The Other Metamorphosis

Johnathan Roberts
May 24th, 2012
EH 102

The Other Metamorphosis

             “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, is a story about a man named Gregor who is changed into an insect in order to find his humanity, but Gregor was not the only person who experiences a change in the story. If one were to read “The Metamorphosis” and apply feminist criticism, one can see how a female role changes throughout the story. By trying to find how female roles, along with male roles, are defined in the story, the reader begins to see Kafka's work in a new light.
              By naming certain characters, and leaving others unnamed, Kafka not only sets up gender roles within the story, but also defines each character’s importance. Identifying characters by their roles opposed to identifying them by their names, strips the character of personality and leaves no other human connection for the reader. The Mom's position is small in the story, mostly just doing the cooking and cleaning. She is the embodiment of a stereotypical mother, with little to say and is sheltered by the other characters from the horror of seeing Gregor as an insect because she can not handle it. The Dad's role is to control and to be in charge of the household while Gregor's Boss does the same at Gregor's work. Both are the typical male stereotype roles. The only characters that were given names were Gregor, the main character, and This Sister, Grete.
           The Sister starts off playing very strongly into her expected role. She does not feel like it is her place to provide for the family so she is upset when Gregor doesn’t get up and go to work. An example of this is shown Gregor hears her crying and ask “..why [is] she crying? Because he wasn't getting up [?] ... because he was in danger of losing his position..?” She is crying because she has been conditioned to think there is no other way for the family to be provided for other than Gregor and his job. When Gregor has fears about his boss leaving in a bad mood Gregor calls the sister clever, but only because he knows that she know her expected role. The author illustrates this by saying that “she had already cried while Gregor was still lying quietly on his back. And Gregor's Boss, this friend of the ladies, would certainly let himself be guided by her. She would have closed the door to the apartment and talked him out of his fright in the hall.” This passage is significant because Gregor is saying that she had cried when she was suppose to, and, if she was there, would know that she needed to “charm” Gregor's Boss behind closed doors in order to better his mood before he left the family.
              But Gregor was that the only one going through a metamorphosis. The Sister begins as a young, emotion filled girl who cries when faced with a problem. But then becomes Grete the moment she decides to take on the role as care taker for Gregor. This is significant because it shows her stepping out of her role as the “sister” and stepping into a mature and responsible role. She takes on a job as a salesgirl, and even starts studying stenography and French to improve herself in hopes of a promotion. At the end she is unsympathetic of Gregor when he comes to her violin, and even calls him “it” and a “creature”, thus proving she is no longer a young girl full of empathy and has become a women who is a provider and put the needs of her dependents over sympathy.
            It took Gregor stepping down from his role as provider in order for Grete to step up. Without Gregor's sudden metamorphosis, Grete might have never had to decide to not only get a job, but to try to improve herself and make goals to achieve more for herself. If life had gone on as usual, she might have dwindled into the small role of a stay at home mom, and never would have become a success driven salesgirl. Grete might not have turned into an insect, but her metamorphosis was just as impressive.