Gregor, a traveling salesman, is in the clutches of an exploitative boss to whom his father has an important debt. Being a model son and a good employee, Gregor keeps his life is firmly in the camp of hard work and self-sacrifice, his only aspirations being to send his sister to the Conservatory and to one day, all debts repaid, leave his job for a more lenient one.
Inexplicably, Gregor wakes up one day transformed into a repulsive insect and what is worse, late for work. Never thinking to hide his condition, Gregor is rapidly exposed for what he has become, driving away the clerk who came to check on him; his family, more tolerant, will content itself with his exile in his bedroom. His sister Grete even takes it upon herself to feed him to his new tastes, which go to the rotten and the foul, and to clean his bedroom.
Little by little, the situation degrades. The family struggles not only financially (as even with the three of them working, they do not seem to bring in the same income than Gregor used to), but also mentally, as their jobs sap the energy to deal with Gregor. Things come to a first crisis when Gregor’s sister and mother decide to empty his room of furniture so he can crawl on walls more easily; in a fit of attachment to his human past, Gregor tries to protect a picture from their zeal, but his attempt is misunderstood by his mother and scares her so that his father ends up pelting Gregor with apples, one of which becomes embedded and rots in his back.
After this episode, Gregor’s care deteriorates, and when the family takes lodgers, they have no second thoughts about using his room as storage space for anything unwanted. A second crisis occurs when one night Gregor’s sister plays the violin: listening to her, Gregor forgets himself and comes in full view of the lodgers. Driven back to his bedroom, he overhears his family renouncing him. He dies during the night. After a few minutes of mourning, his family regains a dose of optimism, realizing that their hard labor is opening new possibilities to them, especially now that they are free of Gregor.
Notes:
- Why and how does everyone know that the bug is Gregor? Is it really a totally unheard of phenomenon?
- There could be a darker subtitle to Gregor’s family – possibly that they have been consciously exploiting him (the dad looking suddenly weaker when he is around, then proving himself quite capable to work; the money he set aside instead of reimbursing the boss, not mentioning it to Gregor). Similarly, the exploitation of Gregor, which seems extreme even for the time (or when he compares himself to other traveling salesmen, when he says that his colleagues think he makes a lot more money than he does). Is it just an abusive boss emboldened by the debt, or is there some collusion?
- The tendencies in this family to have the children do the dirty work (Gregor’s hard work, Grete’s taking care of him) could lead to a facetious reading of the last lines of the story – a creepy, suspenseful question mark to the project of marrying off Grete now that their “work” with Gregor is done.
- On the other hand… Gregor’s taking the family in charge, and later his mere presence, confines them to being his “parasites”. They find new purpose and strength in his degradation and then death…
- Could it be the aspirations of Gregor that makes him an outcast? (he framed a portrait just before his transformation, which ends up being the cause of the first crisis; he is so attracted to the music played by his sister that it causes the second).
- Is there something to the mom’s feelings than by treating Gregor like an insect, they’re making him become one? The family rejects the idea that he still understands them, though he gives them evidence to the contrary, and little by little convince themselves he is not Gregor anymore.
- Note his inability to feed – “nothing appeals”, nothing nourishes me in what the family has to offer, this sense that there might be “something else”, locked in the pantry, that is refused to him. Does that mirror his new inability to feed his family?
- Physicality of rejection (each time Gregor gets emotionally hurt, it translates physically)