Setting & Irony

The first chat room I entered was the “Setting” room, where we were directed to discuss the importance of setting in the novel.  As I’m sure I won’t be the only one to mention, William shared a really unique perspective on Gregor’s experience waking up in his bedroom as a bug.  He stated that he thought this was a metaphor and was actually meant to represent Gregor “waking up”, as in coming to his senses, and being conscious of the world.  Former human things, such as alarm clocks and his favorite meals, no longer affected or appealed to him.  His room was dirty, dusty, dark, small and dingy, and as his sister and mother removed the furniture piece by piece it became more like an empty cube—essentially a cage--with no real evidence of ever having a human inhabitant except for a couch and Gregor’s framed magazine ad of a woman wearing fur.  We also noted that it was strange that out of all the items Gregor was able to save from being removed, he chose the picture; even stranger yet was the fact that the picture was of a complete stranger.  I thought this was a really great reflection and something I would have never considered had we not had this discussion.

In the second chat room of the evening, the “Irony” room, we discussed various ironic aspects of the novel.  We noted that it wasn’t until Gregor turned into a bug that the family miraculously had the strength to work, where before his father had been unemployed for 5 years and neither his mother nor sister had a job.  We felt as though the family was ungrateful for all that Gregor had done to keep the family’s home and provide for them, and instead of working themselves they chose to just let him bear the burden.  Several of us also noticed a bit of strangeness concerning Gregor’s relationship with his sister, Grete.  (The fact that the name was that of Kafka’s former flame didn’t help.) This was sort of ironic in that it was similar to Victor Frankenstein’s relationship with his adopted sister, Elizabeth.  It was obviously ironic that his family actually seemed happy once Gregor finally died (as if they had even tried to help him stay alive…)  We mentioned how it was ironic that what began as Gregor’s sanctuary (a young man’s bedroom) turned into a prison, but ultimately was his haven yet again as he was able to crawl freely from floor to ceiling without the judgment of others.  Lastly, we pointed out the irony in the fact that Mr. and Mrs. Samsa treated the 3 strangers that were renting rooms almost as though they were kings, yet treated Gregor so poorly… Especially considering the fact that he essentially paid for the place with his hard-earned money!

The big question I’m left with, that is most likely unanswerable and rather left to interpretation, is:  How did Gregor turn into a bug?