Response to Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis

  Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis is a story written mostly from the point of view of a young man named Gregor, who has returned to his family home for a brief stay in between travels necessitated by his job as a traveling salesman. On the morning of his planned departure, he oversleeps and then finds himself unable to get out of his bed due to his transformation into a large beetle-like creature. He now has a scaled underbelly, spindly legs, and a hard, shell-like back.
   Upon finding him like this, his family is initially horrified, and never really come about over time. His sister, to whom Gregor is the closest, is the least put-off by his new state, and begins to take care of him, cleaning the room and bringing him food. Over time, however, as his state does not improve, she too loses her enthusiasm for his care. Although Gregor still thinks like a human, can understand speech just the same as he could before the change, and seeks to be understood by his family, Gregor's family sees him only as a monstrous creature and rejects the idea that he still has any human understanding. 
  Though Kafka's very slow plot progression and very detailed writing would receive great criticism in any modern creative writing class, and therefore can prove to be a difficult read, the slowness and detail of the plot help to gradually show Gregor's increasing alienation from his family. By writing in a point of view that delves only into Gregor's head and not into any other character, Kafka has led the reader to sympathise most with Gregor. The reader is able to feel the character's growing depression and small sparks of hope.
   In the end, Gregor dies, and the family is able to move on. They are able to move into a smaller apartment, his parents are able to think about marrying off their daughter, and they all work in careers that provide them with reasonable hope for the future. There is no other reconciliation, however. I suppose the theme of the story is that Gregor's prior contribution to the family has been somewhat taken for granted. Initially, he is the only member of the family holding a job, and the family is living in a house that is slightly too large for them with a slightly larger staff than they are able to comfortably afford. They rely on Gregor's payments to pay off their debts, and when he is rendered unable to work, there is a great panic over the family's financial situation. As the family grows accustomed to Gregor's "absence," each member of the family once again begins to work, their staff are steadily dismissed, they attmept to make money from renting to lodgers, and once Gregor truly is absent, they move into a smaller and more affordable living space.
  Though it is Gregor who has changed most apparently in this story, it is the family who has changed most significantly, and though Gregor is the main character, the focus is truly on the other members of the family. The cause of Gregor's absence is the strangest thing about this story though. If Gregor is to become something that the family fears and detests and will not attend to, yet they realise that they have been taking Gregor's contributions for granted, I feel that there should be some attempt from the family to communicate with Gregor or to recover him. Otherwise, how is his transformation different from a death, and how is his eventual death significant?
  If this is to be more a story about the boundaries between being human and capable and being a creature with a grossly inferior capacity for understanding, thought, and communication, then it seems that the story should be from a point of view that leaves Gregor's thoughts a mystery and reveals the thoughts of the family as they attempt to discover whether the creature truly is still Gregor or not. This is puzzling to me, and perhaps further discussion and thought of the story will make the significance of the actual, physical metamorphosis clearer to me.
 *I was uncertain what to include on a vocabulary list, so I have not yet included one. As I read the story, there were no terms that stuck out to me on whose meaning I was unclear. There were no characters or places that I did not understand, as well. I encourage suggestions as to what kinds of things should be on the list other than words whose definitions are unknown to the reader because otherwise I have no idea what to put on my list.