’s new form.  
• Grete feeds Gregor and he discovers he loves rotten food.  
• Gregor leans to climb the walls and they take the furniture out of the room.  
• Gregor tries to save the image of the woman in furs.  
• Mr. Samsa attacks Gregor believing he hurt Mrs. Samsa. Gregor is badly injured.  
• Lodgers move into the house and Gregor watches his family from his room.  
• Gregor decides his family will be better off without him and he dies.  
• The family feels relief now that Gregor is gone, they move on with their lives.

Point of View and Poetic Techniques in The Metamorphosis

Narrative point of view.

As a modernist novel, there are several techniques that will likely be familiar with in The Metamorphosis. These are related to the point of view, language, and poetic techniques. The point of view employed by Franz Kafka in the novel is third-person/limited omniscient. This means the main perspective of the story comes from Gregor Samsa. The reader is within Gregor’s mind, hearing his thoughts and discovering what happened to his body at the same time as he does. Information is given to the reader when it’s available to Gregor, we are not aware of anything he isn’t. For example, Gregor struggles with eating and what it is, after his transformation, that he’s interested in.  

The reader doesn’t become aware until he is that he wants to eat rotten foods. All that being said, there are a few moments in the novel in which Kafka moves outside Gregor’s mind to give the reader a bit of information from the perspective of the other characters. These are rare moments and are reserved for occasions that benefit from the change in perspective.

Poetic Techniques

The Metamorphosis was originally written in German and titled Die Verwnadlung, this means that some poetic techniques will be lost or devised in the translation into English. Within the novel, a close reader can find examples of metaphor, irony, and symbolism. The first on this list, metaphor, is a comparison between two unlike things that does not use “like” or “as” is also present in the text.  

When using this technique a writer is saying that one thing is another thing, they aren’t just similar. It’s quite important in this novel and immediately confronts the reader. The theme of imprisonment is woven throughout the story. Metaphors reveal to the reader that Gregor is at once a prisoner of society, money, his family, and the most obvious, his new bug body. He’s trapped, in one way or another, but his prison varies.  

Another less obvious example is the weather. One moment, in particular, comes to mind at the beginning of the story when Gregor is waking up. He notes that he’s waking up late, feels poorly, and there is “still such a fog” outside. The fog lays heavy on the city. Its dreary, dark, and it obscures warmth and light. It is used as a metaphor and allusion to what is to come. His future lies within the house, not without, and it’s going to be just as dark as the weather that morning.  

Symbols in The Metamorphosis  

The picture of the woman  .

One of the most poignant symbols in The Metamorphosis is the picture of the woman on the wall of Gregor’s room. In the photo, she’s wearing furs, a hat, and a boa. It’s unclear who she’s supposed to be, but she’s there as a reminder of Gregor’s lost future, the warmth of human company, and his own distant humanity. More than anything else, the fact that he acquired, hung, and admired the photo while he was still human is important to him.  

When the furniture is removed from his room Gregor begins to panic. Gregor turns to the picture as the single thing he’s going to fight to keep. He’s desperate at this moment, and through his actions, a reader should interpret a need to hang on to some piece of his humanity.  

Gregor as an Insect  

The creature Gregor turns into, sometimes referred to as a giant insect, bug, or vermin, is representative of the life that Gregor led before he was transformed. His human day-to-day life was made physical. Once transformed, the toll that his job, family, colleagues, and money worries had on him is realized in the real world.

Food  

Food is a symbol of the Gregor’s family’s remaining regard for their son. Grete, the most important secondary character in the novel takes on the responsibility for feeding and checking on Gregor. It is due to Grete that he’s able to eat and maintain a shred of his humanity. At first, they believe he’s going to eat the same things he did when he was human, but they soon discover that he’s only able to eat rotten food. As time passes, the family loses interest in Gregor and become exhausted from remembering that he’s there. They stop feeding him and he is forced to suffer, starving, as the new lodgers eat in his kitchen.  

