Kafka wants us to sympathize with the protagonist of the story of couple reasons. The first one is the obvious one and it is that somehow Gregor, who is just an ordinary man, managed to turn into a “monstrous vermin”. The other reason is that as time progresses, Gregor’s family turns on him. They start to treat him less and less like their son and brother and more and more like the vermin that he has transformed into. The passage that I think is especially sympathetic is the part where Gregor’s dad threw the apples at him.
“A weakly thrown apple grazed Gregor’s back but skidded off harmlessly. However, another thrown immediately after that one drove into Gregor’s back really hard. Gregor wanted to drag himself off, as if the unexpected and incredible pain would go away if he changed his position. But he felt as if he was nailed in place and lay stretched out completely confused in all his senses. Only with his final glance did he notice how the door of his room was pulled open and how, right in front of his screaming sister, his mother ran out in her underbodice, for his sister had loosened her clothing in order to give her some freedom to breathe in her fainting spell, and so how his mother then ran up to his father—on the way her loosened petticoats slipping toward the floor one after the other—and how, tripping over them, she hurled herself onto his father and, throwing her arms around him, in complete union with him—but at this moment Gregor’s powers of sight gave way—as her hands reached around his father’s neck and she begged him to spare Gregor’s life. “
This passage makes us sympathize for the protagonist because it shows that his dad has completely turned on him. It is saddening to see that his dad to do such a thing. His mother had to fight his father in order to save him. This is a strong point in the story because it’s an eye opener to see the father commit such a serious offense. It shows how his family is beginning to get sick of him and want to be rid of him. That in itself should make the reader sympathetic for Gregor and the situation that he is in.
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5 comments:
You make a good argument for why readers are meant to sympathize with Gregor. This is one of the best passages to demonstrate it. However, I argued the opposite. It seems that this passage actually evokes more feelings of sympathy in the reader for Gregor's distressed mother and sister rather than for him. Also, because his father is going against his mother's and his sister's wills in this passage, his father is made to look like the cruel and irrational one. His mother and sister are showing toleration for him as a bug in this passage, while his father is showing anger at him; the majority of the family sees the father's anger as more unacceptable than Gregor's presence in the house as a bug.
I agree with Keegan as you have a great passage from the story to demonstrate sympathy for either Gregor or the family. The reader should not sympathize with Gregor because they can not relate to him, since they would freak out if they turned into a bug.
I agree that Kafka wants the reader to sympathize with Gregor. The passage you picked out, where the dad is throwing the apples at Gregor, makes me teary. Gregor is helpless and all alone. It is true that his family turns on him. At the beginning the family needed him for financial support, but since turning into a bug, he no longer can help with expenses so the family wants to get rid of him.
Gregor's family turning on him should probably evoke more sympathy from the reader, but I felt more pity for him at the beginning of the story when he was slaving away for his family and he found out that his father had enough money to support the family without working for two years. I thought it was sad that Gregor felt pride for his father's good financial sense to have stashed his money away when he should have been pissed off that he ended up as an indentured servant in order to pay off his father's debt for all those years.
I do agree with you that we should sympathize with Gregor becuase his family turns on him for becoming an insect intead of looking past that fact and still loving him as a son. I think if tehy would have done that Gregor wouldnt have died.
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