to keep his room exactly as it has always been, so that when he comes back to us he will
find everything unchanged and be able all the more easily to forget what has happened in
between.” Gregor is torn between two emotions. His beetlehood suggests that an empty
room with bare walls would be more convenient for crawling about—all he needed
would be some chink to hide in, his indispensable couch—but otherwise he would not
need all those human conveniences and adornments. But his mother’s voice reminds him
of his human background. Unfortunately, his sister has developed a queer self-assurance
and has grown accustomed to consider herself an expert in Gregor s affairs as against her
parents. “Another factor might have been also the enthusiastic temperament of an
adolescent girl, which seeks to indulge itself on every opportunity and which now
tempted Grete to exaggerate the horror of her brother’s circumstances in order that she
might do all the more for him.” This is a curious note: the domineering sister, the strong
sister of the fairy tales, the handsome busybody lording it over the fool of the family, the
proud sisters of Cinderella, the cruel emblem of health, youth, and blossoming beauty in
the house of disaster and dust. So they decide to move the things out after all but ha ve a
real struggle with the chest of drawers. Gregor is in an awful state of panic. He kept his
fretsaw in that chest, with which he used to make things when he was free at home, his
sole hobby.
Scene VIII: Gregor tries to save at least the picture in the frame he had made with his
cherished fretsaw. Kafka varies his effects in that every time the beetle is seen by his
family he is shown in a new position, some new spot. Here Gregor rushes from his hiding
place, unseen by the two women now struggling with his writing desk, and climbs the
wall to press himself over the picture, his hot, dry belly against the soothing cool glass.
The mother is not much help in this furniture- moving business and has to be supported by
Grete. Grete always remains strong and hale whereas not only her brother but both
parents are going to be soon (after the apple-pitching scene) on the brink of sinking into
some dull dream, into a state of torpid and decrepit oblivion; but Grete with the hard
health of her ruddy adolescence keeps propping them up.
Scene IX: Despite Grete’s efforts, the mother catches sight of Gregor, a “huge brown
mass on the flowered wallpaper, and before she was really conscious that what she saw
was Gregor screamed in a loud, hoarse voice: ‘Oh God, oh God!’, fell with outspread
arms over the couch as if giving up and did not move. ‘Gregor!’ cried his sister, shaking
her fist and glaring at him. This was the first time she had directly addressed him since
his metamorphosis.” She runs into the living room for something to rouse her mother
from the fainting fit. Gregor wanted to help too—there was still time to rescue the
picture—but he was stuck fast to the glass and had to tear himself loose; he then ran after
his sister into the next room as if he could advise her, as he used to do; but then had to
stand helplessly behind her; she meanwhile searched among various small bottles and
when she turned round started in alarm at the sight of him; one bottle fell on the floor and
broke; a splinter of glass cut Gregor’s face and some kind of corrosive medicine splashed
him; without pausing a moment longer Grete gathered up all the bottles she could carry
and ran to her mother with them; she banged the door shut with her foot. Gregor was now
cut off from his mother, who was perhaps nearly dying because of him; he dared not open
the door for fear of frightening away his sister, who had to stay with her mother; there
was nothing he could do but wait; and harassed by self-reproach and worry he began now
to crawl to and fro, over everything, walls, furniture and ceiling, and finally in his