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About Emma Baldwin

Emma Baldwin, a graduate of East Carolina University, has a deep-rooted passion for literature. She serves as a key contributor to the Book Analysis team with years of experience.

About the Book

Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka is best remembered as the Existentialist author of novellas and short stories such as ' The Metamorphosis ' and ' The Trial '.

Kafka Facts

Explore ten of the most interesting facts about Kafka's life, habits, and passions.

Kafka's Best Books

Explore the ten best books and stories Kafka wrote.

Kafka and Absurdism

What was absurdism and how does it relate to Franz Kafka's literary works?

You will get to know me better; there are still a number of horrible recesses in me that you don’t know . Franz Kafka

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The Metamorphosis Themes: from Isolation to Alienation

Gregor’s transformation and inability to communicate dehumanize him in the eyes of his family. The Metamorphosis’ themes explore this problem in detail, thus becoming crucial for understanding Kafka’s mind.

In this article, IvyPanda writers prepared a thorough analysis of the story’s themes.

• 👽 Theme of Isolation
• 🐛 Transformation Theme
• 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family Theme
• 💎 Deeper Meaning

🎓 References

👽 isolation in the metamorphosis.

The Metamorphosis themes are undoubtedly worthy of a separate discussion. Among them, the theme of alienation and isolation plays a significant role in the novel.

The literal isolation started when Gregor woke up one morning only to find himself turned into a monstrous vermin-like creature. He gained a new body, which made him an alien to the human world. He lost his ability to speak the human language, making screeching sounds instead. His new routine came to staying in his room day and night, where he explored his condition, contemplated anxieties, and occasionally watched his family through a crack in the bedroom door. Slowly but surely, the family grew tired of this new version of Gregor.

The inability to communicate heavily impacted Gregor’s relationship with his parents and his sister Grete in particular as she tried to understand him the most. Despite his metamorphosis, he remained conscious but couldn’t explain all his emotional and psychological conflicts, which added to his loneliness and desperation. This mutism constrained Gregor from communicating not only with his family but with the whole of humankind.

Yet, there is a reason why Franz Kafka is considered a genius of psychological literature. The irony of Gregor’s alienation in Metamorphosis stretches way beyond his initial transformation and its consequences. Gregor Samsa was lonely and desperate before the events of the book. He worked as a traveling salesman, a job synonymous with constant moving and personal isolation. It restrained him from having any close relationships outside of his family circle.

Even nowadays, people who travel a lot due to the nature of their jobs experience general feelings of loneliness and, sometimes, even depression. The reader has to imagine how hard it was to travel and work in the past with limited means of communication. As Kafka mentions in The Metamorphosis , the only contact between Gregor and his family occurred through letters. This type of correspondence takes a greater amount of time to reach its addressee than modern-day instant texting and calling through the mobile network.

Moreover, Gregor was doomed with emotional isolation from the start, as his family members always took his existence for granted. Gregor’s altruism played a twisted joke on him, making the poor soul a simple “ money bag ” for the Samsas. This type of alienation has been consistent since the beginning of the Modern Age, when capitalist ideas started to influence people’s minds and hearts . Pragmatism and efficiency took over spiritualism.

Returning to the book, throughout most of the story, Gregor still cares for his family and wishes to help them. He ignores his dire circumstances. Nevertheless, in the last chapter, Gregor realizes that he does not miss anyone from the outside world. In the end, Gregor’s remains are thrown out like some trash by the charwoman.

To sum up all of the above, in the greater context, Gregor’s character has always been condemned to be lonely, as Kafka made sure of that. The transformation only amplified Gregor’s separation from the world. By bringing the alienation theme, Kafka offers his views on the troubles of the Modern Age.

