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Christopher John Labbate
Professor Dominique Zino
English 162W
March 8, 2011
Gregor Samsa’s End to Individual Freedom
To “metamorphosize” is simply to transform from one state to another. This clever work
of fiction, “The Metamorphosis,” Franz Kafka shows us how Gregor Samsa transforms from
human being to insect. With the concepts of Yi-Fuan Tuan’s “space” and “place,” plot is not
only shaped to our understanding in “The Metamorphosis,” but clearly determines the
importance that Gregor’s individual freedom is lost by immobility, spatial crowdedness, and
family seclusion.
Every Human being needs his or her own individual freedom at one time or another. In
Kafka’s short story, Gregor Samsa learns this with the upmost difficulty. To be free, one has to
have the “space” to move around, be able to breathe comfortably, and be happy. Unfortunately,
Gregor will not achieve this because after transforming into a bug, Gregor already finds
difficulty with his freedom due to his immobility. Gregor whom was “lying on his back, not
being able to see his belly, and barely clinging to the blanket” (Kafka, 302) helps us quickly to
understand that Gregor finally lost his easy mobility that he once has had as a human being. An
“infant is immobile and can make only small movements with his head and limbs.” (Tuan, 20)
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Like a baby, Gregor who is a newly transformed bug, has trouble whether its turning the door
knob to his room or moving from one end of the room to the other.
Tuan states that, “In the act of moving, space and its attributes are directly experienced.”
(52) Tuan contributes the concrete foundation towards the notion that Gregor’s inability to move
freely and easily will bring trouble towards his life. Gregor will no longer be able to support his
“old man who hadn’t worked in five years,” mother, who was supposed to take a job but her
“asthma made it strain for her to even walk across the apartment,” (Kafka, 315) and lastly his
loving sister who in the latter abandons him. With Gregor as a traveling salesman, not only does
he have the freedom as an individual to make money, support his family, and become the
“breadwinner,” but most importantly has the freedom to move around from place to place quite
easily. The significance of Gregor being a traveling salesman is crucial to the conflict of his
transformation and seclusion of his family as a whole. To travel, Gregor has the ability to enjoy
his movement freely by experiencing new places, spaces, encountering others, supporting his
loved ones, and being the “man” of the house. Now that Gregor had transformed into a bug,
Gregor’s immobility shuns him from his mother and father’s support, love, recognition and
along with his job being dangerously on the line. This is where Gregor’s power of individual
freedom is first tested and greatly limited within “The Metamorphosis.”
With the literary element of plot in our minds, Gregor’s individual freedom seems to
become distinctly diminishing as the story goes deeper and deeper within the pages. Gregor’s
“space” and “place” both play significant roles in the troubling end to Gregor’s individual
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freedom. Tuan helps us establish that space is the idea of freedom and is significant in one’s
life, but “place, is a calm center of established values.” (54) After being transformed into a bug,
Gregor’s house, primarily his room, becomes his jail cell. With Tuan’s idea of “spaciousness
being closely associated with the sense of being free,” (52) Gregor is now held captive, in which
his room at one point used to be a calm place of relaxation, spaciousness, and freedom. With
this dramatic situation in effect, Gregor’s values within his household changes drastically.
Living the insect life, Gregor’s newly found space, place, and values are limited. Before the
furniture is moved out of Gregor’s room, he is suffocated by these large objects that take up
space along with them becoming an obstacle for him to freely move. Gregor’s main value of
individual freedom is most certainly denied due to his bedroom (Gregor’s significant place)
becoming overwhelmingly crowded (the space and freedom to move around). Tuan’s ideas of
“space” and “place” are first signified here and will be implemented greatly when Gregors
parents finally outcast him to the full extent. With that being said, the place in which Gregor
once loved along with the values that he once cherished have greatly changed and turn towards
the negative.
A value that was maintained in the beginning of the story was his eating habits and love
for milk (implying the fight for survival). Gregor “immediately dipped his head into the milk,
almost up to his eyes. But he soon drew it back in disappointment.” (Kafka 312) With Gregor
once loving to slurp down milk and various foods that his sister Grete had brought him, Gregors
value of survival seems to be coming to a halt. In Tuan’s “Experiential Perspective” chapter,
one sees that infants “emotional range, from smile to tantrum, hints his potential intellectual
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reach.” (Tuan, 10) Like an infant, Gregors words are jumbled and his significance of “holding
the food in his mouth for hours and spitting most of it out” (Kafka, 324) signifies that Gregor is
finally at his end of survival, and no longer can go on with his life. This eventually leads his
sister to give up hope for Gregor and his survival by siding with his mother and father to get rid
of him.
Individual freedom for Gregor is finally lost when “the family had fallen into the habit of
using the room to store things.” (Kafka, 324) Gregor’s spatial crowdedness is greatly suffocated
by the various amounts of furniture and items that are put into his room. Gregors failure to have
a sufficient amount of space, leads to his final end towards his positive outlook on freedom. The
luxuries that Gregor once had as a human being such as a full sized bed and a few rooms to walk
in and out of had greatly been lost due to his transformation as an insect and the carelessness of
his family. Gregor, as a bug, once enjoyed hanging from the ceiling or going underneath the
couch and watching his sister play the violin; Now, Gregor already being captive in his own
room had lost everything and individual freedom is at its end.
Although physical space had played a leading factor towards Gregor’s death; his family
should be held responsible for their actions as well. With the help of Tuan’s thoughts, one could
see that “people rather than things are likely to restrict our freedom and deprive us of space” (59)
is greatly exemplified in the ending pages of this short story. In contrast to an insect, a mother
and father would care for their baby by feeding it, playing with it, nursing it, teaching it, holding
it close, and putting it to sleep, but with Gregor being a helpless insect, his family neglects him
in the end, and therefore the love and care that they once had for him as a human being is now
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lost after his transformation. Not only did his family suffocate his physical space, but also his
individual freedom.
In the end, the concepts of Tuan’s “space” and “place” establish the significance
of Gregor’s life through plot. By the freedom of mobility being taken away, family seclusion,
and overwhelming spatial crowdedness, Gregor Samsa’s life and individual freedom is
eliminated.