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Relationships In The Metamorphosis

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Many uses of literature develop family relationships within the story. This helps characterize the people in the story and develop the theme. In the novella The Metamorphosis, the author Franz Kafka uses family dynamics to show the relationships within the characters and show how they have changed throughout the piece. The relationship between Gregor and his younger sister, Grete, changes as the story goes on. In the beginning of the story the relationship between Gregor and Grete shows that they care for each other. The day after Gregor has turned into a bug , Grete tries to feed him, keeping in mind what he liked when he was a human. The story states “There was a bowl of sweetened milk in which floated little pieces of bread” (pg. …show more content…

The stress of work starts to take up lots of her time and energy. The novella says “Nowadays his sister no longer tried to guess what might please him; She made a hasty appearance twice a day...and pushed a few scraps of food into the room with her foot” (pg.121). Grete is no longer taking time for his pleasure and hardly cares about him anymore due to the strain work has put on their relationship. This caused Gregor to lose his appetite. “Gregor hardly ate at all” (pg.121). However, Grete does not even notice. Towards the end of the piece, Grete is fed up with Gregor when she insists to her parents they must get rid of him. Grete states “I will not mention my brothers name when I speak of this monster here; I merely want to say: we must find some means of getting rid of it” (pg. 124). At this point, Grete has no more time to spend on Gregor. He 's become a burden in her life. Her sympathy for him is completely gone. He is no long her brother, just a vermin. In conclusion, Gregor and Grete’s relationship drastically changes in The Metamorphosis. They start out with a very close relationship and slowly drift apart, until Grete wants Gregor totally out of her life. The changes Gregor went through are too much for Grete to deal

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