💬 Alienation Quotes

“Oh God, he thought, what an exhausting job I’ve picked on! Traveling about day in, day out. It’s much more irritating work than doing the actual business in the office, and on top of that there’s the trouble of constant traveling, of worrying about train connections, the bed and irregular meals, casual acquaintances that are always new and never become intimate friends.” (Chapter 1)

“On hearing these words from his mother Gregor realized that the lack of all direct human speech for the past two months together with the monotony of family life must have confused his mind [..].” (Chapter 2)

“[…] once more, after this long interval, there appeared in his thoughts the figures of the chief and the chief clerk, the commercial travelers and the apprentices, the porter who was so dull-witted, two or three friends in other firms, a chambermaid in one of the rural hotels, a sweet and fleeting memory, a cashier in a milliner’s shop, whom he had wooed earnestly but too slowly-they all appeared, together with strangers or people he had quite forgotten, but instead of helping him and his family they were one and all unapproachable and he was glad when they vanished.” (Chapter 3)

🐛 The Metamorphosis: Theme of Transformation

Transformation is one of the key themes in The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. The story starts with Gregor waking up and discovering that he turned into an insect-like creature. Although his body has undergone irreversible changes, his mind still remains human, undergoing changes over the course of the story. A symbolic conflict occurs between his mind and body: Gregor human vs. Gregor insect.

The first example presents itself at the very beginning of the book. Despite suspecting that something is wrong, Gregor does not fully grasp the horrid situation he is in. He thinks of it as some sort of temporal “illness.” As time progresses, Gregor keeps worrying about his job duties and inability to work. Throughout the story, it seems as if Gregor never completely realized how monstrous and shocking he looked.

With Gregor’s further development, the new body adjusts to new realities. He tries to walk upright but quickly realizes that the horizontal position is more convenient. Gregor experiments with his numerous legs and climbs onto the walls around the room. He creeps under the sofa by a “half-unconscious action” where he feels more comfortable. The initial boredom and isolation contribute to the reshaping of his consciousness.

Gradually, Gregor’s metamorphosis alters his mindset. He tries to eat the food he used to love, but his strange instincts oppose it. Gregor does not understand who he could refuse his favorite dish. He automatically gorges into rotten chunks left by Grete the second time.

Even when Gregor thinks like a human, his capability to make logical conclusions and decisions slowly fades. The way he acts every time someone comes into his room supports this fact.

Gregor starts to feel disconnected from Grete every time she enters his room and opens the windows. It does not appease his insect senses. “The very way she came in distressed him,” Kafka states. During Grete’s cleaning, Gregor “would crouch trembling under the sofa all the time.”

Another great example of Gregor’s inner conflict occurs when Grete and her mother decide to move furniture from his bedroom. His insect part is, at first, glad about that change, as it would allow him to crawl around the room with more freedom. But then his mother vocalizes her concerns about the possible negative effect of the furniture’s absence on her son’s mind. What if the familiar objects can help him to remain his mind and return to his original body? The question triggers Gregor’s human part of consciousness, forcing him to climb onto the print of the lady in the muff to show protest.

Still, over the rest of the story, the insect side of Gregor slowly but surely overtakes his human side. He hisses and shrieks at every disturbance. As he almost loses his self-identity, the last and most powerful reminder of his consciousness appears at Grete’s violin concert . Gregor feels uplifted and inspired by the music, which makes him feel human again.

For a moment, his human dreams and desires return, but the reader sees that he cannot view himself as a person anymore. He imagines himself as a vermin, communicating with his sister in that form. In a sense, it confirms that he can no longer physically turn into a person, reversing the transformation.

Finally, on his deathbed, Gregor is thinking about his family. His last thoughts are filled with love and tenderness towards the people who abandoned him. Gregor was able to become human again. Thus, The Metamorphosis ’ theme of Gregor’s mental transformation made a coherent circle in the book.

