Metamorphosis Text: Part II (paragraph 20 & 21)
The text that I chose to analyze focuses specifically on the theme of alienation that occurs between Gregor and his family.
Part II: Paragraph 20
“She was inclined to think to the contrary; the sight of the naked walls made her own heart heavy, and why shouldn’t Gregor have the same feeling, considering that he had been used to his furniture for so long and might feel forlorn without it. “And doesn’t it look,” she concluded in a low voice-in fact she had been almost whispering all the time as if to avoid letting Gregor, whose exact whereabouts she did not know, hear even the tones of her voice, for she was convinced that he could not understand her words-“doesn’t it look as if we were showing him, by taking away his furniture, that we have given up hope of his ever getting better and are just leaving him coldly to himself? I think it would be best to keep his room exactly as it has always been so that when he comes back to us he will find everything unchanged and be able all the more easily to forget what has happened in between.”
Part II: Paragraph 21
“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, otherwise he could not account for the fact that he had quite earnestly looked forward to having his room emptied of furnishing. Did he really want his warm room, so comfortably fitted with old family furniture, to be turned into a naked den in which he would certainly be able to crawl unhampered in all directions but at the price of shedding simultaneously all recollection of his human background? He had indeed been so near the brink of forgetfulness that only the voice of his mother, which he had not heard for so long, had drawn him back from it.”
Gregor locking himself in his room symbolizes isolation from the outside world and his family. He confines himself within his room because he feels like there is nowhere else he can go and nowhere else he is safe. In the text I referenced above, the removal of his furniture is a dehumanizing act—as the last link to Gregor’s humanity and if the furniture is removed then so is his human past.
Start video 30:38-34:00 and 44:00-44:51