What happens to a family when the person they depended on is gone?
Metacognitive Entry
You Already Know More Than You Think
At the end of Part One, you were left with a question:
"Is Gregor's transformation a tragedy — or a liberation?"
Part Two does not answer that question. It complicates it.
Before we continue: which reading were you leaning toward after Part One? Note it down — one word or one sentence. We will come back to it at the end of today's lesson.
Turn & Talk · 3 minutes
What's Still With You from Part One?
Without looking at your notes: name one moment, image, or question from Part One that you are still thinking about.
Tell your partner. They listen. Then they ask: "Why do you think that one stayed?"
This is called retrieval practice. The moments your brain returns to on its own are telling you something.
What Changes in Part Two
In Part One, we were mostly inside Gregor's mind. In Part Two, Kafka pulls back.
We now see:
How each family member copes — or doesn't
Grete stepping into a new role she didn't choose
The slow, painful erosion of the family's language toward Gregor
One act of violence that changes the story's course
The central question for today:
Can you feel sympathy for the Samsa family — even as they treat Gregor badly?
Holding two uncomfortable truths at once is what Kafka is asking of you.
Theme 1: Grete Steps Up
"No one else was likely to enter Gregor's room; so Grete — at least for the present — had to do all of this herself."
"at least for the present" — already a warning sign. This arrangement is temporary in her mind.
She observes Gregor carefully. She notices what he eats, what he avoids, how he moves. In Part Two's early sections, she is the only one who actually looks at him.
But notice the framing: "had to do it" — this is duty, not love. Or is it? Can duty coexist with love?
Think · Pair · Share · 7 minutes
Stepping Up: When the Role Falls on You
THINK 2 min — write in your notes
Think of a time when someone stepped into a family role they hadn't chosen — because no one else would. Could be your own family, a film, someone you know.
What did they gain by stepping up? What did they lose?
PAIR 2 min
Share the gain/loss tension with your partner. They listen, then respond:
"What I notice is that the gain and the loss seem connected, because..."
SHARE 3 min — class
Volunteers share: not the personal story, but the pattern they and their partner noticed.
Does gain always come with loss when someone "steps up"?
Freewrite · 5 minutes
Objects and Identity
In Part Two, the family decides to clear the furniture from Gregor's room. They think they're helping — giving him more space to move. But Gregor panics. The furniture is the last evidence that he was ever a person.
Think of an object in your own life that holds your history. A photo, a piece of clothing, a gift, a book, a trophy — something that, if it disappeared, you would feel less like yourself.
Write about it. What does it hold? What would be lost if it were gone?
Sentence stems if you want a way in:
The thing is ______, and what it really holds is ______...
If someone threw it away thinking it was just ______, they would not know that ______...
Gregor's furniture is like my ______ because ______...
You will not be asked to share this. Write honestly.
Close Reading: The Furniture Scene
"Was he really prepared to let his room be stripped of everything he liked? Did he really want his warm room, so comfortably furnished with family pieces, to be turned into a bare cave...?"
"everything he liked" — Kafka reminds us Gregor still has preferences. He is not fully insect. He still wants.
"family pieces" — the furniture belongs to a life shared with others. It is evidence of relationship, not just comfort.
Grete's well-intentioned mistake: she removes his past in order to improve his present. She thinks she understands him — but she decides without asking.
Metacognitive note: If that freewrite brought something real up for you — that feeling is Kafka's analysis, expressed through you. That IS literary understanding.
Turn & Talk · 2 minutes
What Would You Fight to Keep?
During the furniture scene, Gregor does something unexpected: he throws himself against the wall where a picture hangs — the one item he absolutely will not let them take.
Turn to your partner: what does this act tell us about Gregor at this moment in the story? What part of himself is he protecting?
And — honestly — is there anything about the family's decision that you actually understand? Even if you don't agree with it?
Theme 2: When Language Changes, Everything Changes
One of Kafka's most subtle and devastating techniques in Part Two:
The family gradually stops calling Gregor by his name.
Watch for this as you read. It begins almost invisibly. By the end, some family members refer to him as "it" — or simply avoid naming him at all.
Why does this matter? In philosophy and in everyday life, naming someone is an act of recognition. Refusing to use a person's name — or replacing it with "it" — is a way of withdrawing that recognition.
Gregor loses his name before he loses his life.
