My grandmother is 93 this year and has been deteriorating in health for the last couple of months. While reading Metamorphosis, I started to see a little of myself in Gregor’s family. I hated seeing my grandmother in such poor health that sometimes I would avoid talking to her or being near her. The book made me realize how selfish I was being and made me look more at my Grandmother’s point of view. I’m sure she’s more upset about the situation than I am. Sorry for all the rambling, I’m at the hospital with her and I have no one to talk to. It was an enjoyable book and I’m glad I read it.
Update: It’s amazing to see how so many people related to this book in one way or another. Thank you everyone for the kind words. It means more than you know. My grandmother is doing better and is coming home tomorrow! I’ll make sure to read some of these posts to her, they’ll make her really happy.
by dsorrells09
40 Comments
One of my favorite books. I’m happy to hear it resonated with you. Empathy is an important quality in a person. This book simulates that emotion in the reader brilliantly.
Not read the book but did see a post about a kid who read it at age 10 in tifu and later on life told his gf he pictured her as agatha a cockroach during sex and she left him because of it. Was very strange.
p.s https://www.reddit.com/duplicates/2i7jid/tifu_by_admitting_to_my_girlfriend_that_i_pretend/
Metamorphosis always felt like an example of discrimination towards introverts in my view. Of course, it’s totally plausible Kafka himself was one (common for writers at any rate) and he simply wrote himself and his perception of himself into the story. Not very positive self-esteem if that’s the case.
I remember reading metamorphosis in my parent’s car when I was twelve, on our way to our vacation. Twelve-year-old-me just thought “What the hell is this crazy nonsense”. Your post made me think about this book again, and realize that it actually has a deeper message that I couldn’t understand when I was younger. Thank You!
Huh. I actually just read it for the first time in my lit class last week, and a lot of people interpreted it as being about depression (although of Kafka wasn’t thinking in terms like that when he wrote it). Along that line of interpretation, it resonated with me pretty strongly too. I guess what I’m saying is, I felt some pretty deep emotions reading it too. That’s the great thing about symbols though, you can interpret them pretty widely.
While the topic of the book is in contention, I always felt it is an exploration of TB and how Gregors life changed when he caught it. He is essentially a slave to his family and their life, his choices are not his. He finds this most evident apon waking with TB and knowing he is violently ill, but no one seems to care other than for how it impacts themselves. His family is selfishly ignorant of his mortality and the roach signifies their disgust for him as a person. The book is so good on so many levels.
I think that’s one of the strengths of really good books – that they can reveal truths that are uncomfortable and discomfitting and make you face them. There’s a ton of “Eat Pray Love”-type books out there with the message that you’re a special sunflower with a unique and remarkable gift to give to the world and blah blah blah, and they often do really well and get lauded by Oprah and the like, but books like Metamorphosis will endure for far longer because they expose deeper, more ugly truths that all the more real because they’re cloaked in fantasy.
Once Greor stops playing the role that people expect from him (or, more accurately, is unable to play that role), they start to hate him. Even his own family. It’s easy to say that that’s a tragic and cruel thing, but when you think about it, people give their own lives meaning by taking on roles for themselves and playing them out – if a new father says “I’m going to be the best dad in the world” then that’s a good thing. If a former drug addict says “I’m going to get my life together and start being responsible”, then they get lauded for it.
Playing roles is kind of what people do. People expect you to take on a role and live up to it; and you improve yourself and “become a better person” by taking on a role yourself and playing it to the best of your ability. To me, Metamorphosis isn’t about how callous Gregor’s family become to him and how cruel peple can be, but it’s about how meaningless a person’s life can be when they fall outside of the normal roles of society. Gregor hates what he has become just as much as his family hate him.
My mum died last year. She had Parkinson’s and dementia, so it was kind of a slow physical and mental decline over a lot of years. I know what you mean about sometimes avoiding them – it’s difficult to know what to say or do when someone you know that well isn’t behaving in a way you can relate to. It’s sort of alienating. But I found that simple things like just taking her hand or putting a hand on her shoulder would help – my mum would find it difficult to communicate sometimes, and that would frustrate her, so she could appear angry at times. When words fail, simple things like touch speak for themselves. And I think it’s really great that you’re trying to look at things from her point of view – that was what really helped me; knowing that she was still in there somewhere, and that when it felt really hard to approach her that was actually when she was at her most vulnerable, and when she most needed me to just take her hand and just sit with her for a while.
