Compare the role of the lodgers in the family with Gregor's role. Have the lodgers supplanted him? Why does Gregor's father send him away in the morning. The lodgers were demanding to be clean and organized while Gregor is not he is messy and dirty. The lodgers replace Gregor because they were bringing in income for the family.
The father sends them away because their purpose was no longer needed. How does Gregor's condition deteriorate by the end of the story? How does Gregor's family behave at the end of the story? Several months after Gregor's transformation, the family takes on three lodgers, to whom they provide room and board.
Gregor resents the lodgers for the attention they receive from the family, and for their lack of appreciation of Grete 's violin playing. The lodgers always move as a unit in the story, though "the middle lodger" is the most decisive. After Gregor shows himself at Grete's concert, the middle lodger declares that he won't pay for the Samsas' services, and the other two lodgers follow suit.
For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:. Section 3 Quotes. Related Themes: Mind vs. Page Number and Citation : Cite this Quote. Explanation and Analysis:. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance. Section 3. The family takes on three lodgers to supplement their income.
To make things comfortable for the lodgers , the family dumps clutter The boarders eat in the dining room while the family eats in the kitchen, and Gregor notices the boarders being very picky about the food that his mother and sister have cooked. Hearing Grete playing the violin, the boarders invite the family into the parlor. The boarders initially stand very close to Grete as she plays, but they soon lose interest.
Gregor is entranced by the violin and slowly creeps out into the parlor. He longs to take his sister back to his room and tell her about his plan to send her to music school. One of the boarders spots Gregor and cries out. The father rushes the boarders out of the parlor as they declare they will move out and not pay rent. Grete tells her parents that they have to stop believing that the bug is Gregor and says they must find a way to get rid of it.
It is clear that the music has touched Gregor in a completely new way. While he was the human salesman Gregor Samsa , he had never experienced Grete's playing in this profound way. Gregor has reclaimed his humanity only by becoming an insect. His metamorphosis, which removes him from the alienation of modern society by making his alienation literal, seems to also have finally led him to his humanity.
The message seems to be that one can only become truly human through an impossible act of rebellion against socially acceptable human behavior. The element of time reappears when Gregor recalls his plan to tell Grete that he had wanted to announce at Christmas that he would send her to the Conservatory.
Gregor is no longer aware of the speed with which time passes, a direct contrast with his obsession with time in the first chapter. While there, he had been absorbed by the passing of every minute. Now he didn't even know the season. Gregor's family, as usual, does not stop to consider the meaning of his emergence from his room, never imagining that Gregor has been truly touched by the music. Grete, for whom he had such tender feelings, overreacts far more than any of the others.
This is the first time in the novel that she refers to Gregor as "it," refusing now to accept that idea that he is her brother.
Grete insists that the "creature" certainly can't understand them, though they've never tried to find out. And she argues that if it were really Gregor, it would have left of his own accord out of consideration for the rest of them.
She overlooks, of course, the fact that Gregor has had no way of leaving. She is certain that Gregor is persecuting them and wants to drive them out of the apartment so he can have it to himself, when in fact it is they who have kept him shut up in his room with furniture, garbage, and dirt.
Grete's impassioned speech is the climax of the novel. The conflict, at this point, comes to a close. The family at least realizes that Gregor, who has become the symbol of their alienation, is the problem and has to be gotten rid of. A reversal has taken place. Gregor, in undergoing is metamorphosis, cast aside his duty to his family in order to find his freedom.
Now the family wants to cast aside their duty to him in order to find their own freedom. Struck by the music of the violin and the recollection of his humanity that it brings on, Gregor suddenly remembers his duty once more. At the moment when his family has abandoned their duty to him, he realizes that he must once again sacrifice himself for their happiness.
Gregor once again feels love and tenderness for his family. As a result, Gregor regains the element that has been missing from his freedom.
His duty flares up, reminding him that his family's happiness is more important to him than his freedom or even his life. Gregor dies by his own choice, realizing that his death is essential to his family's happiness. His concern with their happiness and his willingness to sacrifice himself is what makes him human despite his current physical form.
Ironically, Gregor's death is the result of his discovery of his identity. At the moment when love, freedom, and art are combined within him, he recognizes the need to finally leave his family to pursue their future.
Gregor has here found his human identity, which he has been unable to find previously. The problem was that Gregor had no identity to start with. He was driven only by his sense of duty and then guilt, but since his guilt had no real cause, he also could not cling to it for his identity. Gregor manages to find his humanity only be rebelling against everything he was in the past. Gregor dies at the precise moment when the sun comes up. He sees the first light of dawn and dies, echoing the beginning of the second chapter.
There, Gregor entered a new phase of his existence when he awoke in twilight. A new phase had already started, of course, when he woke up to find himself transformed. In the second chapter, however, he had already made contact with his family, and was aware that their reaction was one of revulsion and that they had left him isolated. When Gregor awakens with the knowledge that his life has been completely changed, he finds himself in twilight; the moment when darkness is descending coincides with the moment when Gregor finds himself completely isolated.
The moment of his death, on the other hand, coincides with the rising of the sun, the moment when darkness is driven back by light. That light is Gregor's love for his family and his discovery of his humanity. Having seen the first rays of this light through his window, Gregor dies without regrets. The family is extremely thankful for Gregor's death.
Yet they also mourn his passing. At their discovery of his death, the family discovers also the conflict in their feelings concerning the insect. They felt that he needed to disappear for the good of their family, yet at the same time they loved him as their son.
The need for his death, based in economic motives, conflicts with their love, an essentially human feeling. This humanity emerges at last when the family sits together and emerges at last looking as if they had been crying. When Mr. Samsa insists that the lodgers leave, they quickly give up and depart.
Once two of the lodgers saw that the third had already left, they "went scuttling after him as if afraid that Mr. Samsa might get into the hall before them and cut them off from their leader. All humiliated human beings are seen as insects. The family is now free of the specter of Gregor.
His presence was a perpetual reminder of alienation. Without him, they are free to once again to continue living, believing that life is good and the future is bright. The family suddenly feels whole again.
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