💬 Quotes on Transformation

“Pitilessly Gregor’s father drove him back, hissing and crying “Shoo!” like a savage. […] If only he would have stopped making that unbearable hissing noise! It made Gregor quite lose his head. He had turned almost completely round when the hissing noise so distracted him that he even turned a little the wrong way again.” (Chapter 1)

“This made him realize how repulsive the sight of him still was to her, and that it was bound to go on being repulsive, and what an effort it must cost her not to run away even from the sight of the small portion of his body that stuck out from under the sofa.” (Chapter 2)

“He especially enjoyed hanging suspended from the ceiling; it was much better than lying on the floor; one could breathe more freely; one’s body swung and rocked lightly; and in the almost blissful absorption induced by this suspension it could happen to his own surprise that he let go and fell plump on the floor. Yet he now had his body much better under control than formerly, and even such a big fall did him no harm.” (Chapter 2)

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 Family Theme in The Metamorphosis

One of The Metamorphosis’ key themes is the subject of family and sympathy. Gregor’s close kin are his parents and sister Grete. Their reactions to his metamorphosis affect him significantly, just like his transformation influences their behavior and development.

Mr. Samsa is the authority in the family. Concerning his attitude, the question arises:

How does Gregor’s father react to his transformation?

His first reaction to Gregor was a mixture of anger and great sorrow. After realizing what happened, he “wept till his great chest heaved.” His hostility could have occurred because Mr. Samsa initially acted as the defender of the household, seeing a giant bug in his son’s room.

Soon after, he might have understood that this very bug could be his son, and it caused him great distress. His only son will not be able to provide for the family anymore. So, Mr. Samsa’s initial reaction is double-edged.

For the rest of the novella, the father treats Gregor as an insect, scaring him and hurting him physically. The hostility reaches its boiling point when Mr. Samsa throws apples at Gregor after returning from the tiring job in Chapter 2.

Mrs. Samsa is horrified by Gregor’s new appearance. She experiences a panic attack the first time she sees her son and cannot bear looking at him again.

Throughout the novella , the mother feels sympathy towards Gregor and tries to think of his condition as some sort of “temporary illness.” She wishes to visit her son’s room from time to time to be close to him, even though she is afraid of looking at him. Her humanity in The Metamorphosis is evident. Mrs. Samsa even begs her husband not to hurt Gregor when he starts throwing apples at the poor soul.

However, this sympathy is not genuine. She also understands that the insect, Gregor or not, cannot support the family anymore. She subconsciously does not wish to deal with Gregor’s new shape. Her exhaustion from her new job and lack of comfort makes her accept Grete’s demand to “get rid of it” (Gregor) in the last chapter.

The sister’s relationship with Gregor is complicated as her attitude changes and develops in the book.

At first, Grete is sympathetic towards Gregor, as her brother always loved and supported her. She tries to think that Gregor is still there in an insect body, though she is terrified by his presence from the beginning. Grete starts looking after Gregor by bringing him food and cleaning his room. However, this sympathy gradually becomes twisted and untrue, as she looks after him less and less. She cares about being the only one who takes care of Gregor rather than about his well-being.

Why does Grete’s attitude change?

There are two ways to answer this question. Firstly, the exhausting days of working as a salesgirl take a toll on her, making her neglect her nursing duties. Secondly, her relationship with Gregor deteriorates. His inability to communicate and his behavior force Grete to perceive him more as an insect.

At the violin concert , Gregor embarrasses the family in front of their lodgers that leads to a minor scandal. This event makes Grete lose the remaining sympathy for him. She is convinced that if there were her brother in the insect’s body, he would not have made so much trouble for the family. With ease, she persuades the mother and father to agree with her.

The readers see the story from Gregor’s point of view. The second chapter describes Gregor’s initial attitude towards his family. So, there is the following question:

How does Gregor treat his family during part II?

Gregor recalls his initial pride at being able to support his family. He also contemplates how they will manage without his help now. These thoughts give him much anxiety as he wants to help and support his parents and sister even after the transformation.

Gregor misses his mother, feels proud and terrified of his father’s growing authority.

The only human that visits him throughout chapter 2 is his sister, and Gregor is grateful that she looks after him. He wishes to thank her but cannot produce human speech.

Soon, Gregor’s relationship with everyone starts to decline as he becomes less human.

