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Justin Chundakkattil
14 December 2022
Characterization in “The Metamorphosis”
“The Metamorphosis” is a famous novella penned by the much-celebrated Bohemian
novelist Franz Kafka. Kafka is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth
century. His works often explore the themes of alienation, existential angst, guilt, etc., while
containing elements of surrealism and absurdity. Written in German in 1912, “The
Metamorphosis” was first published in 1915. It tells the story of the transformation of Gregor
Samsa into an insect and how it changes the course of his life irrevocably. Gregor, a traveling
salesman, wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a “horrible vermin.” He
struggles to get up in his new body and reflects on his mundane job, which he merely undertakes
to repay his father's debt and sustain his family. He realizes that he missed the train for work and
worries about its consequences. His father, mother, and sister, Grete, understand that something
is wrong with Gregor, while his chief clerk comes to his house to inquire about his absence from
work. Gregor somehow manages to open the door, but upon seeing the transformed Gregor, the
chief clerk flees the apartment, terrified. His father drives him back to his room by shoving him
across the door, injuring him in the process. He begins to adapt to his new life while locked in his
room. He survives by eating the rotten food that his sister brings him every day. She decides to
remove all the furniture to give him more space to crawl around the room. She and her mother
remove most of the stuff from his room, but Gregor finds it depressing. He tries to save a picture
on the wall by clinging to it, but his mother sees him and loses consciousness. He leaves his
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room only to find his father entering the house. He becomes angry upon seeing Gregor and
throws apples at him, one of which attaches to his back, seriously wounding him. Suffering from
his injuries, he takes little food. His father, mother, and sister all get jobs, and they rent a room in
the apartment to three gentlemen. One evening, attracted by Grete’s violin playing, he steps out
of his room’s door, which was accidentally left open by the charwoman. The tenants spot Gregor
and complain about the apartment’s unhygienic conditions. Grete tells her parents that they must
get rid of Gregor, and the father agrees. Upon hearing this, Gregor drags himself back to his
room and passes away. The cleaning lady sees his dead body and informs the family about his
death. Relieved by his death, the father kicks out the tenants, and the whole family takes the day
off from work. They take a tram to the countryside and optimistically discuss their future. The
father and mother realize that Grete has blossomed into a beautiful lady and that it is time to find
her a husband. In Franz Kafka's novella “The Metamorphosis," the author uses characterization
to illustrate how the antagonistic characters' behavior leads to the alienation of Gregor Samsa
and thereby ultimately to his demise.
No interpretation or analysis of “The Metamorphosis” is complete without considering its
connection to Kafka’s own life. As with most of his works, Kafka draws a lot from his personal
life into this novella, which is arguably his masterpiece. Even his choice of writing about the
transformation into an insect is influenced by his personal life. As critic Tina Gianoulis suggests,
“His choice of an insect metaphor for The Metamorphosis reflects the utter personal separateness
he felt, as well as the deep societal divisions in pre-World War I society” (291). Franz Kafka was
born on July 3, 1883, in Prague to Hermann and Julie Kafka. In his “Biography of Franz Kafka,”
Ritchie Robertson states that “His (Franz’s) father was a difficult man, a self-made man who had
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risen from extreme poverty to owning his shop, he used to bore his children by telling them how
well off they were.” He was very authoritarian towards his children, especially towards Franz
Kafka. The skinny Franz always felt inferior to his father, who was a big, tall man. “Later in life,
Franz tried to resolve the tensions between himself and his father by describing and analyzing
their relationship in the text known as “The Letter to His Father”... but this document was
fortunately intercepted by his mother before Hermann Kafka could read it” (Robertson). It is no
coincidence that the father-son tension that existed in Kafka’s life forms one of the main themes
of “The Metamorphosis.” Clearly, the father in this novella is directly inspired by Kafka’s own
father. Especially after Gregor’s “metamorphosis,” when his father becomes an authoritarian
power, he completely resembles Herman Kafka. The mother in the story also resembles Kafka’s
own mother, who loved him but could not understand him completely. Of Kafka’s three sisters,
he was close to the youngest, Ottla. She was very independent-minded and brave, and she
insisted on getting an academic qualification (Robertson). It can be seen that the character Grete
is partly inspired by Ottla. Grete was the one who showed the most affection to Gregor in his
family, though it changes towards the end of the story, just like how Ottla was the closest to
Kafka in his family. Toward the end, it is shown that Grete transforms into a strong young
woman with decision-making power and courage, reflective of Kafka’s sister’s characteristics.
By creating all these characters based on his own family members, Kafka wittingly imparts the
alienation he personally felt in his life into the life of the protagonist of this novella.
