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Harel Assaf
04/26/04
English 1B/Prof. Seligo
10:00 – 10:50 AM
Gregor and His Room
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka is one of the most analyzed literary pieces of the 20th
century. Packed with symbolism, allusions and analogies The Metamorphosis has been interpreted
in numerous ways. Although many interpretations of the story exist, as the title implies, the main
theme of the story is that of a change and transformation: the transformation of the protagonist, his
sister, his dad, his whole family structure and their attitudes toward him. However, Gregor and his
family are not alone in their transformation - Gregor’s room changes as well. The changes in
Gregor’s room echo his physical and mental deterioration because the room is analogous to
Gregor’s state of being.
At the beginning of the story, right after the description of Gregor’s new physical form, the
narrator describes Gregor’s room as a “regular human bedroom, only rather too small” (346). The
narrator also informs the readers that the room contains a table and that a framed illustration hangs
on the wall. Later in the story we learn that the room also contains a window, a sofa, a chair, a
carpet, a chest of drawers and a writing desk (perhaps the same as the table). The fact that the
narrator describes the room so early in the story and the exclusion of the furniture and the window
from the primary description is not accidental and actually replicates the life of Gregor prior to the
Metamorphosis. The room appears to be very simple, small, colorless and depressing (with one
exception – the framed illustration) and reflects the life of a man with a dull job and a monotonous
routine.
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After Gregor realizes that he is late for work, he decides that the most sensible thing to do
is to leave his room and go to work. Possessing a physical form, Gregor is having difficulties
getting out of bed and unlocking the door. While describing Gregor’s attempts to unlock the door
the narrator remarks “Gregor hoped for great and remarkable results from both the doctor and the
locksmith, without really distinguishing precisely between them” (352). A locksmith is a person
that could free Gregor from the imprisonment of his bedroom and a doctor is a specialist that could
cure or more accurately free Gregor from being confined in the new body. Gregor does not
distinguish between the two because he associates the entrapment of his room with the entrapment
of his new physical form. He believes that breaking out of his bedroom will also enable him to
break free of his “horrific” form. Gregor does manage to unlock the door and step out of the room,
but unfortunately he does not manage to free himself from the room or his body. Forced violently
by his family and driven by altruistic loyalty, Gregor returns to the room and collapses.
Time goes by and most of Gregor’s routine is spent waiting pitifully, very much
like dogs wait by doors for their owner returns, for visits by family members. Deprived of his past
routine and confined to his new body and his old room, Gregor perceives his room as a “lofty,
empty room” that fills him “with an apprehension he could not account for”(357). Ironically,
instead of associating the unaccountable uneasiness he feels with his physical form, Gregor
associates it with the room. In addition, the change in the description of the room corresponds to
the change in Gregor’s life. Once, the life of Gregor evolved around the familiarity of his family
and work. Respectively, at the beginning of the story the room is described as having “four
familiar walls” (346). Familiarity implies of easiness and a sense of belonging. Now, when Gregor
is a functionless and isolated family member the room is described correspondingly as empty and
lofty.
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Although Gregor spends most of the time isolated inside his room, he still is a part of the
Samsa family. Grete, Gregor’s sister, takes care of Both Gregor and his room: she feeds Gregor
and cleans his room. After two months of confinement in his room and his bug-like body, Gregor
grows more accustomed to his new condition and starts crawling over the walls and the ceiling.
The sticky crawling marks he leaves on the familiar walls of his bedroom trigger a major change.
Gregor’s sister notices the crawling marks on the wall and decides that clearing the room out of
Gregor’s old furniture (except the sofa) would be a good idea because it will enable him to have a
larger crawling space (362). After hearing the conversation between his mom and his sister,
Gregor realizes that he really does not want “his warm room, comfortably fitted with old family
furniture, to be turned into a naked den.” Gregor understands that emptying the room of the
furniture will transform his room from a human bedroom to an insect like lair and reinforce his
own physical transformation (363). In an attempt to help his fainting mother, Gregor tries to break
out of the room. Again, similar to his primary attempt to break free, Gregor is forced back
violently by his family members. However, this time Gregor pays dearly for leaving the room.
Gregor’s second attempt to break out of the room results in a grave injury: his ability to
move has been permanently impaired and he is no longer able to crawl over the walls. With limited
movement ability, Gregor spends most of his time laying in the darkness of his room and watching
through the open door his family’s activities. Simultaneously to his physical deterioration, the
appearance of Gregor’s room worsens as well. Grete does not clean the room as much as she used
to in the past. Streaks of dirt stretch along the walls and the room fills with balls of dust and filth
(369). Gregor’s role and status in the family’s hierarchy decreases dramatically. From the savior
and the center of the family, Gregor transformed to a useless but acknowledgeable family member
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and finally falls down to the bottom of his family’s hierarchy and becomes an actual burden. As a
burden, both the appearances and the conditions of Gregor and his room are ignored.
Ignored and alienated by his family members, Gregor’s health continues to worsen.
Although he is “dying of starvation,” he hardly eats anything anymore (370 –371). Additionally, at
the same time Gregor’s health worsens, three lodger settle in the apartment and, his room turns
into a storage room:
Anything that was not needed for the moment was simply flung into Gregor’s
room… Gregor pushed his way through the junk heap and shifted it
somehow, at first out of necessity, but later with increasing enjoinment,
although after such excursions, being sad and weary to death, he would lie
motionless for hours (371).
Again, the deterioration of Gregor’s mental and physical health coincides with a
transformation in the appearance of the room. The change in the purpose of Gregor’s room
parallels the change in the status of Gregor and the function of his room. Gregor’s family
turns his bedroom into a storage room - a place where people place objects that are
nonfunctional and unwanted. Objects placed in storage are easily forgotten or lost. Since
Gregor is a burden and his existence shames his family, his room becomes a storage space
and he is kept inside it like a useless object. As Gregor’s room turns into a Dung Beetle’s
den his own physical and mental metamorphosis is almost complete. Gregor leaves his
room for the last time after he hears Grete playing the violin. However, this time his family
does not acknowledge him as Gregor but as a foreign creature and decides to get rid of
him. Gregor crawls back to his room and dies as a useless meaningless being.
Gregor’s room is analogous to Gregor’s state of being and therefore, in addition to
a decline in his personal status along the Samsa’s family hierarchy, the changes in Gregor’s
room reflect his own physical and mental deterioration. Gregor’s room transforms from a
workingman’s resting place to a prison, later to an insect den and finally to a tomb.
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Similarly, at first Gregor tries to breakthrough and free himself both from the room and his
physical condition but later as his health get worse, he begins to act like a genuine bug and
finally dies in his own lair/room. Three times Gregor tries to leave his room and every
time the result is a confrontation with his Family. In each attempt to break out of the room
the violence (physical and emotional) against Gregor increases until the final confrontation
ends in death. Sadly, only through death Gregor finally manages to permanently breakout
of the confinements of his room and his body.
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis, Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry and
Drama Eds. Kennedy X.J. et al. New York: Longman, 2001