Sympathy For An Insect

Here are is a passage from "The Metamorphosis": 

"Hardly was he well inside his room when the door was hastily pushed shut, bolted, and locked. The sudden noise in his rear startled him so much that his legs gave beneath him. It was his sister who had shown such haste. She had been standing ready waiting and had made a light spring forward, Gregor had not even heard her coming, and she cried "At last!" to her parents as she turned the key in the lock."

"The first broadening of light in the world outside the window entered his consciousness once more. Then his head sank to the floor of its own accord and from his nostrils came the last faint flicker of his breath."

(This passage shows sympathy for Gregor as his sister, the only friend he had, finally gets sick and tired of him and locks him in his room. His room is where he spends his last moments as he fades from the world.)

In "The Metamorphosis", Kafka wants the readers to sympathize with Gregor for various reasons. First of all, prior to the insect, Gregor lead a relatively boring life, which coincidentally does not differ much from the life of an insect. Second, he sacrifices almost all aspects of fun and only desires to do work to support and provide for his family like how bees and ants do for their hives and colonies. His family probably appreciated it at first that Gregor is doing this for them, but in the long run they see him as their "slave", only doing what they want him to do so they can survive. When the transformation of Gregor from a man to an insect occurred, his family's reactions slowly change towards him. His family did many mean things to him such as throw an apple at him, yell at him, and even shutting him back into his room. As Gregor transformed into an insect, one of the lowest animal forms, he is basically no longer human as in appearance, but the absurd thing is that his family's psychological development is the least human and humane. Although Gregor's appearance has changed, Kafka clearly indicates that Gregor is still the same on the inside in terms of human feelings and needs. Gregor just wants to relate to his family, but his family doesn't give him the chance. Kafka's tranformation of Gregor into a insect symbolizes that Gregor is in another world (insect world) from everyone else (human world). Gregor struggles constantly trying to escape this insect world and into the human world trying to relate and find a sense of belonging and purpose, but desperately dies trying.