“One morning, upon awakening from agitated dreams, Gregor Samsa found himself, in his bed, transformed into a monstrous vermin.” The first line of the short story sets the tone for how the rest of the story will play out. Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning and finds himself transformed into a huge bug. Although he should be stressing about turning into a bug, he takes the incident as just something unfortunate that happened to him. He then goes on to think about how much he hates his job and now that this happened, how will he be able to help his family pay off the debt they incurred. Gregor is the only one in the family that works after his father’s business had failed, therefore Gregor is their only source of income.

Gregor says how he did not have a close relationship with his father before he turned into a bug but was only seemingly close with his sister Greta, who he planned to send to music school for her violin. After the father had lost his job, the family went into a period of depression, self-pitying, and laziness. Because Gregor was the only one working, he noticed his family had become physically and mentally unhealthy. It is not until Gregor turns into a bug that they all realized that they now need to do something with their lives in order to survive.

After reading this story, I can see two sides that people will argue about which is whether Gregor’s family was selfish or that Gregor had this fate to turn into a bug in order to save his family (mentally). In the video that I choose, he chooses a prominent quote from the text that states:

“Gregor’s only concern had been to devote everything he had in order to allow his family to forget as quickly as possible the business misfortune which had brought them all into a state of complete hopelessness … They took the money with thanks, and he happily surrendered it, but the special warmth was no longer present.”

The stresses caused by Gregor’s presence wear down the family members’ sympathy, and even the most caring of them find that their sympathy has a limit. Greta, who was once so close to Gregor, can’t stand the sight of Gregor and says:

“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.”

By Greta, the one closest to him, saying this makes the family come to the realization that in order to live a better life, they must get rid of Gregor and by getting rid of Gregor, will rid them of all their stresses. Once Gregor dies, that is when the family is able to to be happy and have hope again. They find a new apartment to live and willingly want Greta to find a man in her life.