How has Gregor’s attitude towards his family changed?

His humanity slowly fades, and by the end of the novella, he acts like an insect. He gets frustrated with both Grete’s negligence towards him and her presence. He starts to hide from her every time she enters the room to terrify her less and escape the noise and disturbance.

Gregor doesn’t strive for communication with the family members and views them from the corner of his room like an outsider. He reflects less on his connection with people, thinking more about food and his worsening physical state.

💬 Quotes about Family

“His parents did not understand this so well; they had convinced themselves in the course of years that Gregor was settled for life in this firm, and besides they were so preoccupied with their immediate troubles that all foresight had forsaken them.” (Chapter 1)

“These had been fine times, and they had never recurred, at least not with the same sense of glory, although later on Gregor had earned so much money that he was able to meet the expenses of the whole household and did so. They had simply got used to it, both the family and Gregor; the money was gratefully accepted and gladly given, but there was no special uprush of warm feeling.” (Chapter 2)

“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 we’d 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.” (Chapter 3)

💎 The Metamorphosis’ Deeper Meaning

The essential question of the story is whether it is possible to feel sympathy and kindness towards a horrifying creature who cannot be helpful or likable. Does such a being deserve the same sympathy as a human?

As everyone in the family starts working, they realize that they are becoming independent from Gregor. They grow tired and enraged due to all the responsibilities towards him. Yet, the biggest block to their sympathy is the loss of his human shape and inability to communicate. He does not act like a human being, cannot speak or express his thoughts and emotions. From his family’s viewpoint, this monstrous creature lacks every trait that Gregor once had.

Gregor faced inhumanity when he turned into a vermin, and the reader sees how materialism influences people’s relationships. Even though the story suggests that Gregor deserves sympathy and love in his new form, it also demonstrates how that’s impossible through his family. They were able to regain positive emotions for him only after his death.

Thanks for reading the article! To examine the short story even more, read our article about symbolism in The Metamorphosis .

• The Rise of Capitalism — Mises Institute
• Themes in The Metamorphosis with Analysis — Literary Devices
• ‘Metamorphosis’ Book Review: Kafka and Capitalism — Patty Inglish, ThoughtCo
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Study Guide Menu

• Short Summary
• Chapter III
• Characters Analysis
• Symbols & Literary Analysis
• Important Quotes
• Essay Samples
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• Author’s Biography‌
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IvyPanda. (2023, August 12). The Metamorphosis Themes: from Isolation to Alienation. https://ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/themes-from-isolation-to-alienation/

"The Metamorphosis Themes: from Isolation to Alienation." IvyPanda , 12 Aug. 2023, ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/themes-from-isolation-to-alienation/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'The Metamorphosis Themes: from Isolation to Alienation'. 12 August.

IvyPanda . 2023. "The Metamorphosis Themes: from Isolation to Alienation." August 12, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/themes-from-isolation-to-alienation/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Metamorphosis Themes: from Isolation to Alienation." August 12, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/lit/study-guide-on-the-metamorphosis/themes-from-isolation-to-alienation/.

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For Mormon Missionaries, Some ‘Big, Big Changes’

The church has loosened its strict rules for those evangelizing. And many members of Gen-Z are loving it.

Andres Gonzalez stands in front of a statue of Jesus Christ in Los Angeles as another missionary, Alec Crawley, films him for a video for social media. Credit... Isadora Kosofsky for The New York Times

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By Lauren Jackson

Lauren attended church in London, Los Angeles and Paris and spoke with current and former missionaries to report this story.

• May 10, 2024

Andres Gonzalez, 19, stands on the balcony of his Los Angeles apartment, his hands in his suit pockets. It is his first week as a missionary, but today, instead of approaching people on the street, he is shooting a video that he will later post to social media.

After about a dozen takes, he is successful. “Hello! If you would like to learn more about Jesus Christ,” he says to the camera in Spanish, “contact me.”

