Family Love Gregor
“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” Eva Burrows correctly catches the theme of a family. However, in The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka portrays Gregor Samsa's family in an unloving way; they do not care for each other but use Gregor to get his money, which causes a lot of problems in the family. When members of a family fail to love each other, they end up using each other for their own benefits and isolating themselves by not communicating and expressing their feelings.
Gregor has seen the change in his family: they once used him to better their financial status and now seeing that he is useless, they have isolated him to his room. For instance, Gregor's selfless commitment to both his family and his job is not properly appreciated. When Gregor does not get up and go to work as usual, mother, father, and sister pester Gregor, scolding him for still being in bed. “‘Gregor,' someone called, it was his mother—‘it's a quarter to seven. Didn't you want to catch the train?'” (5). No one seems to wonder or worry whether he is all right. In a family, it is important to care about each other and be certain that everyone is at their best; this is what love is all about. However Mr. Samsa does not seem to care much about Gregor; he used his son to pay off his debt, which is certainly not a characteristic of a loving family. Gregor's father is old and tired and although he has worked in the past, he presently expects his only son, Gregor, to support the family. For this reason, he enslaves his son to a company that makes him miserable and does not appreciate him. Mr. Samsa obviously does not appreciate Gregor either: “They [the Samsa family] had just gotten used to it [the money]…but no special feeling of warmth went with it…” (26). Mr. Samsa does nothing more but give Gregor a pat on the back and then sends him back to work in order to keep the money flow coming. Mr. Samsa cruelly hides the fact that he has a savings account in order to make Gregor feel totally responsible to and for them. “He [Gregor] had always believed that his father had not been able to save a penny from the business, at least his father had never told him anything to the contrary…” (25). However, when Gregor becomes an insect, his father wants nothing to do with him; his usefulness is now past. “It was an apple; a second one came flying right after it; Gregor stopped dead with fear; further running was useless, for his father was determined to bombard him” (37). His father has proved that the family merely used Gregor for his job so that they would not need to work. The view of the loving family has failed in the Samsa family; as a result, the family, no longer having the services Gregor once provided, has isolated Gregor and broken off all communication with him.
In a family, love is defined by telling each other the innermost feelings and exchanging ideas, but in the Samsa family, they failed to communicate. For example, Gregor states, “If I didn't hold for my parent's sake, I would have quit [my job] long ago, I would have marched up to the boss and spoken my piece from the bottom of my heart” (4). He is trapped like an insect into a miserable existence because his family is dependent on him. He foolishly believes that in the near future he will save enough money to leave his job and live as he wants. He fantasizes about leading a new and different life, “Well, I haven't given up hope completely; once I've gotten the money together to pay off my parents' dept to him [Gregor's manager]—that will probably take another five or six years—I'm going to do it without fail. Then I'm going to make the big break” (4). Gregor longs for this big break, but his dream is unreal, as he believes family comes first. So when he is turned into a bug, and his family no longer needs him, Gregor desperately longs for conversation with his family. For instance, when Gregor sees the lodgers at the dining room table and listens to them eat their food, Gregor says, "‘I am hungry… but not for these things'" (45). What he longs for is the conversation and companionship of his family. His family has totally cut off and alienated Gregor; the tragedy of this scene, and perhaps the entire story, is that Gregor hopes for understanding, even compassion from a family that has never loved him.
Family has a way of connecting everyone, no matter what happens, this should include even if a family member turns into a bug. However, the Samsa family fails to love each other, creating an atmosphere of bottled up emotions and feelings. These emotions are bound to be shown, as they are when Gregor is transformed into a hideous bug. His father beats him, his mother faints and screams when she sees him, and his sister declares that he must go. Elbert Hubbard said, “No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?” What would the Samsa family say they accomplished when they looked back on the way the treated their son?
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