Tough times, but I hope you’re okay. I wish your grandmother well as well. Stay strong, friend.
Sometimes media we intake correlates to life events when we experience them at the same time. I will never disassociate the Superman TAS episode about Darkseid invading Earth from when my Grandfather died.
I am actually writing an exam on this tomorrow morning. I came here to avoid having to think about it. Thanks reddit
No but srsly, it’s a great book but since we’re slaughtering it in school I never really applied it to myself or thought about its deeper meanings. So a genuine thank you for opening my eyes 🙂
Fear predicates so much of human behavior it often displaces real dreams and goals replacing them with habits of business even when it is uncomfortable. That is also subconsciously suppressed leaving people in survival, fight or flight without awareness of the real motivation of the behavior.
That is just my experience in human condition.
You just blew my mind. I never understood this book was about empathy until now.
Question: Does he for sure turn into a cockroach? I read it ages ago but remembered him being described as the kind of beetle-like bug that could have wings. Thus, all those times he was staring out the window he had the means to escape his family all along, making his demise even sadder.
It’s very Kafkaesque
tell your grandma that a bunch of strangers on the internet say hi!
I’m sorry to hear that. I just lost my Grandfather a month ago this Friday due to overall decline that he had been on for the last 4 years. After seeing all the changes physically and mentally I can imagine how you feel. Ever need to vent feel free to send a message my way. Hope all goes well for as long as it can.
One of my favorites, poor Mr. Samsa.
I have read it once a year since I was 16. Recommended by my (ex) girlfriend’s mother. I am now 27 and still pass the recommendation on. I’m glad you had a great experience.
When I first read it, I was mostly surprised by how precise the book was in its descriptions, I had always pictured it as being very vague somehow.
I reread it when I was suffering from depression, and it was mind blowing. It was really scary how much one can relate to being a giant insect. And what also impressed me was that Kafka doesn’t actually blame anyone or explain anything. It just happens because it happens, deal with it. Or don’t, nobody really cares.
Yes and a story, like most of Kafka, that stands up so well over time. For another disturbing and yet very positive story is The Hunger Artist. Anyone who struggles with creative work, who questions who do we do it for and why do we risk what we risk in pursing a life in the arts may want to check that one out. I wish well for grandmother btw and good on you for sharing this time with her.
edit – with = wish
I love all these comments because everyone got something different out of the story. Kafka and Bradbury write such great short stories.
I read this and Bartleby, The Scrivener back to back. While not quite applicable to your situation, the two together taken as allegories for social isolation, depression, and chronic illness left me dumbfounded.
Esp the ending of Metamorphisis, where they all just went on with their lives.
You should see the rock opera.
Kinda sucks waking up a bug and you care more about getting to your job to pay off your family’s debts than actually being a bug.
Taught this at university to Freshmen. One of my proudest moments as a teacher was when a girl raised her hand and asked, “isn’t his family undergoing a metamorphosis as well?” Damn near hugged her, I was so proud.
It’s a good book, but the ending bugs me.
I remember reading the book in high school. It saddened me when everybody thought it was stupid and didn’t understand the true meaning. It really hit home when I was working as a nursing assistant a few years ago and people would never come and see their elderly loved ones because it’s not a pretty stage of life and they refused to see and deal with it. It is ugly, it is messy and it is depressing. But they still deserved love and compassion nonetheless. I’m glad to hear that it’s opened your eyes to your grandmother’s situation, that’s truly wonderful. Your time with her is finite, enjoy it while you still can 🙂
My grandmother passed away a few years ago – very sudden bacterial infection. She was healthy one day, gone just 4 short days later.
She had a…will? Whatever the paperwork is when she’s in the hospital, will doesn’t sound right. Anyway – no tubes. Whatever happened, no tubes.
She was told she might have 6 months to live if she went on tubes for feeding and could maybe recover if the bacterial infection was beat.
My sister and cousin pleaded with her for an hour (of those short few hours left she had) to reconsider. It finally was a firm, grandmotherly NO from my grandmother that sealed the deal.
