What Evidence Do We Have at the Beginning of the Story That Gregor Thinks of Himself as Human - Essay Example

The story starts unexpectedly from the first lines - waking up one morning after a restless sleep, Gregor Samsa found out that he turned into a horrible insect. This is the beginning of the transformation of a kind, sensitive, human into an ugly bug. His beetle’s body hides the process of atrophy of everything human: first, Gregor loses speech, then, one after another, many of the mental qualities he was proud of. But he in his new, frightening, disgusting appearance remains more humane than the members of his family.

Gregor still thinks of himself as a man, while for others his new shell becomes the decisive factor in attitude towards him. When he falls down from the bed, the manager in the next room, behind closed doors, says that something fell. Something. Therefore, in terms of the external, business world, Gregor’s human being was over.

The family he sacrificed so much rejects him too. In the first scene, trying to wake Gregor up, his father knocks on the door with his fist and shouts: “Gregor! Gregor! What’s the matter? And a few moments later he called again, lowering his voice: Gregor- Gregor!” (This double repetition of the proper name is similar to addressing a pet animal, such as “kitty, kitty”, and anticipates father’s further role in Gregor’s fate).

Little by little Gregor understands that he will never pull through, that he would have to rebuild his life. In order not to scare his sister who cared about him, he begins to hide under the bed, where he spent time in worries and vague hopes, always leading him to conclude that for the time being he should behave quietly, with patience and tact, to ease the family’s troubles he caused by his present state. Kafka convincingly portrays Samsa’s state of mind which begins to depend increasingly on his physical shell that breaks forth in the narrative by some twist of absurdity. Routine, seen as a mystical nightmare, estrangement, brought to the highest degree – these are the characteristics of Kafka’s manner of writing; his absurd hero lives in an absurd world, but tragically struggles, trying to break into the world of men, and dies in despair and humility.

Gregor turned into a beetle and felt like a beetle, probably because even when he was in the human body, his life resembled the life of a beetle more than the life of a man. He selflessly worked for the sake of the family, had no other interests in life and was desperately lonely. Or maybe this metamorphosis took place to show the ingratitude of his family, who were concerned with financial problems only, looking over Gregor’s benefactions.