Should one decide to ignore reality, it does not simply go away. For Gregor Samsa, the lead character in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, reality does not change, even when it seems it must. The story is certainly not factual, but it is written as though it could be. Kafka ensures that the reader is submerged in the events he recounts as though they could actually happen, as though they were common. While the opening of the novel startles us with a climactic introductory paragraph, in which Gregor awakes "from troubled dreams...himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous insect," the pages that follow explain just how normal everything actually is. The title suggests a change occurs, and this opening line leads us to believe that the change is from man to monstrous insect. This is not the case. The external transformation of Gregor does not affect who he is or who any of the other characters are, but shows the lack of change in each of them. In spite of Gregor Samsa's drastic physical changes, his vulnerability, mindlessness, and instinctive action remain as the nature of his existence, proving to be the whole of his reality.
             Gregor's life before the metamorphosis was limited to working and caring for his family. As a traveling salesman, Gregor worked long, arduous hours that left little time to experience life. He reflects on his so-called life acknowledging the "plague of traveling: the anxieties of changing trains, the irregular, inferior meals, the ever changing faces, never to be seen again, people with whom one has no chance to be friendly" (PAGE NUMBER NEEDED). Gregor, working to pay off his family's debt, has resigned himself to a life full of work and void of pleasure.
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