Connection #8 (The Metamorphosis)

The novella The Metamorphosis, written by Franz Kafka, is a short story about a young man named Gregor who one day transforms into a bug. At such a young age, Gregor already had a full time job and was the sole financial support for his entire family. However, one day Gregor could not roll out of bed, for he had turned into a bug. His parents and his boss persisted for several hours to enter his locked room, but Gregor could not get out of bed. After learning to function with his new body with numerous legs and a shell as hard as a rock, Gregor opened the door to disbelief. His boss ran out of the house, his mother collapsed, and his father began thinking of ways to extinguish this new bug. Gregor was fired from his job, he couldn’t possibly sell any more insurance anyways, and his family shunned him. His father hated him because he actually had to work now and his mother was scared to look at him. Throughout the rest of the novella, Gregor becomes more neglected and the family turns into disarray. They cannot afford to send Gregor’s sister to music school, and they can barely survive financially, resorting to renting out their house to tourists. All the while, Gregor is kept locked up in his room where no one can come into contact with the family’s “horrible burden.” It’s not until one day in the Spring-time that this burden is lifted when Gregor the young man, the bug, and the burden dies. The family leaves the house as it is, grabs their suitcase and leaves the city to start a new life, without even shedding a tear for their once son and brother.