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 others it focuses on how Gregor invalidates his family, how his family invalidates and destroys Gregor" (p.127). She uses the word "invalidation" to express and explain that Gregor is the victim in the novella. Here Straus states that the whole novella is about victimization and that Gregor is the victim. She proposes this by giving examples of victimization. Gregor is victim because of his father patriarchal authority. He is forced to work to support his family after a debt was incurred. He was basically sold by his father to the person he owes money to. Also, his victimization is explained with the treatment from the family to Gregor as a horrible creature because they believe that the insect is not him.
