If you had shown me the final scene of The Metamorphosis, and just the final scene, as if it was from a movie, I probably would've awwwed and said "Aw, what a beautiful scene! Everyone looks so happy! It's all so pretty and wonderful!" However, reading the book, that last scene is far from happy. It's...dark humour in a way. I mean, it is happy that Mr. and Mrs. Samsa and Grete get to live their lives now and move on, but it's just...for one they move on way too quickly. Um, hello! Your son JUST died. You can't take off work to picnic and vacation and plan to leave immediately! True, they weren't quite so sure that Gregor was the cockroach, but if they thought that he wasn't, then where the hell did they think he was? Did they think Gregor had just deserted them? Did they think the cockroach had eaten him? The entire family speaks with Gregor at the beginning of the novel when he is a cockroach, they know he's in the room at least. So how can they just completely forget about their son, especially after all he's done for them. The family just seems ungrateful.
But I digress. Anyways, back to the final scene, there's such an underlying dark, ironic, humorous, call it what you will tone. Something just feels off. Like, you feel that the scene should be fine and happy, but it's not. Something feels wrong. And that something is the absence of caring and love. This is a family overjoyed at death. That in and of itself is just creepy. You would think they would at least show some respect to Gregor, even if they didn't know it was him. Then again, they really haven't been showing Gregor as the cockroach any respect at all. Grete tries to, but it soon becomes too much for her to deal.
I think Grete being happy at her brother's death is really one of the saddest parts of the ending of the novel. Grete really seemed to care about her brother, probably the only one in her family who did, and he cared for her back. He was going to pay to send her off to the conservatory so she could violin! And what does she do? She gives him some food for a little while, moves the furniture out, cleans up his room, but then all those little chores suddenly become too much for her? Gregor spent his life in a job he despised to provide for his family! Grete's little chores to help her brother is nothing compared to what Gregor did to support his family. I think the idea of Grete treating Gregor like a little pet is very accurate. The first couple of weeks, she really enjoys him, wants to take care of him, wants to play with him, learn everything about him, etc. But then he just becomes a pain. He always needs food, he always needs this, he always needs this, etc. It's like she got tired of taking care of him. And that's just sad.
The family's just so oblivious to everything! They can't open their eyes and see what their son has done for them! They complain about the lousy apartment Gregor chose for them, but if it weren't for him they wouldn't have been able to live in an apartment in the first place! Did the family really despise him that much?
I just can't believe that a mother and father could dislike him so. He cared for them, he truly cared for them, and he did everything he could to keep them supported. He didn't want to see his family suffer, and so he suffered for them. Why, then, can they not at least respect him for it? It seems like the parents played favorites with their children, and much preferred Grete to Gregor. There was never any talk about setting Gregor up with a woman to get married. No, it was all about work for him, and then once he was a cockroach it was "Well, what do we do with this?" With Grete, they notice how beautiful she is, how wonderful, and how she should get married.
It makes me wonder what the novel would've been like if Grete had woken up as a cockroach. She doesn't have as much duty to the family as Gregor does, but if she really is the favorite, then the family reaction would have been completely different. They would've cared for her, tried to make things better, I think, actually cope with the situation instead of just pushing it aside to a room and letting it die. I don't know. Things would've been different.
But anyways, it's just such a shame that the Samsa family can't see how much Gregor has helped them. All they can see is the trouble he's caused them, and so their celebration at his death, no matter how uplifting it may seem, is just way too off-putting and wrong. And that's what I think Kafka wants us to see. I can just see him, writing the final scene, grinning and laughing at the dark humour of it all. Gregor has always wanted to help his family however he can, and in truth, the best way to help them was to die.
What a wonderful life.
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