gregor is a mood
Gregor wakes up as an insect and his main priority isn’t “oh no I’m a bug how do I become human again?”, it’s “oh no how am I going to get to work?” and I think that on some level this is really relatable. I think I would freak out about being an insect, but once I’ve calmed down I would have gotten stressed again about not knowing how to live my life. And it makes sense that I would care about getting to school or that Gregor cared about getting to work because those are very important things. For us, school is a must and it’s hard to miss a day because the work builds up and it just adds to the stress. For Gregor, he has to get to work because he needs this job to sustain his family. So being an insect is a lot less important than work, especially since he’s the only one working and he has to work not only to pay off his dad’s debts but also to pay for their lifestyle of lavish breakfast and having a cook and a maid. For us, school is the most important thing right now and we also have our parents telling us we have do really well in school or else. The similarities are that Gregor really cares about his job while we really care about school and also Gregor’s family is why he works so hard while our parents are also a motivator for doing well in school.
Also, the fact that Gregor is specifically an insect instead of another creature is kind of relatable. As an insect, there’s some miscommunication between him and his family. Don’t we feel like that sometimes? We’re trying to explain something, but they don’t understand or take it the wrong way. Also, an insect’s life is kind of boring and monotonous and Gregor’s life as a human sounded pretty boring and monotonous. I think we can relate to that. Sometimes our lives feel very repetitive and boring. And sometimes, during a break we do nothing and just stay home all day instead of going out and having fun with others, like Gregor (even his mom comments on how he doesn't have a social life). Gregor’s life might seem so far off from ours, but there some parallels that make The Metamorphosis relatable.
Yeah, I can definitely see a modern-day "Metamorphosis" featuring a Uni student. I think that sometimes we can kind of lose our individuality when we're overstressing about college, studying, and homework. Personally, during really stressful weeks, I do barely anything that doesn't have to do with school or extracurriculars that look good on college apps. Both Gregor and Uni students are stuck in these very regulated institutions (Gregor in a job with a very strict boss trying to work off debts and us studying and meeting deadlines to keep our grades up and secure our futures), and because of that it can sometimes seem like we're insects working in a giant colony, lacking any individuality or identity. Nice post!
ReplyDeleteI think that's part of the reason why we're all a little bit compelled to love Gregor (or, at least, not despise him completely). I doubt people would have cared about him half as much if he was just a spineless, somewhat incompetent bum. He is grudgingly relatable. The second we read his reaction to his transformation, we judge him for having such an inappropriate reaction, but quickly realize that we are Gregor!
ReplyDeleteI feel like The Metamorphosis is at least somewhat relatable to everyone - it's just an inflation of our own obsessive habits. It gives us that strange feeling that this could have been us, and we've been judging our own habits the whole time.
I also found the surreal, dreamlike elements of The Metamorphosis to be quite relatable.
ReplyDeleteThe matter with the Chief Clerk (mirrored later on with the lodgers) very much felt like a nightmare, operating on the sort of dream-logic where your boss can show in your home and shame you, or a trio of like-minded lodgers with impossibly high standards you can't meet. Also like a dream, at the end, you wake up, and the lodgers who once seemed so scary, holding your (financial) life in their hands are banished into non-existence.
(Also, the part where Gregor crawls out of his room to hear Grete's violin felt very evocative of dreams where I am trying to move/run/get somewhere, but never making any progress. Not entirely sure why.)
Its weird that all of us are thinking, "spineless, troublesome, and parasitic? That's like me!". It's interesting that relate so much to Gregor. I think Kafka wanted Gregor to be a subtly repulsive character that readers understand but don't really like. But maybe there is a little of Gregor in all of us. Someone who wants to latch on to others even though it's not good for us. Maybe we all of have a parasitic nature which is why we find Gregor "relatable". He is a part of us we don't want to face. (For example when we submit to peer pressure even though we know we shouldn't but we do it anyway because it will make the people around us feel better). I like the point to you make that we are all kind of like Gregor and Kafka just shows us the dangers of that part of us.
ReplyDeleteYeah this is interesting because we know from descriptions of the narrator that Gregory doesn't have many friends and can be kind of weird. This insect form where he cant do his daily activities in fear of scaring someone and can't communicate could be symbolic of the way he feels outcasted socially. This theory wouldn't really explain the family's reaction or why he died but I think it is something interesting to think about.
ReplyDeleteGregor's obsession with work definitely seems relatable to all of us. I mean, look at this, I'm typing this comment for class at 10:07 on a Friday night. We talked in class about how it's almost like getting sick, when you still think you can make it, when you're saying "oh, I can't miss tomorrow", even though you just spent two hours crashed on the couch. I remember waking up once, definitely sick, turning over, looking at my phone, seeing 7:45, but reading 6:45. I remember thinking I could still make it, even though I wouldn't have contributed anything that day, and only giving up when I realized that the phone said 7:45 (I had made it all the way out of bed, gotten my clothes together, and was halfway to the bathroom at this point).
ReplyDeleteWe all want to have a purpose, and we all drive ourselves towards it, often self-destructively, even when we know that it's self-destructive. How much sleep have we all lost, how many days have we gone in when we should have stayed home? We tell ourselves it's because there's something critical that day? Or is it that we don't really know what to do with ourselves otherwise?
I think Kafka's style is relatable exactly because it is not perfectly realistic. Like other people have pointed out, the surreal aspect seems familiar. If this book was Gregor waking up screaming, and a bunch of doctors examining him, we wouldn't be able to relate in the same way. I think kafka chose to suspend reality and have gregor consider his work among other things, so he could make this book full of metaphors, and familiar interactions while being laced with a but of horror.
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of your statement. But if a uni student turns into a insect one morning, wouldn't they want to rush to the doctor or something? I feel like the first thing I would think if I woke up as a bug is "AREA 51" movie. Uni student waking up one morning I don't think they would think about how am i going to get to school but rather, can I just skip school today? (or maybe thats just me)
ReplyDeletelol I do agree, Gregor is a mood. I'm at a time in my life where college apps are rolling in and high school workload is rolling over me. I can specifically relate to Gregor's on-track mindedness. He's obsessed with getting back to work. There are only a few things that can take my mind off of the loads of work that I have to do. Other than those few things, I'm focused on the work. I also relate to Gregor not being able to fully communicate with the people around him (specifically his parents, but we're not going to get into to much detail of my life). Overall, nice post! It made me think about my own life.
ReplyDeleteThis is really funny to think about relating to Gregor. It seems weird that I can relate to a giant bug, I hate it. I think all uni students can understand the fact that Gregor is more worried about getting to work on time than the fact that he is a humongous bug. Personally, I would first be worried about missing a big test or something, but then be like oh crap I’m a bug.
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