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Symbols In The Metamorphosis

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In Franz Kafka's classic drama novella The Metamorphosis, Gregor is a hard working traveling salesman with little to none social life when he wakes up one morning to find that he has been transformed into a cockroach. Gregor is vary calm at his unfortunate predicament unlike his family who freaks out and nearly kills him the first morning of his transformation. Throughout the story Gregor is always vary calm while everyone around him loses composure. Towards the end Grete says “We have to get rid of it”(47 Kafka) after gregor hears this he is left will no will to live and starves himself to death. Kafka creatively uses several different symbols to create a “more than meets the eye” feel with his story. Kafka uses symbols such as The Picture Of the Fur Coat Lady, Doors and Windows, Gregor as a Bug to provide insight to his dehumanization.
Kafka uses the picture of girl in the fur coat to symbolize the last of Gregor's humanity before he turned into a cockroach. One example of this is Gregor's reaction to his sister Grete and his Mother.”That picture, at least, which Gregor was now completely covering, surely no one would now take away”(Kafka 35) he thinks this when Grete and his mother are moving his furniture out of his room. This is unusual behaviour for Gregor even as a bug, he has never once …show more content…

Both doors and windows symbolize his isolation from the outside world and the isolation from his family. “His father gave him a strong push… and he sailed back into his room. Next, the door was slammed shut”(Kafka 24) this is the first time his family sees him as a cockroach and the first time a door is used to show his isolation from his family. Another example of his isolation from the outside world is when he looks outside his window but can't see across the street. This symbolises that he no longer fits in with the rest of humanity and that he has been truly

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As the main character, Gregor Samsa, transforms from human state to that of a beetle, there are many aspects that are left unexplained and seemingly unstable. For example, in the novel, Gregor’s transformation into a beetle is left unexplained by Kafka. Kafka opens up the novel by stating, “When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (Kafka 1). There is no scientific or physical evidence as to why this transformation occurred, but it can be ascertained that it is a psychological transformation.

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