It is typical Kafka for a man, who has most recently discovered he occupies the form of a monstrous vermin, to feel saddened by the weather. But this melancholic whim extends beyond Kafka’s humor and points to Gregor’s chronic dread of mornings. It’s a prelude to his vitriolic damnation of working life:

“Oh God,” he thought, “what a grueling profession I picked! Traveling day in, day out. It is much more aggravating work than the actual business done at the home office, and then with the strain of constant travel as well: the worry over train connections, the bad and irregular meals, the steady stream of faces who never become anything closer than acquaintances. The Devil take it all!” (pp. 7-8).

Gregor does not mince words: grueling, aggravating, strain, worry, bad—all followed by an imprecation. Deeper still, the diatribe is prompted by a “faint, dull ache” (p. 7) in his side. How telling that Gregor, who has so recently lost his familiar, human form, should notice an ache and immediately think of his job. Whether this pain merely reminds him of the rigors of labor or is a soreness actually caused by it, Gregor innately associates work with pain.

The ritualized actions listed in Gregor’s exclamatory account of his job give the impression of a thoroughly regimented life-style. Because we never know Gregor in his human form, we have to piece him together after the fact. It seems Gregor’s human self was like most of us at some point or another—weak, afraid, submissive to corporate and familial pressures. He lacks the space for creativity, and even irrationality. Immediately upon his awakening, Gregor’s gaze falls upon the illustration of a woman that hangs in a frame he carved with his fretsaw. The pride and enthusiasm he has for his gilt frame is evident, and it resurfaces when he protects it from his sister and mother (p. 33) in their unwitting attempt to strip away the only proof that Gregor was once human. The picture represents Gregor’s single creation—or in Marxist terms, the one product he is allowed to keep. For Gregor, work precludes the possibility of creation; in the life of a traveling salesman, the gilt frame is the exception rather than the rule.

But why go to the trouble of changing into a monstrous vermin? Why didn’t Gregor just quit his job? For Gregor this was impossible: “If I were not holding back because of my parents, I would have quit long ago” (p. 8). A loyal and loving son, Gregor feels obligated to pay off his parents’ debt. Simply quitting would betray that loyalty. After his transformation, Gregor overhears his family discuss their bleak financial situation and feels “flushed with shame and grief” (p. 27). He despairs of the prospect of any one of his family members, especially his sister Grete, working to make ends meet. Gregor blames himself for spoiling the quiet life he had previously provided for them. He knows firsthand the impersonality, the lifelessness of modern labor, and he shudders at the thought of his family experiencing it.

The family members do indeed get jobs, and as they do so, they complete the reversal of Gregor’s metamorphosis. The transformation of Gregor into vermin, and his resulting abdication of the breadwinner role, forces the Samsa family to transform from vermin. The family members, who have lived parasitically off Gregor, change into tired, silent, and empty people who more and more resemble the pre-insect Gregor. They must work even when they are at home to accommodate their three boarders, and thus they degrade into obsequious servants. Eventually the sister is resolute in her decision that Gregor must be gotten rid of: “We all work too hard to come home to this interminable torture” (p.