Metamorphasis Flashcards
Metamorphosis
When Written:
* Where Written:
* When Published:
* Literary Period:
* Genre:
* Setting:
* Climax:
* Antagonist:
* Point of View:
When Written: 1912
* Where Written: Prague
* When Published: 1915
* Literary Period:World War I
* Genre: Existentialism/Absurdism/Modernism
* Setting: An apartment in an unnamed European city
* Climax: During Grete’s violin concert for the boarders,
Gregor emerges from his room
* Antagonist: Grete, Gregor’s father, and the lodgers can all
be seen as antagonists at different moments, but Gregor’s
greatest enemy is his own changed body and personality.
* Point of View: Third person, limited to Gregor’s point of
view with some exceptions
Summarise who is Grete Samsa?
Gregor’s beloved 17-year-old sister. After the
transformation, Grete takes care of Gregor, cleaning his room
and bringing him food, at first with great kindness and
attention, and then, after some months, quickly and carelessly.
She takes on a job as a salesgirl to help support the family.
Despite all her helpfulness to Gregor and his deep love of her,
after the violin concert fiasco, she is the first to demand that he
go.
Summarise who is Gregor Samsa?
Gregor is a young traveling salesman who
suddenly transforms into a giant cockroach. Before his
transformation, his main concern is providing for his family. He
resents the stresses of traveling for work, and dislikes his
coworkers, but he is devoted to his work and hopes to even
earn enough to pay for his sister Grete’s violin lessons at the
Conservatorium, as well as the living expenses of his feeble,
sedentary mother and father. When Gregor physically
transforms, his personality gradually transforms as well. He
becomes unable to understand his family’s behaviors or
motivations, and fails to communicate or even interact with
them without causing them panic. Gregor becomes much more
focused on bodily concerns such as his crawling, his appetite,
and his aches and pains, even as he attempts to retain a
connection to his humanity, through his memories, his love of
his print of the lady with the muff, and his appreciation for
Grete’s music. Though he comes to resent his family for
neglecting him, Gregor continues to love them and want the
best for them, all the way to his tragic demise.
Summarise who is Gregor’s father?
Father – Gregor’s father is mistrustful and unsympathetic
towards Gregor after the transformation, though his unkindness may stem from a desire to protect his family. The father’s attack with apples causes an injury that bothers Gregor for the rest of his life. During the course of the story, the father undergoes several transformations. First, he returns to work, as an assistant to small clerks at a bank. At first the job seems to make him healthier and more energetic than his
former state as a tired and lazy old man, but as time wears on
and he refuses to take off his dirty uniform, he becomes even
more exhausted and pathetic than before
Summarise who is Gregor’s mother?
Gregor’s mother, like Gregor’s father, is elderly and
sick (she has asthma), but she also returns to work, as an
underwear seamstress, when he transforms. Her attitude
towards Gregor is both horrified and loving: she faints when
she first sees him, and later has an asthma attack after Grete’s
violin concert, but also she wants to help tidy and clean
Gregor’s room, and when his father attacks Gregor with apples,
she pleads for Gregor’s life.
Summarise the lodgers
Several months after Gregor’s transformation,
the family takes on three lodgers, to whom they provide room
and board. Gregor resents the lodgers for the attention they
receive from the family, and for their lack of appreciation of
Grete’s violin playing. The lodgers always move as a unit in the
story, though “the middle lodger” is the most decisive. After
Gregor shows himself at Grete’s concert, the middle lodger
declares that he won’t pay for the Samsas’ services, and the
other two lodgers follow suit.
Summarise the char woman
A few months after Gregor’s transformation, his
family hires the Charwoman to replace the servant girl and the
cook. She is large, white-haired, and crude. Of all the
characters, she is the least disgusted and frightened by Gregor,
though she is not particularly nice either. She likes to look in on
him and make fun of him.
Summarise the chief clerk
Gregor’s boss at his sales job. The Chief Clerk
comes to Gregor’s house on the morning of his transformation,
to tell him that he hasn’t been doing a good job, and leaves in
alarm when he sees Gregor’s new state.
Summarise the servant girl
The servant girl doesn’t quit after Gregor’s
transformation, but always keeps the kitchen door locked when
she’s in the house. Eventually the family has to lay her off
because of financial concerns, and they hire the charwoman
instead.
Summarise the cook
The household cook quits a few days after Gregor’s
transformation. As a result, Gregor’s mother and Grete have to
take over the cooking.
Themes in The Metamorphosis
-Family
-Money
-Mind vs body
-Dependance and responsibility
-Transformation
-Absurdity of life
Symbols in The Metamorphosis
-The print of the lady in the muff
-Grete’s violin
-Father’s uniform
-Furniture
-Doors
What is the significance of the lady in the muff and furniture?
Shortly before his metamorphosis, Gregor framed
an advertisement of a lady wearing furs and holding out a
large fur muff on her arm. When he wakes up on the fateful
morning as an insect, this image is one of the first things he
notices. Later, when his mother and sister work to remove his
furniture from his room to give him more space to crawl, an
action that makes him upset and angry because it reminds him
of his lost humanity and his past life, he rushes to protect the
print above any other possession. The lady in the muff represents Gregor’s humanity, but it means more than just
that: it’s an image of beauty, romance and glamour, Gregor’s
sole attempt at making his life more beautiful, and one of the
rare hints at Gregor’s possible interest in eventually finding a
wife and family. Yet it’s also an advertisement, tying back to
Gregor’s job as a traveling salesman, and to the story’s
concerns with appearances and superficiality
What is the significance of father’s unifrom?
After the metamorphosis, Gregor can no longer
support his family financially, which used to be his
main focus in life and a source of pride. Gregor’s father, mother
and sister Grete must return to work, and the father gets a job
as a banker’s assistant, which requires a sharp-looking uniform.
At first, Gregor’s father looks youthful and trim in the uniform,
but then the uniform begins to look decrepit and overused, and
the father never takes it off, demonstrating both his age and
exhaustion, and hinting at the lazy life he used to lead when
Gregor provided for the family. The uniform is a complex
symbol. It demonstrates how Gregor is less essential to his
family than he’d thought, and links to the story’s end, when
Grete, the father and mother go on a pleasant outing, already
moving past the tragedy of Gregor’s death. The uniform also
demonstrates how, with passing time, attitudes change.
Nothing holds steady in this world—neither the family’s
affection for Gregor, nor Gregor’s father’s newfound
productiveness and vitality.
What is the significance of Grete’s violin?
Grete’s violin, like the print of the lady with the
muff, is one of the story’s few objects of beauty.
Gregor’s deepest desire before his transformation was to pay
for Grete to study violin at the Conservatorium. The violin
symbolizes their loving bond and shows Gregor’s altruistic,
sympathetic character. Yet the violin also leads to Gregor’s
biggest mistake, the night before his death. While Grete plays
for the lodgers, Gregor gets so excited and hopeful that he
crawls too close. The others misread his gesture as threatening,
and his intentions completely fail—though he wanted to enjoy
the music and support his sister, he ends up destroying both
the evening and the family’s income from the lodgers. The violin
is closely linked to the themes of family and of intentions vs.
outcomes, and it represents both the best parts of Gregor’s
character, namely his love and support of Grete and his desire
to take part in a beautiful experience, and the sad truth that he
can never communicate such things again. Trapped in a
cockroach body, unable to share the moment of beauty, his life
is not worth living.
