Kafka's ˜The Metamorphosis' is, as the name suggests to a large extent, a story about transformation. This theme unfolds the moment Gregor Samsa awakes from "anxious dreams " (Kafka, 386). The protagonist finds himself "transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect, " a change so extreme that it borders upon the bizarre (386). Change manifests in all of the main characters however: Gregor's sister transforms from a child to a young woman; his parents are forced to evolve their roles in order to survive. .
In my opinion, it is not changing that describes Metamorphosis, but a lack of change: inaction. There was no Metamorphosis in the story since Gregor was a bug lone before he transformed. Although his physical body had changed, Gregor's mind fails to evolve over the course of the story. When he awakes and realizes he's turned into a bug, his first reaction is to get to work and that he can still catch the next train. Gregor approaches life after the metamorphosis in the same manner as life before it. Prior to the metamorphosis, Gregor worked as a traveling salesman, but despite despising the job, he felt indebted to work there, bound by his desire to provide for the family. Likewise, after the transformation, this feeling of being enslaved continues. Gregor suffers from seclusion in his room, and seems to be imprisoned within the flat. Fascinatingly, Gregor's overall lack of freedom, before and after the metamorphosis, is entirely the same. He acted the same way before the metamorphosis as "he just sits there quietly at the table reading a newspaper or looking through railway timetables " (391). Gregor has the capability to escape his career, if only he abandons his family duties. He also has the ability to try and escape the flat, and thus find liberty. However, neither of those possibilities even occurs to Gregor, and he continues to suffer. .
The continuation of suffering, the thought that this mental indifference towards an evolving environment, poses an interesting idea: Gregor's metamorphosis was simply an illusion.
