Family Life- A Bug's Home or Women Equality.
Throughout history, the family has gone through numerous changes. There were the paterfamilias times where the father's rule was law, the Chinese ideas of wisdom with age, the 1900s when the dad worked, the wife cooked, and the two and a half kids studied, took out the trash and walked the two and three quarters dogs, and the present where most families depend on a double income from the mother and father. In literature, the lives of families change in accordance to history. This is clear simply upon reading and understanding the text that the author provides. Kafka's short story Metamorphosis as well as Joan Konner's article "Women in the Marketplace" illustrates this point, but in different ways. Kafka touches more upon the single income father, whereas Joan focuses more on women playing a larger role in the workplace while maintaining their stature as the caretaker of the household.
Kafka's Metamorphosis, written in 1912, is a real story told in an outlandish fashion. The story begins as Gregor wakes in his bed and realizes he has transformed into an enormous bug. This would create utter havoc for most people, but Gregor simply takes it in. He says to himself, "Getting up early like this makes you totally idiotic. People must have their sleep"(K 12). Not to long after, Gregor becomes traumatized. It appears he has missed his train to work and will soon miss the second. After all, Gregor must work to provide for his family. The fact that he is a gigantic insect does not hamper that ideal. .
As the story progresses, Gregor is able to show himself to his family who flee in terror at the site of him. Of course, they are running from monstrous insect, but symbolically, they could be running from the thought that their sole source of the family's income is now gone. Whether or not Kafka intended this is unknown, but it remains a worthy issue. Seeing as how Gregor can no longer provide for the family, the family sees no reason to associate with him.
