Gregor Samsa as the Existentialist Hero

“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed in his bed into a monstrous vermin” (The Metamorphosis, 3). So begins Franz Kafka’s masterpiece, "The Metamorphosis," written in 1912. This work can be viewed as an exploration of the outcast in European society. It was written in German, rather than Czech, by a Jew in a chiefly Catholic country with an extensive history of anti-Semitism. Therefore, since Kafka’s fiction is …

…Gregor insignificant to his surroundings. In “The Metamorphosis” there are many examples that demonstrate and evaluate Gregor as the symbolic prototype of the Existential hero. Isolation, loneliness, suffrage, and pain are only a few of these illustrations. Much like Kafka, being alienated in a rather “strange” world, Gregor never saw hope for his situation improving. Knowing he was the “outcast” and cut off the mainstream, he simply wanted to end the pain and pass on.