Gregor is kept confined inside the room. Once he made it to the kitchen only to be seriously injured by an apple that his father threw at him. On another occasion Gregor is spotted by some lodgers. His sight alarms them and they decided to move out without paying rent on the plea that the apartment was in a disgusting condition. This seems like they are picking on him for just not paying the rent.
Meanwhile, Grete got tired of caring for Gregor and the family expresses their hope that he would go away of his own accord. This makes him die. The family is relieved to see him dead. They immediately make new plans for the future. Living parsimoniously had made them save money. So they decided to move to a new smaller apartment. Their fortunes changed and Grete's marriage prospects became bright. Lapsing into silence and communicating almost unconsciously with their eyes, they reflected that it was the time to find a decent husband for her. "And it was like a confirmation of their new dreams and good intentions that at the end of their ride the daughter was the first to get up, stretching her young body" (Kafka 96). .
The main conflict in the story is not about Gregor accepting his fate as regards stepping into his father into his father's shoes as breadwinner and his dislike for his job as these he accepts stoically. The focus is on the results of change and for Gregor it means tuning in human emotions with the body of a vermin. Increasingly the insect-Gregor is more comfortable in a room without furniture, the human-Gregor resents this removal of past mementos. "Was he really eager to let the warm room, comfortably furnished with pieces he had inherited, be turned into a cavern in which he would, of course, then be able to crawl about in all directions without disturbance, but at the same time with a quick and complete forgetting of his human past as well?" (Kafka 54). It is this human side that leads to his despair and longing to die when he realized he would never be able to care for his family again.