"The Metamorphosis"

Kafka's "The Metamorphosis," is a story about a traveling salesman named Gregor Mendel that provides for his family and enables them to have the lifestyle that they live. One day Gregor wakes up and finds himself to have morphed into a disgusting beetle. Although he is alarmed, he is more concerned with getting out of bed and getting to work rather than focused on how his body has changed. His parents come up to his bedroom door to check on him consistently and try to get him out of the room so he can go to work. However, each time fails, as Gregor remained in his room because he knew if he showed himself things would never be the same and he would appall his family. Eventually, his office manager shows up to the house and is outraged that Gregor is not at work. Gregor begs and pleads with his manager to just give him a chance to get himself together and to spare his family the sake of him not losing his job. However, the manager is not having one bit of what Gregor has to say and as everyone starts to get really concerned, Gregor realizes he has no choice but to show himself. Once he does, his fears come true and everyone is completely disgusted at the sight of him. His family decides to lock him in his room so that no one else will have to bear the sight of him. Over the course of time Gregor is left with nothing but his thoughts since no one can understand him when he talks or even wants to talk to him. His health deteriorates day in and day out. Gregor's family is forced to have to learn to provide for themselves as his father, mother and sister all start to work. One day after having visitors rent out their place and they spot Gregor creeping out of the room, his sister Grete, decides that the family must get rid of "it" as she refers to Gregor believing that the beetle was never Gregor like they thought it was. Eventually Gregor dies as he became very ill and the family moves on with their life, with the parents focusing on their daughter becoming the next provider for the family and finding her someone to marry.

According to Dictionary.com - a metamorphosis is, "a profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism--a complete change of form, structure, or substance--a form resulting from any such change."  Before Gregor's transformation he lead the life of a hard working man, just trying to provide for his family and make something out of himself. He had a lot of confidence in himself and his family loved and adored him. After his metamorphosis he was reduced to nothing, physically and emotionally. He lost his job which he really cared about and more importantly he lost the love and respect of his family. Due to this he became depressed and felt like the best thing he could do for them was to die. I believe Gregor's metamorphosis was metaphorical. I don't think he literally turned into a beetle because I was not convinced when reading the story that he became a bug, but I do believe something happened to him. I think maybe he became really ill, to the point where is didn't look recognizable and was not able to go to work. Over time his illness began to make his health deteriorate and he became worse until he shriveled up and passed away.

Kafka makes several references to hunger and food in this story, some of them are:
pg. 2010- the first time his sister brings him food (bread and milk)
pg. 2011- his sister brings him rotten food, which he seems to enjoy
pg. 2023- Gregor was deteriorating, now eating next to nothing.

I think these references about hunger and food are a metaphorical reference to Gregor wanting to be able to work and provide for his family in order to gain their love and acceptance again. In other words he's hungry for his to passions - his job and his family.