“Gregor understood perfectly well that it wasn’t any regard for him that stood in the way of a move, because all it would’ve taken was a suitably sized shipping crate, with a few holes drilled in it for him to breathe through; no, what principally kept the family from moving to another flat was their complete and utter despair-the thought that they in all the circles of relatives and acquaintances had been singled out for such a calamity.”
I believe what allows literature to provide such powerful meaning is the ability for ourselves to connect with it. Many of our favorite texts are those to which we can relate, the acknowledgement that we aren’t indeed ever alone and others like ourselves have gone through similar experiences or feelings. I had a very direct connection with Metamorphosis that drew me to the story and drove me to annotate its text. No, I never have transformed into a cockroach, but as we’ve discussed the cockroach transformation is merely a device to convey the feelings many feel when they’ve transformed into something that isn’t appealing to those around them. Gregor’s story would’ve likely been very similar whether he was a drug addict or a cancer patient, his parents used him as a tool and when they could no longer drill into him, he simply became a burden.
Gregor’s father and mother wouldn’t even visit Gregor when he first had his transformation instead specifically relying upon the sister to take care of him. Outside of a breakdown by the mother after she sees Gregor we rarely see either of the parents grieving specifically for the loss of Gregor but instead the grief is mainly attributed to the lifestyle they’ve lost and the difficulty him living there has become, in a sense they’re mainly upset with the fact that Gregor has become a burden.
I myself can relate to Gregor in this aspect. My family has never really valued me as a separate distinct individual but instead someone they can vicariously live through. Our relationship has been up and down largely in accord to where I am at within my life. While I was traveling the world working through NGO’s they would continuously gush about through social media as if my accomplishment’s were theirs as well. The moment I became extremely ill and was confined to a bedroom the dynamic of the relationship changed. Though they wanted to be empathetic and be there, it was easy to see they were annoyed at the burden I had become. It wasn’t so much that I no longer had the ability to live a normal life, but they were grieving that they no longer had the son they could gossip and brag about. Their grief lied in a place that it likely shouldn’t have been similar to Gregor’s parents.
Whether or not Gregor’s parents learn their lesson by the end of the story is up for interpretation, I am optimistic they have but there still is the possibility they will live vicariously through their daughter now. Their grieving process may not be that they grieved for the loss of Gregor but instead their resolution as in fact they found another way to move on. I feel Gregor’s story and mine in that regard isn’t all that unique and something Kafka himself was working to address.