Mr. Gonzalez is the image of the modern missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which has changed many of its practices — from how missionaries preach to how they dress.

The faith, long known for sending tens of thousands of neatly and formally dressed young people across the globe each year to preach door to door, is encouraging new missionaries to spread the gospel on social media and, for some, with acts of community service closer to home.

As a church leader, Dieter F. Uchtdorf, put it, missionaries should feel comfortable sharing their faith in “ normal and natural ways .”

In the last few years, the church has also changed some rules for missionaries themselves — loosening restrictions on dress codes ( women can wear pants ) and how often they can call family members back home ( once a week , not just on Christmas and Mother’s Day).

To outsiders, the adjustments may seem small. But to missionaries who adhere to strict rules while on assignment, the shifts are dramatic.

“We’ve seen a lot of big, big changes,” Jensen Diederich, 23, said. He served his mission in Peru and said it was “monumental” when the church allowed him to call home weekly, instead of just twice a year.

The church believes missionary work is essential for the world’s salvation — that people must be baptized in the faith to get to the highest level of heaven after they die. Missionary work also helps increase the church’s membership, and it deepens many young members’ faith. Many missionaries begin their assignments just after they leave home. Instead of partying on a college campus, they commit themselves to the religion and develop habits that can last a lifetime.

One of those members was Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, who was a missionary in France in the 1960s. He has said the isolation of his mission allowed him to examine his faith without distraction . When asked about the changes, he said, “For young people of my generation, I think the separation from family and friends served us well.”

But he understands times have changed. “With today’s youth in near constant contact with one another, maintaining greater connection during a mission fits their life experience,” he added.

Many young church members say the new rules have made missionary service more attractive and realistic.

Kate Kennington, a 19-year-old with a mission assignment to London, said finding people online and messaging them is a more successful way of approaching potential converts. “It’s how I would want to be contacted,” she said.

“Knocking on doors and approaching people on the street are no longer seen as useful as they once were because of shifts in American culture,” said Matthew Bowman, a professor of religion and history at Claremont Graduate University who holds the chair of Mormon studies. He is also a church member.

For decades, missionaries’ clean-cut suits were signs of prosperity, Mr. Bowman said, and an effective way of appealing to converts. But they now feel “outdated.”

Many of the changes, especially the push to evangelize on social media, were fueled by the pandemic, which shut down in-person church gatherings and forced Latter-day Saints and Jehovah’s Witnesses to find alternatives to door-to-door preaching.

The missionaries use their phones to film videos of themselves promoting the church or sharing messages of faith. In one video , a missionary raps about his faith. In another , two missionaries throw a football and a Frisbee through an obstacle course in a church gym — an object lesson meant to visualize how Jesus Christ can help people overcome challenges.

So far, the changes appear to be working: In the last three years, as pandemic restrictions lifted and young members responded to an appeal from the church’s top leader for them to serve, the number of full-time proselytizing missionaries has risen by around 25 percent , according to church data. At the end of last year, the church had about 72,000 full-time missionaries serving around the world.

The church has just under 17.3 million members globally but has seen growth slow. From 1988 to 1989, during a surge in growth when the church expanded into West Africa , the church grew by about 9 percent . Last year, the church grew by about 1.5 percent .

A tradition of travel

Missionary work is a rite of passage for Latter-day Saints — and has been since the church’s founding in 1830.

The church’s missionaries have traveled the world, growing their faith from a fledgling start-up in upstate New York to a global religion that brings in billions of dollars in revenue .

Church leaders say it is men’s responsibility to become missionaries for two years starting at age 18. Missionary work is optional for women, who serve for 18 months. The church has historically encouraged women to focus on marriage and motherhood. But since 2012, when the church lowered the age women could become missionaries to 19 from 21, more women have been going .

Missionaries leave their families and friends, learn new languages and spend the first years of their adulthood spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ.

