Aside from all of the physical changes that Gregor encountered, his personality also took some major turns. Before this unfortunate transformation occurred, Gregor did not have the best relations with his family. Even though he was pretty much generating all of their income, he didn’t have much of a closeness with them, except for his sister. ‘With his sister alone he remained intimate’; (796). Gregor did in fact care for his sister so much that he wanted to sent her to study at the Conservatorium, even though it would cost him greatly.
But despite these good intentions, Gregor’s mother and father frowned upon such ideas. Gregor also was not aware of his family’s true financial status, which is iron since he was the one providing for them. His parents seemed to be keeping something from him. Gregor’s separation from his family also had to do with his work. Since he had to travel a lot of the time, he just wasn’t around that often to spend time with his parents and sister.
Even after Gregor’s metamorphosis, many of his attributes remained similar. He still cared most about his work; that was pretty much all he thought about even when he first turned into a bug. ‘The next train went at seven o’clock; to catch that he would need to hurry like mad and his samples weren’t even packed up, and he himself wasn’t feeling particularly fresh and active’;(786). He had made up his mind that he would have to catch the train – completely ignoring the fact that he was no longer a human. One other thing he maintained was his relationship with his sister which still stayed the strongest of his family. However, the main difference he encountered was the way his family started to treat him after the metamorphosis.
Rather than him avoiding his family, through business or even by spending his time in solitude, his family started to avoid him. They could not even bear the site of him because of his hideous appearance. Since he had no means of communication with them after his speech was gone, he was powerless to win their love back over. If it were not for his sister’s constant efforts to feed and clean up after him, Gregor would probably have been long ago neglected and would have perished. In conclusion, Gregor still possesses many of the same traits as he did before his transformation, but he has swapped roles with his family.
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