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The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka

Part II: Summary

Gregor wakes in the evening. He sees that someone has put a bowl of milk and bread in the room.

Though milk had been his favorite drink, he finds he cannot stand the taste now. Then he listens for his

family, but the apartment is completely quiet. He recalls the pride he felt at taking care of his family and

wonders what will happen to them now. Someone cracks the door open but shuts it immediately, and

Gregor eventually sees the light go off in the other room. He crawls under a small sofa and drops into a

fitful sleep, vowing that he will do everything he can to make his new condition as small a burden on his

family as possible.

In the morning, Grete opens the door but shuts it when she sees Gregor under the sofa. She reopens it

and steps into the room. Noticing that Gregor has not eaten, she brings in various kitchen scraps and

leaves Gregor to eat alone. He enjoys the moldiest food but has no interest in the fresh vegetables.

Grete returns a little while later and sweeps up the scraps while Gregor watches her from beneath the

sofa. A pattern thus begins, with Grete feeding and cleaning up after Gregor and reporting to the

mother and father how much Gregor has eaten.

Gregor spends much of his time listening to the family through the door. He learns that the money he

regularly gave his parents has not all been spent, and he feels proud of his contribution to their

wellbeing. To avoid spending this savings, however, the family members will need to find employment.

Gregor feels embarrassed when he hears them discuss this topic, as the father has become out of shape

and clumsy and the mother has asthma, so neither seems very capable of working. Gregor also reflects

on his relationship with his family, recalling how he and his parents had grown apart but that he and

Grete had remained close, so much so that he had planned to send her to music school to study the

violin.

Gregor slowly adapts to his new life. He begins to enjoy scurrying around his room and climbing on a

chair to look out the window. Though Grete continues to look after Gregor, he notices that she cannot

stand the sight of him, and he hides behind a sheet draped over the sofa when she enters the room. The

parents avoid coming in, though they seem curious about his state. The mother in particular is eager to

see him, but Grete and the father urge her not to.

Grete sees that Gregor enjoys climbing up the walls and across the ceiling, so she decides to remove

the furniture from the room to give him more space. While the father is out, Grete and the mother start

taking out furniture. Gregor hides as usual, but he grows anxious as he hears his mother worry that she

and Grete might be doing him a disservice by stripping the room of his possessions. Grete, however,

considers herself the expert on Gregor and overrules the mothers objections. While Grete and the

mother talk in the living room, Gregor, panicked at the thought of losing all the remnants of his human

life, climbs the wall and covers the picture of the woman in furs to prevent it from being taken away.

The mother spots Gregor on the wall, goes into a panic, and passes out. Grete yells at Gregor as he lets

go of the picture and scurries into the living room. Grete rushes out, grabs medicine, and returns to

Gregors room, shutting the door behind her. The father returns and Grete tells him that Gregor broke

out. He misunderstands Grete and thinks Gregor attacked the mother, so he starts chasing Gregor

around the room. Gregor notices that his father has become a new man since getting a job as a bank

attendanthe stands straighter and looks cleaner and healthier. The father throws fruit at Gregor, and

2 eventually hits him with an apple that becomes lodged in Gregors back. The mother bursts from the

bedroom and Gregor rushes for the door, hearing his mother beg his father to stop.

Part II: Analysis

The question of how much of Gregors humanity remains dominates the second section of the story.

As the members of the Samsa family adapt to the new situation with Gregor, each one appears to

develop a different perception of how much humanity remains in him. At the beginning of the section,

for instance, Grete leaves milk for Gregor, apparently assuming that his preference for milk while he was

human continues now that hes a bug. The assumption suggests that Grete believes, at least initially,

that some part of Gregor remains the same. But as she recognizes that Gregors tastes in food have

changed and that he now likes to crawl about the walls of his room, Grete gradually begins to conceive

of Gregor as an insect. In response, she suggests taking all Gregors possessions out of his room to

eliminate obstacles to his crawling and to make the space more suitable to an insect. The mother, on the

other hand, protests that Gregor will want his things when he returns to his former self, and earlier in

the section she even refers to Gregor as her unfortunate son, implying she still believes Gregor to be

fundamentally the same despite his appearance. The father gives no indication that he regards Gregor

as the same, and attacks him as though he were a wild animal when he escapes his room.

This confusion regarding Gregors humanity extends to Gregor himself, and much of the section

involves Gregor trying to reconcile his human emotions and history with the physical urges of his new

body. Gregors lingering humanity is most evident through his thoughts and emotions. He continues to

feel proud that he was able to help his family financially in the past, he feels shame at being unable to

help them now, and he is determined to spare them any unnecessary suffering on his account. These

details show that he still feels connected to his human past and still considers himself a part of the

family. Physically, however, he feels more and more like an insect: his food preferences have completely

changed, he feels terrified of his room and safe only under the sofa, and he takes great pleasure in

scurrying up the walls and across the ceiling. This tension between Gregors mind and body culminates

when Grete and the mother take the furniture out of his room. Initially, he feels he would prefer the

room to be empty because that would make it more physically comfortable for him. But his ties to his

possessions, which represent to him his past as a human, lead him to cling desperately to the

photograph of the woman in furs.

Of all the characters, Grete has by far the most interaction with Gregor in Part 2, and over the course

of the section their relationship changes dramatically. Though Grete initially wants to care for Gregor

and takes on all the burdens of doing so, she cannot bear the sight of him. Notably, after noticing

Gregors habit of moving the chair to look out the window Grete kindly starts placing the chair by the

window for him, but when she inadvertently sees him standing on it later, she is overcome with horror.

Gradually, Gretes disgust appears to wear down her sympathy for Gregor, and while she continues to

care for him, she does so evidently more from a sense of duty than love. In fact, she appears to regard

caring for Gregor as her roleand thus part of her identityin the family. She guards that role jealously

against the mother, which suggests that Grete performs these duties more for her own sake than for

Gregors. Gregor, meanwhile, begins to regard Gretes presence in his room as an intrusion, and he

prefers to be entirely alone. By the end of the section, Gretes and Gregors affection for one another

has faded completely. Grete appears to consider Gregor a chore and inconvenience, while Gregor feels

as alienated from Grete as he does everyone else, making him even more isolated from others.

3 The reader learns a great deal more in this section about the familys financial situation, providing a

greater understanding of how money shapes the relationships in the Samsa family. Through Gregors

reporting of the familys conversations and his own recollections, we learn that the fathers business

failed five years earlier and that subsequently the whole family fell into a state of despair. When Gregor

first began supporting the family with his income, his parents were extremely grateful, but as they came

to expect Gregors help, their gratitude diminished and Gregor began to feel alienated from them. These

details clarify why the father in particular is so lethargic and unmotivated up to this point. It also

explains why Gregor feels so distant from the mother and especially from the father, who is the only

member of the Samsa family that Gregor never wishes to see. Moreover, because Gregor cannot work,

he acts as an additional burden to the family, possibly contributing to their diminishing sympathy for

him.