Part one of Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis” is a representation of basic Marxist principles, with a significant focus on alienation of the worker. The worker, Gregor Samsa, has been blinded to his disadvantaged condition by the minor troubles and major alienation he experiences as a traveling salesman. It is not until he is transformed into a cockroach that Gregor begins to understand his disadvantaged position in the socioeconomic system in which he lives. Gregor experiences minor troubles in the opening paragraphs of the story that distract from the very real, very major problem that he is, in fact, a bug.
First, he focuses on his preferred sleeping position, that he still cannot get into after trying until he feels “a slight, dull pain in his side” (11). He blames this physical soreness on his profession rather than on his metamorphosis into a bug. Then he panics about missing his train and the consequences of calling in sick to work. He thinks he can make the next train, but then decides that he will not be able to make it, not because he has been transformed into a cockroach, but because he “didn’t feel particularly fresh and lively” (12). As Gregor becomes more aware of his situation, other people are less willing to help him.
He thinks otherwise, “they were now believing that there was something wrong with him and they were ready to help him” (19). Since he is no longer able to perform his function in the capitalist society in which he lives, he is rejected and feared by those around him. The clerk screams, his mother faints, and his father “clenched his fist with a hostile expression, as if intending to push Gregor back into his room” and back into his former condition of being unaware of his situation (20). Despite increasing awareness of his transformation, Gregor does not quite understand his condition as a member of society.
He dies before fully understanding his disadvantaged situation as a proletariat in a capitalist society and as a bug in a human world. It is not a coincidence that Gregor is blinded to the fact that he has been transformed into a bug and instead focuses on minor distractions. The bourgeoisie, his employer, has deliberately set up minor obstacles in order to keep the proletariat, Gregor, from rising up and demanding to not be exploited. Gregor’s employer exploits Gregor’s position as the sole earner in the household as well as his responsibility to pay off his father’s debt to his employer.
In fact, Gregor has no inclination to work as a traveling salesman and intends to leave as soon as he can: “once I have the money together to pay off my parents’ debt to him—that should still take five or six years—I’ll [… ] make the big break” (12). Gregor’s employer has effectively established his role as the dominant party in his working relationship with Gregor, in addition to his other employees. He has a practice of “talking down to his employees from above” (12). This is a very clear dehumanizing tactic to keep worker moral low enough that they will not revolt.
While it is quite concerning that Gregor gives himself very little personal regard, it makes sense in context of the alienation of the worker identified in Marxist thought. In “The Metamorphosis,” Gregor experiences the four categories of alienation that Marx outlines in his philosophy. He is alienated from the product of labor, the process of labor, the self as a producer, and other people. Gregor is a traveling salesman, but what he sells is never specified. He feels so little for his work that his own narrative does not say what he sells for a living beyond that it includes “fabric swatches” (11).
Gregor does not have an affinity or affection for what he sells, so, naturally, he is alienated from the product of labor. Gregor experiences both alienation from the process of labor and alienation from other people from the same source. As a traveling salesman, he is constantly traveling. He is rarely home and has to rely on his sister’s letters to know what is going on within the family. Grete “always told and wrote him about” the family habit of reading out loud to each other, he was unable to experience it firsthand (25).
Since he is frequently traveling, Gregor is unable to form attachments to other workers, customers, and locations. His employer’s dominance and dehumanization has been effective enough that while he encounters “other traveling salesmen [who] live like harem women,” they do not interact: “For instance, when during the course of the morning | go back to the hotel to cope out the orders I’ve received, those fine gentlemen are just having their breakfast. I should try that with my boss; l’d be fired on the spot” (12). Gregor’s occupation and the demands of his employer isolate him to a great extent.
Since he is rarely home, he is unable to have an intimate relationship with his family or establish any friendships. Gregor only gets to experience “an intercourse with people that constantly changes, never lasts, never becomes cordial” (12). That is an incredibly isolating existence that alienates him from the process of labor. Since his work has nothing to do with his identity, Gregor experiences alienation from the self as a producer. He also experiences a death of the self, both separations from the self are manifested in the form of a transformation.
In the act of transforming from human to cockroach, his human self has essentially died. Gregor has been literally and figuratively dehumanized by his mutation. His family no longer cares for him and eventually he no longer cares for himself. Gregor’s father even physically harms Gregor by forcing him through a door too small for him, “one of his sides was completely abraded; [… ] on one side his little legs were hanging up in the air and trembling, those on the other side were painfully crushed on the ground—then his father gave him a strong push [… and, bleeding profusely, he sailed far into his room” (24). Later, this alienation from the self as a producer has manifested in physical and psychological illness. Gregor’s devaluation as an employee by the employer directly causes extreme and amaranthine self esteem issues. For example, he is accused of stealing and being negligent and is threatened with his job stability when he will not perform the smallest of tasks (17). Traveling salesmen aren’t “well liked” and are calumniated against due to assumed income, and are not given an opportunity to defend themselves or their profession (21).
They are not understood by the workforce at large and thus are devalued and alienated from other workers. He is discouraged from taking care of himself; his employers’ near-criminalization of taking a sick day off of work makes taking the day off a greater sufferance than working while sick (12-13). He does everything in his power to decrease others’ worry about him, even when they should. Gregor has been so dehumanized and devalued by the bourgeoisie-run workforce that he has permanent psychological damage and is alienated from the self as a producer.
Kafka’s short story, “The Metamorphosis,” is a clear Marxist critique of the socioeconomic world he lives in. Gregor Samsa experiences the alienation from the product of labor, the process of labor, the self as a producer, and from other people that Marx describes. When Gregor is unable to perform his role in the capitalistic economy in which he participates, he is ultimately rejected by society. Gregor has been prevented by minor troubles and a dominating employer from realizing the degree of his disadvantaged position in the workforce, until the end of the story, and his life.