While on a mission, they cannot date and must follow the religion’s ban on premarital sex, drinking, smoking, coffee and caffeinated tea. Communication with friends and family back home is restricted. They commit to stay focused on their work, and their proximity to their missionary partner creates a sense of accountability that keeps most from breaking the rules.

Until recently, the experience of young missionaries was similar to that of their parents. They first attended a missionary training center — a religious boot camp of sorts — before then traveling to their missions.

Most missionaries now start their training online at home , where the transition is less jarring. They can adapt to a mission schedule with their family’s support. Being home is also an opportunity for new missionaries to evangelize in their community.

“I’ve had friends who aren’t members of the church,” Tanner Bird, a 19-year-old missionary in Brazil who did part of his training at home in Houston. “And I just get super, super excited and talk to them about the gospel.”

Once deployed, men in some areas are allowed to wear blue shirts and go without ties , while women can wear wrinkle-resistant dress pants in “conservative colors.” Most missionaries now have smartphones and call their families weekly.

Some traditions remain: Young missionaries still do not get to pick their destinations. Many teenagers throw parties to open their assignments, reading their “call letter” aloud for the first time in front of family and friends. Others film elaborate announcement videos — including on ice skates . Some serve close to home (there are 10 missions in Utah). Others go as far as Tahiti or Tokyo.

Mr. Gonzalez, the missionary in Los Angeles, said he first imagined going on a mission when he was a child in Venezuela. His parents, who converted to the faith, often had young missionaries over for meals. After the church helped the family settle in Utah, he said serving as a missionary was part of his “American dream.”

Every morning, he wakes up at 6:30 a.m., the set time for many missionaries, with his “companion,” an assigned missionary partner. They are mandated to “never be alone,” with few exceptions, and each day follow a missionary schedule .

On Facebook, they contact people they have met, including those they have approached on the street in downtown Los Angeles. They also search groups for people who may be open to their message and post videos to generate interest in their faith. They keep track of potential converts’ progress, including lessons they teach. Every Monday, Mr. Gonzalez calls his parents.

Calls are also an opportunity for him to receive support. “It’s a little bit hard,” Mr. Gonzalez said of his mission work, describing people in downtown Los Angeles as “busy.” Still, he remains hopeful: “Some of them, they really are ready. They make time, even just like five minutes.”

The missionary experience is not for everyone. Some people feel isolated, find it difficult to adapt to a location, or struggle with the rules or the pressure to keep their commitment. Some people do leave early; the church does not comment on those who do.

Alex McAlpin, a 23-year-old who went on a mission to Denver, almost did not put in a missionary application. Before her mission, she attended Pepperdine University, where she wrestled with some aspects of church doctrine and history.

Then the church made its dress code change, allowing women to wear pants in 2018.

“That was the first day of my life that I thought maybe I would go” on a mission, Ms. McAlpin said. She saw the new dress code and the church’s other mission changes as a sign the church was evolving and listening to its younger members, many of whom hope their church will modernize in larger ways. “I wanted to be a part of the change.”

Lauren Jackson is an associate editor and writer for The Morning , The Times’s flagship daily newsletter. More about Lauren Jackson

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The generation of people born between 1997 and 2012 is changing fashion, culture, politics, the workplace and more..

A younger generation of crossword constructors is using an old form to reflect their identities, language and world. Here’s how Gen Z made the puzzle their own .

For many Gen-Zers without much disposable income, Facebook isn’t a place to socialize online — it’s where they can get deals on items  they wouldn’t normally be able to afford.

Dating apps are struggling to live up to investors’ expectations . Blame the members of Generation Z, who are often not willing to shell out for paid subscriptions.

Young people tend to lean more liberal on issues pertaining to relationship norms. But when it comes to dating, the idea that men should pay in heterosexual courtships  still prevails among Gen Z-ers .

We asked Gen Z-ers to tell us about their living situations and the challenges of keeping a roof over their heads. Here’s what they said .

What is it like to be part of the group that has been called the most diverse generation in U.S. history? Here is what 900 Gen Z-ers had to say .

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