In the first part of the novella, it is implied that the financial conditions of his family had
already made him alienated from society even before his metamorphosis. This first phase of
alienation is inflicted on him because of his job as a traveling salesman. It is shown that he
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undertakes this job only because he is the sole breadwinner of the family, which consists of his
father, mother, and sister. But his family does not completely appreciate his effort and sacrifice.
He doesn’t like the job or his coworkers, particularly his boss. He desperately hopes for a day
when he could quit the job and lead a more fulfilling life: “There’s still some hope; once I’ve got
the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to him—another five or six years, I
suppose—that’s definitely what I’ll do” (Kafka 4). He is unable to make meaningful connections
as he rues, “... contact with different people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone
or become friendly with them.” (Kafka 3). Kafka masterfully characterizes even the supporting
characters, including the chief clerk, to illustrate that they also take part in Gregor’s alienation.
The chief clerk further torments the transformed Gregor by accusing him of laziness. In his
article, critic Gavriel Ben-Ephraim states that “The appearance of the suspicious Chief Clerk at
the Samsa home, because of one lateness after years of perfect service, justifies Gregor's
"torment.”” This arrival of the chief clerk to know the reason for his absence from work, even
though it was the first such incident in his five-year-long stint in the company, speaks a lot about
Gregor’s work-life. His boss and chief clerk never believe Gregor, even though he gives
everything for his job, which he does not even like. The critic further notes that the chief clerk
undergoes a corresponding deformation in response to Gregor’s transformation to an insect, and
his indignified escape is most significant for allowing the replacement of his father as his
commercial patriarch (Ben-Ephraim). It should be noted that the transformation of Gregor’s
father into a commanding figure happens just after the chief clerk’s departure. Thus Kafka uses
the character of the chief clerk to convey the alienation Gregor felt in his work and thereby in his
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social life, while also setting the stage for his family members to play their part in his unfortunate
predicament.
In the second part of the novella, Kafka illustrates how the transformation of Gregor into
a horrible vermin changes his father, mother, and sister. This change in behavior of theirs really
torments him, who is already suffering from the bizarre metamorphosis as well as its
consequences for his career. As Ciaran O’Connor points out, “Gregor’s family makes some
modicum of effort to continue looking after him. Kafka briefly explores these reasons,
suggesting that some shred of humanity remains in the family” (58). In the first few weeks, Grete
affectionately provides him with the food that he can consume and regularly cleans his room.
She even decides to remove the furniture in order to ensure that there is enough space for him to
freely crawl around the room. Although the father did not show Gregor much compassion, he
never tried to annoy or infuriate Gregor. But as the days passed by, their attitude began to
change, which initiated Gregor’s second phase of alienation. Simantini Mukhopadhyay, an
assistant professor from Kolkata, suggests in her article that:
The second phase of alienation that Gregor faces is as an insect and within his own
family that he loves so much, often without reciprocation, particularly from the father.
The father, who is hostile to the insect right from the beginning; the mother, who is still
sympathetic to her “unlucky son” but fails to understand Gregor still has emotions and
can comprehend every word they utter; and the 17-year-old frivolous sister, Grete, who
gradually loses all her compassion for the insect, seem to work in unison to isolate
Gregor within the family. (45)
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His father injures him twice: once by shoving him through the narrow opening of the door, and
then by throwing an apple, which becomes attached to his back and proves to be fatal by the end
of the story. Mr. Samsa takes up the mantle of an authoritarian power and begins dictating his
son’s life as an insect. Just when the readers were beginning to think that Grete was an archetype
character of a loving and sympathetic sister, Kafka brilliantly transforms her into a dynamic
antagonistic character by imparting to her the qualities of strength and leadership. She
increasingly gets frustrated with her duty of taking care of Gregor. The only main character that
remains the same is his mother, who still loves her son, albeit without fully understanding his
emotions and intentions. She is helpless in front of her powerful and determined husband and
daughter. Moreover, she realizes that Gregor is turning into a burden, which will ultimately
impede the progress of their family. All these changes in behavior and attitude among his family
members essentially isolate and alienate Gregor further from the real world.
In the third and final part of the novella, Kafka illustrates how Gregor’s family’s neglect
towards him and their refusal to engage with him push him to the pit of utter hopelessness,
eventually prompting him to self-sacrifice for the sake of his family. Instead of trying to
understand his feelings and emotions, “the family members show an increasing antipathy toward
him, and believing his death would bring them relief, they soon wish to get rid of him completely
instead of trying to alleviate his sufferings” (Mukhopadhyay 46). Towards the end of the story,
Kafka skillfully instills bitter antagonism and hatred in all his family members except the mother.
