Kafka Reflection

In part one of  Kafka's The Metamorphosis the manager isn't sympathetic to Gregor and makes him feel like the situation is his fault. Gregor's mom is pleading with the manager to that he is sick and doesn't feel well but the manager isn't listening. He trys to explain to the mother that this is business and sometimes you have to get over your sickness in order to be successful. "On the other hand, I must also say that we business people, luckily or unluckily, however one looks at it, very often simply have to overcome a slight indisposition for business reason" (Kafka 4). Gregor works hard and hardly ever misses work but the manager does not seem to realize that he is really sick. The mom is trying to get the manager to realize that just because Gregor is sick, doesn't mean he is a lazy employee. The manager's plea with the mother isn't getting him anywhere so he decides to lay all the guilt on Gregor. "You are barricading yourself there in your room, answering with only a yes and a no, are making serious and unnecessary trouble for your parents, and neglecting-I mention this only incidentally-your commercial duties in a truly unheard of manner" (Kafka 5). Gregor is very proud of himself and his work and so the manager tries to target this by saying that he is purposely neglecting work by barricading himself in his room, when in reality, Gregor wants to get out of his room and go back to work. The manager doesn't see that Gregor is truly upset about missing work but he doesn't even stop to consider that he might be.

In part two of Kafka's The Metamorphosis the mother contradicts the manager by being overly sympathetic. The mom is worried about Gregor and truly misses him so she tries to visit him, but Grete and the father won't let her so she starts to get upset. "Later, however, they had to hold her back forcefully  and when she then cries, "Let me go to Gregor. He's my unfortunate son! Don't you understand that I have to go to him?" (Kafka 14). The mom sees Gregor as being "unfortunate" and wants to help him. She is trying to make sure he gets better because she realizes that he isn't well. She fights against the father and sister just to be able to comfort Gregor and even though she is scared of him, she wants to comfort him. Later, Grete and Gregor's mother are rearranging the funature in Gregor's room and his mom brings up the fact that he might not want this. "I think it would be best if we tried to keep the room exactly in the condition it was in before, so that, when Gregor returns to us, he finds everything unchanged and can forget the intervening time all the more easily" (Kafka 15). She is showing compassion to Gregor by thinking about how he would want things. She wants him to be able to forget quickly and knows that it would be easier if things were the same. The mother contridicts the manager's point of view because she goes out of her way to think what Gregor would want instead of not thinking about it at all.