Alieniation in Metamorphosis

Destinee Estis

April 21,2010

Dr. Weber

5th period

"Metamorphosis Essay"

The Oxford dictionary defines alienation as: to estrange, isolate, detach, distance, to put a distance, to turn away from another person.

Alienation, like a lot of other social attitudes and concepts, can give a wide variety of interests. In the novel, The Metamorphosis, Gregor wakes

up one morning as a giant insect and feels out of place. When Gregor sees his father and his attitude to him, Gregor feels alienated in that fact

that his father yells and shows his anger and frustration to his son and throws an apple which gets stuck in his slimy backside. His father feels

Gregor has not become successful and a failure. He probably also feels that he has let his sister down along with his mother for not being

supportive enough as the father was not.

"It has to go", cried his sister. "That's the only answer, Father. You just have to try to get rid of the idea that it's Gregor. Believing it

for so long, that is our real misfortune. But how can it be Gregor? If it were Gregor, he would have realized long ago that it isn't possible for

human beings to live with such a creature, and would have gone away of his own free will" (Kafka 52). The relationship between family member's

in Kafka's Metamorphosis is an interesting theme addressed, and somewhat distressing subject. Why is it so hard to accept that this monstrous

bug is Gregor? Is it so bad for him to want to stay and be near his family- the only thing he's ever had and known? For the sister to even come

out and say these words seems somewhat selfish. Why can't it be turned around to a viewpoint through which we have a family loving their son,

unconditionally, regardless of what state he's in? The word love is definitely one which is not seen in close companionship with the Gregor family.

And we can see that this lack of affection carries on to be one of the driving...