History Literature / TheMetamorphosis

* BigBrotherInstinct: Gregor is determined to save the money to send Grete to the conservatory to encourage her passion for the violon, despite their parents' constant rebukes.

* BigBrotherInstinct: Gregor is determined to save the money to send Grete to the conservatory to refine her violin, despite their parents' constant rebukes.

* IncestSubtext: Gregor gets creepily possessive of Grete and imagines kissing her neck, among other things.

* LifeEmbellished: What with the overbearing father, questionable affections for a sister, and self-deprecating protagonist, the semi-autobiography angle is difficult to completely deny.

* NoSympathy: From his father and manager. Only Greta and Gregor's mother give Gregor any sympathy as a bug, but never in his presence. Gradually, they, too, grow tired of him.

* UngratefulBastard: Gregor's entire family. They live off the fruits of his hard work, do little else to help him, and the very second he turns into a bug, they're quick to discard him.

* YoungestChildWins: Grete, the little sister who works as a salesgirl, moves on to a better life in the end.(or does she?)
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* YoungestChildWins: Grete, the little sister who works as a salesgirl, moves on to a better life in the end.

* AbusiveParents: Though not outwardly abusive to Gregor, it's pretty obvious that Gregor's parents (and his sister to a lesser degree) are just exploiting him and his well-paying job. The way they treat Gregor after his transformation makes it clear to the reader that they probably didn't deserve the love and care that Gregor gave them. [[spoiler: The ending strongly implies that they're going to move on to exploiting Grete now that Gregor is gone, which suggests that they just keep their kids around to leech off them.]]

* LazyBum: Gregor's parents, who putter around the house all day, every day, while he works himself to the bone all day, every day, to pay off their debts and provide for them. Rather than seeing his transformation as an opportunity to pay him back for years of taking care of them, they're annoyed by what a ''burden'' it is to take care of him. [[spoiler:Once he's dead, it's implied they'll quickly move onto bumming off his sister.]]

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:Gregor dies as a giant insect, while his family moves on to a better life without him. And it's implied that the family will go on to start abusing his sister the same way they abused him, basically meaning that [[HereWeGoAgain she's about due for a transformation of her own...]]]]

* YoungestChildWins: Grete, the little sister who works as a salesgirl, moves on to a better life in the end... to a degree. It's heavily implied that her parents will move on to exploiting ''her'' [[spoiler:with Gregor dead and gone.]]

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: The characters have a fairly dull reaction to Gregor's inexplicable transformation into a giant bug, all things considered. It's treated as a burden rather than a horrific and traumatizing sight that forces them to question reality.-- The family's relative lack of reaction has led some people [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation to interpret the story]] as [[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness Gregor only]] ''[[ThroughTheEyesOfMadness thinking]]'' he has become an insect. His family is reacting to his bizarre behavior and insect-like sounds, not his appearance.

* Bookends: The story opens with Gregor's transformation and ends with imagery lending Grete a transformation of her own.

* BookEnds: The story opens with Gregor's transformation and ends with imagery lending Grete a transformation of her own.

* TheSoundOfMartialMusic: The story takes place in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

* DownerEnding: Gregor dies, Greta will not become a musician, and their parents don't really care.

* JustWokeUpThatWay

* NoSympathy: Gradually, but inevitable. Only Greta and Gregor's mother give Gregor any sympathy as a bug, but never in his presence. Gradually, they, too, grow tired of him.

* WasOnceAMan

* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman

->''"One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug."''

* LostInTranslation: Kafka's original German manuscript used a peculiar grammar structure for dramatic effect, which could not be translated into English. The German word was not technically "insect", either but a colloquial term analogous to a child using the English word "bug".

* [[spoiler:DrivenToSuicide: Gregor dies so that his family can move on.]]

* AuthorAvatar: Literary critics note that "Samsa" and "Kafka" share strong phonetic similarities, with identical vowel sounds and identical placement of consonant sounds, and Kafka wrote the story out of his fears that his insomnia was a massive burden to his family.

* NoSympathy: Gradually, but inevitable. Only Greta and Gregor's mother give Gregor any sympathy as a bug, but never in his presence. Gradually, they too grow tired of him.

* ShootTheShaggyDog: [[spoiler:Gregor dies as a giant insect, while his family moves on to a better life without him.]]

* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: The characters have a fairly dull reaction to Gregor's inexplicable transformation into a giant bug, all things considered. It's treated as a burden rather than a horrific and traumatizing sight that forces them to question reality.-- The family's relative lack of reaction has led some people to interpret the story as Gregor only ''thinking'' he has become an insect. His family is reacting to his bizarre behavior and insect-like sounds, not his appearance.

* FailedASpotCheck: Creator/VladimirNabokov, an amateur entomologist, studied the descriptions of Gregor and concluded that he's not a cockroach but a beetle - and as such, had wings and could have flown away at any time.

* MeaningfulName

* FailedASpotCheck: Creator/VladimirNabokov, an amateur entomologist, studied the descriptions of Gregor and concluded that he's not a cockroach but a beetle - and as such, had wings. He could have flown away at any time if he'd known.

* AbusiveParents: Though not outwardly abusive to Gregor, it's pretty obvious that Gregor's parents (and his sister to a lesser degree) are just exploiting him and his well-paying job. The way they treat Gregor after his transformation makes it clear to the reader that they probably didn't deserve the love and care that Gregor gave them. [[spoiler: The ending strongly implies that their going to move on to exploiting Grete now that Gregor is gone, which suggests that they just keep their kids around to leech off them.]]

* NoSympathy: ''Not one person'', in the entire story, shows Gregor any comfort or sympathy over his situation.