Cockroach, Dust, and Death.. Oh My!

It was a dark, Friday night. I found myself on the family room couch beginning to devour Kafka’s short story, The Metamorphosis, page after page turning before my eyes. As soon as I had finished rushing through the pages, I drifted into a light sleep. All of a sudden, something on my face began to twitch. The image of Gregor’s disgusting legs flailing in the air flashed through my mind. Twitch, twitch, twitch… I felt like something was crawling across my face. I jumped, trying to rid myself of the revolting, crawling cockroach that had invaded my personal bubble. I squirmed, I fidgeted, I jumped, and then I realized… it wasn’t a bug. It had been my dog, Princess, trying to wake me up, barely tickling my face with her whiskers. My mother was almost in hysterics, laughing at my reaction, my brother was embarrassed. Kafka had made an impression on me like no other author. He scared the bejeeters out of me!

In general, I stay away from horror, whether it be in films or novels or even short stories. I do not normally like to be scared from fiction. So to say that Kafka gave me the heebie jeebies is to say the least. The first few pages of description were what really did me in. Especially the legs that had a mind of their own. After I had come to terms with the whole “one morning I turned into a giant cockroach” thing, I thoroughly enjoyed the short story. The creepy crawlies began to die down after Gregor had rolled out of bed, and made himself known to his family. It fascinated me that his family could still understand him in the morning, making me wonder if he had not completely finished his transformation, or if his family simply wandered through their daily lives, expecting Gregor’s hard work to continue to support them. In this way, I am in complete agreement with the fourth expert in Mr. Coon’s blog.

As the fourth expert says, Gregor’s family hates him, but is also using Gregor as their single source of income, making him still an important wheel in their family life. My favorite character throughout the short story other than Gregor had to be his sister. She is the only one who shows the slightest bit of compassion throughout the story for Gregor. Unfortunately, this attention to her brother is only short lived. When she loses hope that he will not return to his normal form, she loses interest, and leaves him completely on his own to starve to death.

In all, though I did enjoy the story, I do not feel that I can really shed any light on a closer in depth analysis, for in truth I am still completely confused. Yes, I understand the predicament, but I can not really grasp what the Kafka is trying to tell us with this story. Maybe he just had a nightmare and this is what he came up with. I don’t really believe that, but I cannot really think of any other good reason for writing about turning into a giant bug over night! (525)