Their sheer selfishness makes them forget the fact that it was Gregor who was sustaining them
all these years and enables them to cruelly wish for his death. It can also be argued that the cruel
actions of his father, none less than his mindless hurling of apples in order to get him inside the
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room, paralyzed him forever and thereby played a part in his death. But in reality, his death can
only be seen as a self-sacrifice by Gregor, caused by his experience of alienation and humiliation
from his loved ones. As critic Mr. Mendoza states in his essay,
Gregor willingly starves to death, soon after realizing that his last hope, the help of his
only ally, his sister, has vanished. In Gregor’s eyes, however, although the sister does
give the death signal and in effect pronounces sentence on him, the actual executioner
and judge is the father, whose unbending rejection strips Gregor of any reason to live.
(Mendoza)
The radical change in his sister’s behavior toward him was unbearable to Gregor. It was shocking
for him to see her transform from his sweet, loving sister, who had provided him with a wide
variety of food in order to test his taste, into a selfish and cruel woman who shouts like a
complete stranger, “It’s got to go” (Kafka 41). Upon hearing these words come out of Grete’s
mouth, Gregor loses all hope for living. And his father’s sturdy agreement to this opinion acts as
the final nail in his coffin as he walks back to his room, thinking of his family only with love and
emotion, and sacrificing his life. As opposed to the usual poetic justice where his family must
suffer for their deeds leading to Gregor’s death, what we can see at the end of the tale is the irony
of them thriving like never before. It can only be seen as the fulfillment of Gregor’s wish, as he
always hoped for his family’s happiness and prosperity, even at the time of his death. Thus,
Kafka effectively illustrates how his family member’s behavior and actions alienate him further
and how they eventually lead to his inevitable death.
Kafka intelligently and masterfully uses characterization to show how the antagonistic
characters' actions and attitudes cause Gregor’s alienation, thereby leading to his death. His
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artistic brilliance is evident in the way he introduces all the characters, including the minor ones,
and how he develops them throughout the story in order to convey his themes and ideas
effectively. In the first part of the story, he implies how Gregor is alienated from society even
before the metamorphosis, owing to the job he undertakes for his family’s well-being. He
successfully uses the characterization of the chief clerk to portray this first phase of Gregor’s
alienation. In the second part of the novella, the author uses characterization to illustrate how
Gregor’s “metamorphosis” drastically changes his family members, especially his father and
sister, and how their behavior leads him to the second phase of alienation. In the third part of the
novella, Kafka shows how their neglect and selfish behavior strip Gregor of any reason to live as
they push him into the dark realm of hopelessness. It ultimately forces him to willingly give up
his life for the happiness and goodness of his father, mother, and sister. The transformation of
Gregror into an insect can be seen as an extended metaphor for the alienation he felt as a result of
working selflessly for his family. It is ironic that Gregor, who provided for his family by setting
aside all his desires, has to die in the end for the same people’s happiness, whom he thought
would be with him in his difficult situations. Through this extended metaphor of metamorphosis,
Kafka conveys that by working for someone else as a pawn in a hierarchical and authoritarian
society, one is sacrificing his own identity and undermining his own existence, and how it will
estrange and alienate him from society forever. He ingeniously conveys this idea using the
characterization of the antagonistic characters of the novella and how all of them play their part
in the protagonist's alienation and ultimate death.
Works Cited
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Ben-Ephraim, Gavriel. "Making and breaking meaning: deconstruction, four-level allegory and
'The Metamorphosis.'." The Midwest Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 4, summer 1994, pp. 450+.
Gale Literature Resource Center,
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A15602652/LitRC?u=pala97073&sid=bookmark-LitRC&
xid=d77e04eb.
Kafka, Franz. “Metamorphosis.” Translated by David Wyllie, The Project Gutenberg EBook of
Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka, The Project Gutenberg, 13 May 2002,
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5200/5200-h/5200-h.htm.
Kafka, Franz, and Tina Gianoulis. "The Metamorphosis." Supernatural Literature, edited by
Thomas Riggs, vol. 3: Monsters and Beasts, St. James Press, 2017, pp. 291-294. Gale
Literature Resource Center,
https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CX3662100308/LitRC?u=pala97073&sid=bookmark-LitR
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Mendoza, Ramón G. "The Human Vermin: Kafka’s Metaphor For Extreme Alienation." Critical
Insights: The Metamorphosis, edited by James Whitlark, Salem Press, 2011. Salem
Online,
https://online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=CIMetamorphosis_7115710
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Mukhopadhyay, Simantini. "Human Connection in the Light of the Writings of Karl Marx and
Amartya Sen: An Investigation Using Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Manik
Bandyopadhyay's Ekannoborti." International Journal of Social Quality, vol. 9, no. 2,
winter 2019, pp. 35+. Gale Literature Resource Center,
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O’Connor, Ciaran. “A Consideration of Kafka’s Metamorphosis As A Metaphor For Existential
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