World Literature in Translation

Ms. Zoya Jamil

Hamid Hussain
Roll no 6
Thematic Concerns in Kafka’s Metamorphosis

If a transformation changes the person, it changes the attitudes of the

people around him too. Relationship between the patient and the
caregivers is one of the significant themes in Kafka’s novella,
Metamorphosis. Kafka explored the attitudes and changes in behavior of
the people towards a diseased person through transformation of his
character Gregor Samsa into an insect. When the family members found
the protagonist transformed, they begin to move away from him. They
begin by isolating him physically and later emotionally. When family sees
him for the first time after transformation, mother faints, sister moves away
and father runs behind him with a stick to lock him back in his room. Such
behavior of the family towards a person who has supported the family
financially sacrificing his own life is a question on human condition.
The reason behind this behavior is explained by a researcher Eric Cassell
who writes: “Persons do things. They act, create, make, take
apart, put together, wind, unwind. . . . When illness makes it
impossible for people to do these things, they are not
themselves.”
The most important theme that Kafka emphasized in his story is the
threatened humanity and the identity of the patient which has
been explained by researcher Michael Rowe through four dimensions of
the novel.
1. The first one is that his humanity is attached to the role he plays in
society and family. He takes care of the finances of the family. When
he stops doing this due to his illness, his humanity is threatened.
Family and society starts seeing him as a burden. “ His sister,
naturally, tried as far as possible to pretend there was
nothing burdensome about it, and the longer it went on, of
course, the better she was able to do so, but as time went
 by Gregor was also able to see through it all so much
better”.
2. Second dimension is the function of the caregiver. His sister, Grete,
naturally assumes the role of caregiver at first. But later, she becomes
the barrier between him and any sympathy or care that he might
receive from parents. She asks parents to move their lives forward
and get rid of the burden towards the end of the novella. Michael
Rowe writes that “In defending the ill person’s humanity,
caregivers must resist acting upon their own feelings of
horror or disgust and help others to resist acting on such
feelings too.”
3. The third threat to his humanity is felt by moving of the family
physically and emotionally and the gradual removal of Gregor form
the family circle.
4. The fourth concern is Gregor’s attempts to become autonomous as
given by Michael Rowe. He resents being dependent on his sister and
later resents being ignored by her.

Another important theme is the role of capitalism in the lives of

ordinary families. Gregor even after transformed into a bug keeps
thinking about his job as a salesman. Lying on the bed in the beginning of
the story he thinks to himself “if I didn’t have my parents to think
about I’d have given in my notice a long time ago”. He thinks
about the financial instability his “overworked family” will have to face.
Capitalism leads to isolation and alienation of the workers from work and
the society.
Isolation and alienation is also an important theme in Metamorphosis.
Gregor is isolated in his room for the whole story until his death when the
charwoman throws out his flat dead body. He is physically isolated. The
cook runs away terrified by the transformation. His sister Grete and the
new caregiver soon become exhausted of his appearance and lower the
number and timing of the visits. “It made him realize that she still
found his appearance unbearable…” The family starts storing extra
and broken furniture and other litter into his room. “They had got into
the habit of putting things into his room that they had no room
for anywhere else”. The disease alienates him in the society. And when
the family finds the means of their financial stability, they completely
isolate him. “After that, the three of them left the flat together,
which was something they had not done for months”.