Metamorphosis Part II

After living as a cockroach for months, Gregor begins to lose his human personality. He yearns to hold on to his connection to human life, yet he more frequently finds himself thinking like a bug. On page 34, he describes that he has been living without "direct human communication" and the "monotonous life" in his family, but these conditions are similar to his past life. Although he is a salesman, people do not usually want to talk with him and his family life has always been dreary because he must work to support them. Thus, his life living conditions have not changed drastically since he became a cockroach, which makes it easier for him to slip into the thoughts of a bug. He does not want his room to become a cave, but he is excited about being able to freely crawl everywhere. The furniture, especially his picture of the woman in the fur coat, serve as his remaining ties to humanity, which he must keep in order to prevent his full transformation mentally into a cockroach. If his sister takes the picture, he will forget his sexual desire, which is a human emotion. Also, at first he has the urge to crawl around. Then, he chides himself for subconsciously wishing to remove all of the furniture from his room when he is reminded of being human by his mother's voice. He depends on the furniture to prevent him from succumbing to his new desires as a cockroach. He has conflicting opinions because he cannot live without the "beneficent effect of the furniture," but also he cannot help thinking of crawling as "no disadvantage, but a great asset." He quickly changes his opinion about crawling within the same sentence as he develops the perspective of a bug. He is beginning to lose control of his human mind, which is gradually transforming into that of a cockroach.