this morning woke up and didn’t feel like myself.
not because i have turned into an insect (thankfully), but because i felt.. invisibly tired somehow. might be mentally drained from the insane trauma that my college gives on daily basis. got me into relate it with first chapter of franz kafka’s The Metamorphosis - one of the most absurd and unsettling openings i’ve seen in literature. gregor samsa wakes up and discovers that he becomes a monstrous insect. no explanation. no drama. just: “oh, i’m a bug now. better not miss my train.”
hey there!
been reading this book by franz kafka [metamorphosis] for a while now and here are my few abstract insights (i don’t know exact word for this. sry :)
chapter-1
waking up as a bug
what hit me is - not the transformation but - it was how gregor reacts. the guy doesn’t even panic. his first instinct? worrying about missing work and making his boss disappointed. wtf dude! i mean your life is completely misfigured and here u are worrying about this stuff? is this even fr?
but after all it’s a work of fiction -
in a world that celebrated productivity above all, we’ve all been gregor at some point ig - sacrificing sleep, mental health, or even our sense of self just to meet deadline. (i’ve been there too. trust me. i’m in engineering major 😖). kafka just visualized it better. or maybe, he just understood it better. he made the invisible burnout visible - in the form of a grotesque insect body.
when you’re no longer “useful”
the people around gregor - family, boss, society - don’t ask why he’s changed. they don’t ask how he feels. they just panic. they are disgusted. they back away. even the clerk who comes into his house does not care about gregor as a human - just as an employee who failed to show up. makes me thinking what if someday i just disappear - what would be the effects of it on those i was being surrounded by. might be for some days, weeks - but then back to normal. but whatever, let’s continue -
and i think that’s the brutal truth kafka uncovers: if you’re not useful, you’re disposable.
it’s the kind of de-humanization that hits even harder when you’ve been in places that treat you like a cog in a machine. college, work, even sometimes family.
trapped in a room, doors locked
gregor tries to speak. he wants to explain. but his voice has become gibberish to them all. the doors that connect to his room become a symbol - of misunderstanding, of isolation, of being shut away because you’re too different now.
ever tried explaining depression, anxiety, burnout - and getting blank stares in return?
that’s gregor samsa. that’s many of us.
and sometimes we unknowingly play the role of the others - family, boss, bystanders.
final thoughts chap-1
i think what kafka wanted to convey is that it isn’t really about turning into a bug. it’s about how easy it is for people to stop seeing you as a person - and how easy it is to stop seeing yourself as one too.
if you ever woke up and felt something strange, unfamiliar, unrecognizable…
then yeah, kafka wrote that chapter for you.
jigar | 17-05-25
hey again,
so just finished reading chapter-2 of franz kafka’s metamorphosis - and man, things aren’t getting any lighter. it's like gregor is sinking deeper into this strange reality, and the world around him is pretending like it’s not even happening.
here are some of my messy reflections (aka “abstract insights” as i call them again 😅)
chapter-2
the slow decay of self
this chapter doesn't start with action - it starts with stillness. gregor is now fully stuck inside his room. he's not even trying to get out anymore. he listens through walls. he hides under the couch. he eats rotten food because it’s the only thing that feels right now.
like dude... you were a traveling salesman. now you’re crawling on walls and slowly accepting your insectness. you can feel him letting go - not just of his body, but his identity. and that hits harder than the transformation.
grete: the sister, the caretaker, the shift
i thought grete might be the emotional anchor. she’s the only one entering his room, bringing food, cleaning, doing the bare minimum to help.
but even that care feels… hollow/shallow. she never talks to him. never looks at him. she helps out of some forced duty, not love. and eventually, you can feel her frustration building up. this part actually made me feel kinda sad - cause when even the one person who seemed to care starts treating you like a burden, you’re really on your own.
reminds me how people are often there for you in the beginning - but if your pain lasts too long, they slowly step back. not out of hate. just... tiredness. you become “too much.”
the furniture breakdown (literally & emotionally)
one of the heaviest moments in the chapter was when grete and the mom try to remove all the furniture from gregor’s room. they say it’s to give him space - but for him, it’s like erasing everything he once was.
he clings to the picture on the wall. his desk. like… it’s all he has left. all those little human objects were his last connections to who he used to be. and now those are being taken too.
i get it. sometimes we hold onto stupid things - a playlist, a photo, some old texts - not because they’re valuable, but because they remind us we were once alive. once human. once understood.
and when those go… it’s over.
the silence gets louder
one thing kafka does really well - he never lets gregor talk. we’re in his head, but no one else hears him. it’s like watching someone scream underwater.
his voice is gone. his thoughts are ignored. he’s there, but not seen. and that’s something i think we all fear - to be present, but not perceived. to be reduced to an “it”, like grete finally calls him.
when your name disappears from people’s mouths, so does your meaning.
final thoughts chap-2
chapter 2 is quieter than chapter 1 - but it’s way more painful.
it’s not about big events. it’s about slow erasure. of relationships. of care. of memory. of self. gregor isn’t just trapped in his room - he’s slowly disappearing from the world. and no one’s stopping it. not even those who once loved him.
if you’ve ever felt like a burden, or like the version of you that people used to love is slowly being deleted - kafka got you.
he wrote this for the invisible ones.
jigar | 18-07-25
will complete this in few days, until then keep reading.