Thursday, October 15, 2015

Bad Parenting

Are Mr. and Mrs. Samsa good parents? While having a child mysteriously turn into a bug overnight is a tricky situation for any parent, I feel as if the Samsa’s could have handled Gregor’s situation better. They don’t give him the food he needs, totally isolate him from his humanity and pelt apples at him. Until he dies.


This is Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow was a psychologist in the 1940’s. According to all the needs humans need, Gregor is missing a lot. Gregor has bad health, no job, no property, no caring family or social stability, no friends, no sense of connection… the list goes on. As a bug, Gregor meets six to eight (depending on how you qualify his experiences) out of twenty-five needs on the table. When I looked at this chart and compared it with Gregor, I realized how miserable his buggy life was.

Upon reading the end of The Metamorphosis, it seemed as if the Samsa family moved on from Gregor’s death so quickly. They seemed almost relieved Gregor was not a nuisance in their life anymore and immediately started thinking of a marriage for Grete. It makes me wonder what sort of a relationship they had with Gregor before he died. I do not think their familial bonds were very strong. I feel as if they only really cared about Gregor when he could work and provide for them. I would enjoy reading a prequel or a sequel to The Metamorphosis to learn about what life was like before Gregor became a bug and what the Samsa’s did after his death.

10 comments:

  1. I agree that the Samsas are bad parents. It seems that they were a rather dysfunctional family before the transformation. However, they almost seem closer once Gregor is a bug. I guess they had to grow together to cope with Gregor's new state.

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  2. I definitely agree that the Samsas weren't the best parents, but I also agree that Gregor wasn't really a great son either. I mean, Gregor did care about his family, but he never told them. He just worked and worked, shielding himself from any human connections. So, although the Samsas weren't great parents, they also were seemingly not getting any loving hints from Gregor either.

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  3. What struck me as odd and likely symptomatic of Gregor's parents' indifference towards him was their utter failure to even attempt to communicate after his transformation. I guess we don't get much indication that they communicate with him (other than giving orders) before his transformation, but you'd still think that one of the first reactions to his transformation-- especially if they were unsure if the bug was really Gregor-- would have been to try to talk to him. At some point the good old tap 'once for yes, twice for no' trick would have dawned on a normal family struggling to reach the human side of their half-lost son.

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  4. I agree with Nathalie -- so many of these needs could be achieved through simple human contact, and Gregor's parents provide the most detached presence in a family possible, outside of not living there. I also am interested in the possible outcomes if your last sentence. I too wondered what Gregor's life was like before becoming an insect. But there is no way his parents were much more empathetic, communicative, or empathetic, than they are in the book, just based on the fact of their lack of attempts to communicate with Gregor.

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  5. This is exactly what made the story horrific to me - not so much the fact that Gregor turned into an insect, or even that his family was repulsed by him, but that once they got over their initial shock they didn't seem to care about Gregor at all. Even while he was an insect, he could still communicate at first - surely they had to realize that Gregor was still in there, at least a little bit? If they were good parents, they would get over their repulsion and try to reach out to their son, or at least treat him with more respect. People talk to coma patients in hopes that they're being heard, people reach out to people with Alzheimer's even though they won't be recognized. Gregor's family can't get over their initial disgust and simply try to ignore Gregor's existence because it's easier for them.

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  6. While we bash on Gregor's family for their apparent lack of interest in his life after his transformation, we should keep in mind how incredibly weird this entire situation is. We have seen the whole novel through Gregor's perspective, more or less, which has given us insight into what it is like to wake up one morning and be a giant bug. However, we never really get to see first hand what his family has to go through to accept this change. Perhaps trying to forget that the "bug" form of Gregor exists is their way of coping with the loss of their son.

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  7. I agree with you that the Samsas are terrible parents. They are lazy and make Gregor work for them, as well as physically and verbally abuse him. It is implied that even before Gregor becomes a cockroach his father abuses him. Gregor is frightened as soon as he comes out of his room and doesn't think that his father's physical abuse is out of the ordinary. We only see the parent child relationship while Gregor is a bug, and I wonder how it would be different when he was human.

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  8. The Samsas are pretty bad parents, don't get me wrong. But then again, they are thrust into a rather odd and difficult situation. Dealing with your son, who's now a giant cockroach, is most definitely a lofty task. And while you can't be a perfect parent (let alone for a giant cockroach of a son), there's a lot they could of done better. For one, actually caring for Gregor would be a start. They seem to reluctantly interact with them, only as needed, rather than trying to keep him as part of the family, at least in closed sessions at home.

    With regards to the hierarchy of needs, I think what impacts Gregor most is the lack of items in the "Esteem" category. Having been turned into a bug, Gregor now seems to lack self-esteem, confidence, and achievement. After all, it's hard to be confident in yourself or achieve something if you're a bug, because well, you're a bug. And I think that Gregor's lack of esteem, along with a lack of familial support, led him to lose faith in himself and his situation, eventually resigning himself to death when Grete tells him that he's a pain and burden and needs to leave.

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  9. Just like everyone else has said, the Samsas are terrible parents. Even then, I don't believe they maliciously mistreated him. I see the way they treat him as just being neglectful to the point of harm. I feel so bad for Gregor because he is in this awful situation, and it's only made worse by his parents who don't treat him well and don't do anything to solve the problem plaguing him.

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  10. And even the fact that we focus so much on the parents is a reminder of what a striking case of arrested development Gregor presents. It's easy to forget he's an adult, a grown man who served in the military and has held down a job for 5 years. It *feels* like the story of an adolescent, with Gregor living at home, his parents (and sister) knocking on his door the moment he's late to work. He isn't independent at all, and this is true psychologically as well.

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