In “The Metamorphosis” there are many “ending”. What I mean by this is that the end of “The Metamorphosis” isn’t one point according to who you ask, different people will say different ways where the story ended. For example, it could have ended with Gregor’s death, or it could have ended after his death when his family moved on and had a successful life, it varies with each person’s point of view. In this case, I’m going to use the ending where is family moved on after Gregor’s death. After Gregor’s death goods things begin to happen to them, they sell their house and move out into a smaller and cheaper one. On the way there they take a tram and they begin to notice that their daughter began to look prettier compared to her pale self back then. Things are looking good for them and then plan to marry her off to a wealthy man. The quote that said this is “While they were in these terms, almost at one and the same time Mr. and Mrs. Samsa noticed their increasily lively daughter, the way that late, in spite of the trouble that had made her cheeks pale, she had bloomed into an attractive and well-built girl.”. The family saw a new reality for themselves. This concept of reality is similar to Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” where the prisoner are forced to face one way looking at shadows and believing that is their reality, this can be related to when Gregor was providing for them, that was going to be their reality. Then in “Allegory of the Cave”, a prisoner escapes the cave and see a new reality, this can be related to the “The Metamorphosis” where Gregor turns into a vermin, changing their reality again. Lastly in “Allegory of the Cave”, the prisoner returns and tries but fails to explain to the rest of this new reality, this is seen in “The Metamorphosis” as the point after Gregor’s death the last new reality.
-Denny Huang
In Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave”, one of the prisoner who escaped from the cave and saw how did the real world look like. Similarly, in Metamorphosis, the transformation that took place in Gregor’s body helped him to stand out and become the special one. While here, the escape and the metamorphosis both serve as a symbol of being special, being different, but the real difference between these two outsiders and people around them, is the thing they got from being separate. For Caveman, it was the insight of what the real world is. “He sees real birds and animals, not just shadows of birds and animals.”(Plato) while his fellows still regarded the shadows as truth and wouldn’t believe him. In the end of Metamorphosis, Gregor reached a point where he could understand his folks and really loved them. As Kafka writes:” His conviction that he needed to disappear was, if anything, still firmer than his sister’s.” Gregor wasn’t angry about his folk’s behavior but instead, he forgave them. That’s the real difference between him and his family members.
Zeyu Kang