Living Attitude In Literature and Real Society

How would you feel when a family member becomes a burden in the family?  Mad, sad, compassionate, hate? In “The Metamorphosis” by Franz Kafka, the protagonist, Gregor, became a burden for the family after he transformed into a vermin. The living attitude that the family held was pretty positive, because every member worked hard to earn income to support their living. However, the way they treated Gregor was changing from positive to negative.

 Although every member had different responses toward Gregor’s transform, as a whole, I feel there was a process on their attitude toward Gregor. At first, the family was surprised and scared. Then, they felt sad and hoped for Gregor to be recovered one day. After a period of time, they were like used to his sickness and lost their hope on him. They worked hard on themselves to earn money. Since Gregor no longer contributed anything to the family and all family members had their own jobs, they were like forgetting Gregor and not caring about him so much. Later on, they even locked him in his room.  At the end, Gregor just died in the room.

I admire that the family‘s living attitude of not giving up their living when their family’s main income supporter is sick. However, I really do not like the way they treated Gregor. They ignored him, threw things at him, scared him and locked him in the room. Their attitude toward Gregor really made me feel pitied for Gregor. I do not think Gregor who had contributed to the family so much in the past deserves this kind of treatment when he is ill. Also, his situation reminds me of a popular debate topic “Euthanasia.” While I was reading this short novel, I keep thinking Gregor as a person that gets a strange disease in real society and got locked up in a room in hospital. If a person in real life gets this kind of disease, I think it would be better for the person to get euthanasia. The person gets no more happiness through his life, because he treated as a family’s burden and no one wants to get closed to him even his family members. 

After reading the short novel “The Metamorphois” by Franz Kafra, I feel Gregor Samsa’s situation is like reflecting a situation in real life as someone who gets a strange disease and the reactions the person would have when being sick. I feel Gregor Samsa’s situation suggests a living attitude of thinking job is very important.  It is really true that in twentieth century, people are living in a circumstance of worrying about losing their job every second. Every adult is living under working pressure. 

On the first day of Gregor became an “insect,” he still thinks how he can keep his job other than how he can recover from his sickness. Also, on that day, Gregor did not get to work on time and a manager came to his house to ask for reasons.  I wonder is this kind of situation really happened in Germany.   Managers come to workers’ houses when they do not go to work on time?  However, it shows human beings are living under time pressure as well. I have heard that competition and stress can help a person to improve. I think that is true, but I also feel today’s human being are often over-stress especially people who live in city. 

Gregor  has “worried about making trains, having bad, irregular meals, meeting new people all the time, but never forming any lasting friendships that mellow into anything intimate” (P,2000). When I read this, I just feel that is so true because I have worried about those things too. I have worrying about being late if a train suddenly runs on local, or if a train comes late. From my home to school, it takes one hour and thirty minutes. To avoid lateness, I would prepare two hours for my traveling. So, if the train runs on local and I still will not be late. But sometimes, when I go out early and suddenly the train runs on express, then I arrive to school one hour earlier.  Sometimes I would have the thought of “I can actually have one more hour sleep, why I come to school so early!!! “ I just feel although everyone is having dissatisfaction and living under pressure today, but we still have to continue our living because we have family around and we have to support them.

After reading this short novel, I did not get a happy mood although at the end the family was like refresh and ready for a new start. Maybe my mind is still on stressful life that Gregor got, like living under stress, lack of family’s care, getting weird disease and unfortunately did not recover and died.