Is Gregor a human? What is a human?
Humanity is clearly a pretty important theme in The Metamorphosis. We’ve talked a lot in class about Gregor’s humanity, and what
makes him human or not. Here are some thoughts I had on the subject.
There are a few spots in the book itself when I felt
Gregor’s humanity wasn’t quite there. For example, there was the whole
description of how he loves crawling around on the walls and ceiling. Another
instance like that is when he says how nice the cool the picture frame glass feels
on his body. These to me were totally non-human sentiments, because they were
unique to insects, and has no human component. If he were doing these things
with a goal of learning something, maybe it would be more human, but since he
is doing them only for the animalistic pleasure, I think there is something
decisively non-human.
I think the clearest loss of humanity happens on page 91,
when Gregor gets frustrated with Grete and threatens silently to fly in
her face. Through the entire book, Gregor has always shown only loving emotions
towards his sister, so it seems like his former self is really slipping away in
this moment.
So based off these three examples of non-humanity, what
should we even consider being human?
One can argue that having a human body is a requirement–
after all, insects’ anatomy is inherently different from that of humans, and
so, physically, anything that isn’t a homo sapiens sapiens isn’t human. But I
think the way we have been talking about Gregor in class is as if we were talking
about a human trapped in a non-human body. So is it having a human mind that
constitutes as being human?
What is a human mind? We can define it as a mid that can
reason and solve problems, but then, recent studies have shown that crows,
dolphins, and cuttlefish can all solve puzzles and use reasoning. Is there a
level of reasoning that is the cutoff for humanity – so are then children below
a certain age who can’t think like adults not human?
Is it human goals and desires then – desires for family, love,
and kindness? Many times throughout the book, Gregor has non-human desires,
such as the previously mentioned crawling around – do those make him non-human?
Or is it something more complex, like our relation to
society? After all, we start to see Gregor lose his “humanity” after he is left
in isolation for months, without human contact. So in that case, is any person
living without a community not human?
And then, throughout this book, is Gregor human the whole
way through, or is there a tipping point where he becomes more insect? In my
opinion, he is human the whole way, just cursed with the misfortune of being
trapped inside of a cockroach. So considering that, does that make his family
murders? Could his parents be charged for neglect and child abuse, since he’s
technically human?
All of these are kinda abstract questions, and I still can’t
really wrap my mind around Gregor’s humanity. Leave your thoughts in the
comments – and any answers you may have!
I think that to the reader Gregor still has a lot of human qualities and is mostly human. Although his physical appearance says otherwise, Gregor thinks like a human and tries to act like a human. If we look at only biological traits, Gregor is definitely not human, but he tries to do human things. He tries to walk on his 2 feet, he tries to open the door etc. He only starts acting like a bug when he realizes that its easier or it feels good.His mental state is why I think Gregor is human. He has human thoughts and is very sophisticated. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI realize that this is the entire goal of an English class, but all that is just such excessive over-analysis. If we continue to attempt to define humanity, there will always be cases where people don't fit but chimps do, just as you have described. It is easier and more in-tune with what people actually think to just decide based on gut instinct whether Gregor is human or insect. I feel like he is more human, because he is capable of thought in the form of human languages, and he is trying to make the best of his little enclosure by crawling along the walls and ceiling, which is an entirely human thing to do (why would people play games if not for sheer pleasure?).
ReplyDeleteNice post! I think that because we are in Gregor's mind, we can see that he still has a lot of human emotions and reactions to things, but his outward appearance is not human-like. This is interesting because in my eyes, I still saw humanity in Gregor, even at his last moments, but to everyone else, as the book progressed they lost hope that there was human left in him. Not sure what this is saying about what it means to be human though lol, but it was just my observation!
ReplyDeleteI can't emphasize strongly enough how vital it is that we have access to Gregor's consciousness throughout his "insect phase." This makes it hard for us to doubt that he's "human," even when he's behaving in ways that are weird for a human to behave in (hanging upside down from the ceiling). But imagine if we were reading this whole story with only external description of "the insect" doing all of these things. Would we see any evidence of humanity at all?
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