I reflected on it after she passed away and I understood where she came from. She was 90 years old (passed away the day before her 91st birthday) and her mind was sharp while her body was failing. She wanted to go out on her terms, with her mind intact and her spirit high.
Plus she was wise enough to understand that 6 months bedridden at her age on tubes would have outright wasted her away and killed her, if a staph infection didn’t.
She was the strongest person I ever met. Lived for 30 years after my grandfather died and died surrounded with family.
I am not going anywhere with this other than rambling because I’ve rarely talked about it with anyone but I think your grandmother probably appreciates the fact that you are there with her more than you ever will understand. And you are probably far stronger than you realize to be there with her right now. <3
I thought this book was darkly hilarious. Like how his first thought after waking up as a giant beetle is “how will I get to work like this?”
I read this book when I was in a very similar situation and I’ve always assumed that your interpretation is exactly what the book is about. I hated seeing my grandmother age and was embarrassed by my own inability to cope with it.
I’ve luckily never had to watch a loved one die, but for me, it resonated differently. My mom essentially supports the rest of my 4 person family. We all have jobs but our lifestyle would drastically change if anything happened to her.
It got me thinking about the dreams of the family and the lack of respect Grigor received. He was expected to pay for everything and make his families life better.
But at the end there is no change back, no happy ending. The rest of the family works and the sister gives up on her dream.
It’s starkly realistic.
Don’t throw an apple at her!
The Metamorphosis was an important read for me. I read it while I was backpacking Europe solo after college (I know, it’s a cliche). But it set off a two-year obsession with existentialism and the human condition for me in my mid-20s. I couldn’t understand why I didn’t seem to fit into society’s structures — the typical career-family-house-retirement-death ladder seemed so stupid and pointless to me. The sheer helplessness of The Metamorphosis moved something inside me. Finally, after a lot of brooding and frustration, I reached a point where I realized that conflicting truths can exist — our existence is both meaningless and meaningful; what we do does not matter and matters very much; do what you want but also do what’s important; etc. Since then I’ve been relatively at peace with existence, taking it seriously but also not seriously. It was hard but I’m glad I went through it. My deepest hope is that I will face death with elegance and dignity, acknowledging that it’s time for my tiny speck of life to become dust.
Do not berate yourself about avoiding your grandmother. It is entirely human. Just do your best — it’s all we can do.
I love this book. I’ve heard a bunch of different ideas batted around about it. I think your example is a good one.
I see Gregor’s predicament as a loss of agency. When you no longer have impact or can contribute, who are you? I read it as a metaphor for the Industrial Revolution (I read this somewhere, but it escapes me; not wholy original) in that people went from an agrarian society with large, nuclear families where everyone had worth in one way or another, to an industrial society where worth was only measured in your ability to contribute.
Gregor goes from being *the* breadwinner to a liability. Stripped of that worth, his family, who were the benefit of his labor, abandoned him once he lost his functional use. It speaks to a loss of humanity in a modern world. Once again, not my thesis.
The same occurred to me when my grandmother’s health declined. Please try to spend more time with her. I know she will love to have your company, and you won’t feel the terrible guilt after she is gone.
I’ve read an interesting analysis of this book in reference to the communist era. When you were pronounced an enemy of the state, everyone just kind of turned their back on you. Which is what the roach represents.
I care for my 91 year old grandma and it’s hard sometimes man… i have a one year old and I’m going to school. I feel bad that I sometimes dread going into her room or her noticing I’m around :/ but I always end up going by. I think if how hard it is to be bedridden
I didn’t quite interpret it as lack of empathy from Gregor, to be honest. From my point of view, the book was showing the life of the decades after the industrial revolution, where someone sustains the family but as soon as he’s not able to do it anymore, the family stops caring about him, letting him die like an animal.
I don’t know what kind of music you listen to, but Philip Glass wrote a beautiful suite inspired by the book. They’re called Metamorphosis 1, Metamorphosis 2 and so on. They’re very nice.
Kafka will only turn you into a better person. That’s all his writing can do.
Read The Trial next, if you haven’t already.
I’m not sure if anyone else has mentioned it but another book you might enjoy is “The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Leo Tolstoy. It had the same impact on me when my grandfather was ill.