Lessons of Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis could be seen as allegorical. There are many ideas that the book could be a metaphor for. One metaphor that I thought was important was not taking anything in life for granted. At the start of the story Gregor is so involved in his work that he doesn’t enjoy having other activities in his life. When he can’t work anymore, Gregor doesn’t have much of anything to do and hides under the couch most of the day. His family also kind of took having Gregor for granted. They grew accustomed to having his money available. When this wasn’t available anymore, they had to all go out and get jobs. They could no longer just sit at home and do whatever they wanted, such as reading the paper. Gregor also became useless to them, so they lost interest in interacting with him.
There are also many other texts that could be connected to this story. I saw a connection between this story and the book the Hatchet. In the Hatchet, Brian is left all alone on an island after a plane crash. He doesn’t have many supplies, anything to do, or people to talk to. This kind of reminded me of Metamorphosis because Gregor is left all by himself in his room. He tries to reach out to other members of his family but they don’t want anything to do with him. One difference between the two stories is that Brian is eventually found in the end while Gregor ends up dying.

Start of Metamorphosis

After reading the first chapter of the story I was kind of skeptical. It is highly unlikely that anyone would wake up one morning, find they had changed into a bug, and have almost no reaction. Gregor's biggest worry that morning was that he would be late for work. I don't think a manager would personally come to your house if you were an hour late for work. It is also odd that he is still living at home and supporting the whole family by himself.

One word that seemed to resonate to me was "torture." From the very beginning, Gregor woke up changed from a human into a bug. It took him a long time just to try to get out of bed. He was like a baby who has to learn how to do everything from the start. Gregor had to learn how to walk and talk again. Even though he could understand himself when he talked, his family was unable to understand him. Being unable to communicate with others would seem like torture to me. Also, Gregor exerts a tremendous amount of effort in trying to turn the key with his mouth to open the door, and then his father wrestles him right back into the room. This again would seem like torture to me.

This I Believe...

In class we talked about what we believe in. I believe that it is important for us to live in the present. We should concentrate on the present and not constantly look to the future or dwell on the past. There will always be more chances in the future or times you could have done better in the past. We should take opportunities as they come; you will never know if an opportunity will ever come again.

An example of this would be a football team. If they lose a game during the season, they must put that game behind them and try to win their next game. The only thing that matters when you are playing a game is that game, not the weeks before or after. In playoff games you especially have to focus on that game only, or you will not get to play any more games. We also have to account for injuries. They are totally unpredictable and can happen at any time, so you have to play every play like it could be your last.

These concepts should be applied to real life. Time tends to fly past and we must learn to enjoy what we are doing; we must seize the moment.