The Metamorphosis

In Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis there is an issue regarding the victimization of Gregor Samsa. This problem is thoroughly discussed in several essays, which analyze the novella. A victim, from the way it is defined in the dictionary and applies to the essays’ context, is a living being whom a superior force adversely affects, and also an individual who is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed under any condition. Victimization, on the other hand, is to make someone to be the victim. In these essays, their respective authors state that Gregor is the victim of the novella, in an effort to make their analyses of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. Nina Pelikan Straus, Eric Santner and Walter H. Sokel are some of the writers that study this problem of victimization in the novella. In each of the studies it is stated that his family victimizes Gregor Samsa after his transformation. Another asseveration stated by some of the authors is that Gregor makes himself a victim because of self-sacrifice. Therefore, they all believe that Gregor Samsa is a victim of society’s way of being and standards.
Nina Pelikan Straus, on her analysis, asserts that “Metamorphosis is about invalidation, our self-invalidations, and our invalidations of othersit f

It can be seen from the analyses of these three writers that the victim in The Metamorphosis is Gregor Samsa. He is identified as a victim because he lives a life of suffering, of abjection, invalidations, and alienation. They all agree on this using those different terms to describes Gregor’s situation, even though they take different approaches to it as a result of their diverse studies of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. A reason all three writers give, for classificating someone as a victim, is the subordination to a patriarchal figure. Although Straus also states that Gregor victimizes himself because of his carelessness when he is transformed into a vermin. Initially, Gregor suffers from his obligation to work to support his family and from being segregated after he suffers his transformation. All of this explanation of why Gregor is the victim for the novella is to discuss the way society functions.

Eric Santner also discusses the issue of Gregor being a victim in his analysis on The Metamorphosis. The first line of his analysis says: “ The story of Gregor Samsa is an initiation into a universe of abjection” (p.195). Abjection is the word Santner uses to depict Gregor Samsa as the victim in the story. It means “ the condition or estate of one cast down; abasement, humiliation, degradation; rejection; that which is cast off or away” (p.159). Santner states that the meaning of Gregor’s victimization is related to the segregation from society’s standards. He explains that Greg