When Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning in Metamorphosis to find he has transformed into a giant insect, there’s no dramatic screaming, no existential breakdown: just a dull, bewildered acceptance. His first thought isn’t what has happened to me? but how will I get to work? This small detail has always struck me. Even in the middle of a surreal nightmare, his mind clings to obligations. The grotesque becomes secondary to the practical.
It’s tempting to read Kafka’s novella as an absurd, even comical, story about something that could never happen. After all, no one wakes up with exoskeletons and twitching antennae. But the deeper you go, the more you realize that Gregor’s transformation isn’t really about the insect body at all; it’s about the way we lose our humanity under the weight of expectation, responsibility, and isolation.
And this is where the story starts to feel uncomfortably close to our own lives.
The Quiet Horror of Becoming Unrecognizable to Yourself
For a lot of young people today, there’s a strange familiarity in Gregor’s fate. We may not be physically unrecognizable, but how many of us have felt a creeping sense that we’ve turned into something foreign, a stranger even to ourselves? We burn out chasing grades, career prospects, and achievements until one day we look in the mirror and feel a faint disconnect.
When Gregor first tries to get out of bed in his insect body, he’s clumsy and panicked, but what’s striking is that he still believes he can adapt. He keeps trying to fit into the life he had before, even though his body no longer works that way. It’s a painful metaphor for the way we often force ourselves into systems and routines that are slowly eroding us.
For today’s youth, that “insect body” might be chronic stress, mental health struggles, or the slow numbness that comes from constant comparison online. We tell ourselves we can push through, that if we just try harder, we’ll find our old selves again. But maybe, like Gregor, we’ve already been transformed by the demands of a world that sees us more as functions than as people.
Family, Obligation, and the Weight of Being Needed
One of the most haunting parts of The Metamorphosis is the way Gregor’s family reacts. At first, they’re concerned, but quickly their worry shifts into frustration and inconvenience. Gregor had been the breadwinner, working a job he hated to pay off his parents’ debts. Without his income, their own survival is at risk. His transformation is not just a personal crisis; it’s an economic one for the household.
This hits a nerve for many young people today, especially in cultures where family obligation runs deep. We are expected to excel, not only for ourselves, but for the stability and pride of our families. That’s not inherently bad, as love and responsibility can coexist beautifully, but when the expectation becomes an unspoken contract, the pressure can feel suffocating.
Gregor’s tragedy is that his worth to his family was tied almost entirely to his ability to produce. Once he couldn’t, he became a burden. In the modern world, we see echoes of this every time someone’s value is measured by their productivity or income instead of their presence, kindness, or creativity. The message is clear: if you can’t “perform” in the system, you risk invisibility.
The Language of Isolation
One of the saddest details in the novella is that Gregor can still think like himself, but no one understands him anymore. His voice comes out distorted, an insect’s chatter. His inner world is intact, but he’s cut off from expressing it in a way others can receive.
This is heartbreakingly familiar to many young people navigating mental health struggles. You might feel like yourself on the inside, or at least like a version of yourself, but when you try to speak, the words don’t land. Your exhaustion, anxiety, or depression becomes a foreign language to the people around you. They can see you’re “different”, but instead of leaning in to understand, they retreat.
Social media has made this paradox even sharper. We have endless tools to “connect”, yet so many of us feel alien in our own circles. We speak, but we’re not heard in the way we need. We post, but we’re not truly seen. Gregor’s locked room becomes our glowing screens, both a refuge and a cage.
The Slow Fade from Center Stage
In the beginning, Gregor’s family tries to care for him. His sister brings him food, cleans his room. But over time, even she grows weary. The visits become less frequent. The food comes carelessly prepared. The door to his room stays closed more often.
This part stings because it mirrors the way society’s attention moves on. At first, your struggles might draw sympathy. But as the weeks and months go by, the people around you adjust. They stop asking how you are. You fade into the background while life goes on without you.
For the youth today, this can happen in both visible and invisible ways. A student who once topped their class but quietly slips in performance. A friend who stops coming to parties because they’re overwhelmed. A creator whose once-celebrated work no longer garners likes. Our culture is fast-moving and consumption-driven so it rarely knows how to sit with someone in a long, slow process of change or recovery.
The Ending We Don’t Want to Think About
Kafka doesn’t give us a happy ending. Gregor wastes away, unloved and unwanted, until he dies. His family feels relief, even a sense of renewal, now that they can move forward unburdened. It’s cruel, but it’s also a warning.
If we reduce people to their usefulness, this is where it leads. If we fail to nurture relationships beyond what they can give us, we risk letting those we love slip away in loneliness.
For young people reading this today, the ending of The Metamorphosis isn’t just tragic, it’s a reminder of what’s at stake if we let the culture of constant productivity dictate our worth. We can resist that by choosing to value people for their being, not just their doing. By recognizing that love isn’t a transaction.
Why Gregor Still Matters to Us
You don’t need to be a literature student to feel the sting of Gregor Samsa’s story. In fact, maybe it’s better if you’re not. The point isn’t to decode every metaphor but to sit with the discomfort it leaves behind.
Because here’s the truth: we are all, at some point, Gregor. We are all at risk of becoming something unrecognizable to ourselves because the world demands so much of us. We all know the ache of feeling cut off from understanding, of watching relationships thin out when we’re no longer able to meet expectations.
But we also have something Gregor didn’t: the awareness of his fate as a warning, not a prophecy. We can look at his story and decide to make different choices. To slow down before burnout turns us into strangers to ourselves. To keep learning how to speak our truths, even when the words come out messy. To value each other not for what we produce, but for the fact that we are here at all.
Metamorphosis as a Mirror
When I think about Metamorphosis in the context of youth today, I don’t just see a sad story about a man turned into an insect. I see a mirror. It reflects the quiet, slow transformations happening to us: not in our bodies, but in our identities, our relationships, our inner lives.
We may not be able to stop those changes entirely. Growing up is, in itself, a kind of metamorphosis. But we can choose the kind of creatures we become. We can choose to remain human by retaining curiousness, connections, compassion, even when the world tries to make us something else.
If you’ve ever felt invisible, or like the people around you don’t understand what’s happening inside you, you already know the feeling at the heart of Kafka’s story. The trick is not to let that isolation define you. To remember that transformation is inevitable, but dehumanization is not.
In the end, Metamorphosis isn’t just a cautionary tale; it’s an invitation. To see each other deeply. To notice when someone is retreating into their room. To remember that even when someone seems “changed”, their inner voice is still there, waiting to be heard.
And maybe that’s the real metamorphosis we need today, not one that turns us into something unrecognizable, but one that transforms the way we see and care for each other.
 | A guest post by
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