Thus Kafka diffuses the differences between animals and humans. In so doing, he extends the reader’s natural sympathy for human characters to include vermin, and applies the reader’s natural aversion to vermin to humans instead. In Kafka’s fiction, it is possible for humans and vermin to function as mutual metaphors, and though the dichotomy between vermin and human remains, it becomes increasingly difficult to choose a side.

Gregor Samsa plays host to the conflict between vermin and human in that he does not disown his mind as he does his body. Throughout the novella, he retains his human consciousness, memory, and ability to understand human speech and intentions. Because of his residual human perception, Gregor never sees his armor-plated form as even potentially liberating; instead his in-habitation of an insect’s body is tortured and guilt-ridden. Wilhelm Emrich argues that the impersonal nature of modern life prevents Gregor from recognizing the freedom of his “pre-human” form (commentary in The Metamorphosis, Bantam edition, 1972). Instead Gregor views it as monstrous, alien, and other. During Gregor’s initial reconnaissance of his room, he seeks solace from his former humanity; his gaze falls upon his work samples, his desk, his gilt frame. He all but ignores his new, unsightly form. Gregor hungers obsessively for the explainable; his absolute need to hurry off to work represents a severe form of denial, itself a human tendency: “What if I went back to sleep for a while and forgot all this foolishness” (p. 7). He courts rationality out of an obligation to his former self. But his feigned, humanlike demonstrations are silly: trying to stand upright, speaking to his parents and the head clerk, returning to work.

Upon seeing his unpacked samples, Gregor admits to himself that he does not feel “particularly fresh and energetic” (p. 8), an absurd notion for a man-size insect to ponder. He presumes the change in his voice to be caused by a severe cold, “an ailment common among traveling salesmen” (p. 10). But Kafka does not let Gregor off so easily. By positioning the head clerk at the bedroom door, Kafka keeps the reader from believing in Gregor’s self-delusion. Upon hearing Gregor speak, the head clerk says, “That was the voice of an animal” (p. 15). Gregor’s metamorphosis is real, and his efforts to deny it are frail.

In “Wedding Preparations” by contrast, Raban dreams of frittering away his days in bed. His weightless disposition comes from his ability to indulge in his irrational side. The pre-vermin Gregor would have considered such an activity frivolous. Before his transformation, Gregor never gave in to distractions other than fretsawing. He stayed home each night and busied himself constantly, “reading the paper or studying train schedules” (p. 12). Kafka himself worked at the same job all his life. At his office, he wrote tracts such as “On Mandatory Insurance in the Construction Industry” and “Workers’ Accident Insurance and Management.” In the evenings Kafka remained cloistered in his room, where he worked on his various manuscripts. By contrast, Gregor has no such dedication; he’s learned to suppress his personality, to submit unconditionally to authority. As the head clerk has it, Gregor’s reasonableness derives from not indulging in “rash eccentricities” (p.