“Metamorphosis” is quite disturbing when one pauses to think
about the novella. Gregor, a travelling salesman supporting his family by being
the only source of income, simply wakes up one morning as a giant, man-sized
cockroach. It all goes downhill from there. I found myself with a distinct
dislike for his family and their mistreatment of Gregor, not because they fear
him as a big bug, but because they are resentful that they need to work. The
selfishness of his family and their mistreatment of him simply grew worse and
worse, until they forgot about him and moved on with their lives, leaving
Gregor to die from a rotten apple lodged in his back.
This story makes one question one big thing: Why does Gregor
never question his being a roach?
There is a possibly that this is an allusion to the
treatment of the mentality handicapped. After all, if Gregor dissolved from a
functioning member of society into a socially maladaptive individual incapable
of taking care of himself or his family, then it explains his own acceptance of
the situation. He is not really a bug. He simply thinks himself a bug or his
being a bug is symbolic of what he family sees. A handicapped grown man who
used to be industrious is someone who his family could resent, or see as
vermin. And his degradation and abandonment and later death is all accepted by
the family as the only reasonable end for a man they could no longer recognize.
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