Tracking the Shift
How the family's language toward Gregor changes across Part Two:
"Gregor" — used by name, with concern
→
"he" — distancing begins; less personal
Speaking to him, expecting a response
→
Speaking about him as if he cannot hear
Making decisions with him in mind
→
Making decisions about him — over him
A son and brother
→
"it" — the creature — the problem
Think · Pair · Share · 6 minutes
The Language of Recognition
THINK 2 min — write in your notes
Find one specific moment in Part Two where a character's language toward Gregor has shifted. Quote it, or describe it.
What does this tell you about that character's inner state — not just their words?
PAIR 2 min
Share your moment. Your partner's job: listen, then say —
"What I think that shift reveals about the character is..."
"And I think it happens at this point because..."
SHARE 2 min — class
Volunteers share: which character's language shift was most striking — and why?
We're looking for moments where small language choices carry large meaning.
Metacognitive Check-In
Where Is Your Brain Right Now?
Find the one that best matches your reading experience of Part Two so far. There is no wrong answer here.
I feel angry at the family — Gregor still hears everything and they act like he isn't there.
I feel unexpectedly sorry for the family — this is an impossible situation and I kind of understand them.
I feel both at once — and I find that uncomfortable.
I am watching Grete closely — her change feels significant but I am not sure what to make of it yet.
I feel like Kafka is testing me — pushing me toward conclusions I am not sure I should reach.
I am still thinking about the furniture scene and what it means.
Theme 3: The Apple Scene
Near the end of Part Two, Gregor's father does something that changes the story permanently.
What Happens
Gregor leaves his room during a tense family moment. His father, in a rage, grabs a bowl of apples from the sideboard and throws them at Gregor. One lodges in his back — and never comes out.
A Reading Note
This scene is probably the most violent and upsetting in the novella. It is OK to find it difficult. Kafka put it here on purpose — this is the point where the story tips.
Before the close reading: take a breath. Then let's look at what Kafka is doing — because understanding it is different from being fine with it.
Close Reading: The Apple Scene
"One of the apples thrown without much force grazed Gregor's back and glanced off harmlessly. But another following immediately landed right on his back and sank in..."
"without much force" — the father is not precise. This is not calculated violence; it is panicked, overwhelmed rage.
The apple as symbol — fruit that gives life, used as a weapon. Something meant to nourish becomes something that wounds.
The mother's response — she pleads for Gregor. She has not stopped seeing him as her son. Her love, even here, does not vanish.
The festering wound — it never heals. The physical damage follows Gregor into Part Three. Some wounds in families are like this.
Freewrite · 4 minutes
The Permission Slip
Part Two puts you in an impossible position as a reader.
You can see that the family is behaving badly. And you can also see that they are exhausted, frightened, and trying to survive something impossible.
Write about a time — in your own life, or in something you have read or watched — when you understood why someone did something, even though you knew it was wrong.
What does it feel like to hold both things at once?
I understood why ______ did ______, because ______, even though ______.
The hardest part was not the action itself — it was that I could see ______...
Understanding something and approving of it are different because ______...
Private. Write honestly. You will not be asked to share.
Existentialism Part Two: Who Decides What You Are Worth?
In Part One, you met the existentialist idea: we create our own meaning. Life has no pre-set value built into it.
Part Two shows what happens when other people try to decide your value for you.
What the family is doing
Gradually stripping Gregor of the markers of personhood: his name, his furniture, his space, his dignity — because he no longer has economic value.
What Gregor retains
His ability to hear, to feel, to want, to act — however faintly. His consciousness is his own. That no one can strip away.
The existentialist challenge in Part Two: In a world that values people for what they produce or provide — how do you insist on your own worth when you can no longer produce anything?
Essential Understanding: Part Two
Part Two shows that dehumanisation is rarely dramatic. It happens in small steps — a name replaced by a pronoun, a room emptied, a conversation held as if the person cannot hear.
The literary achievement
Kafka makes us understand both sides — the burden of the family and the devastation of Gregor — simultaneously. That double vision is not confusion. It is the whole point.
What you can do now
You can track language as an act of power. You can hold moral ambiguity without resolving it too quickly. You can read a difficult scene and ask why instead of just what.
Exit Ticket · 3 minutes
Before You Leave
At the beginning of this lesson, you noted whether you were leaning toward tragedy or liberation after Part One.
Complete one of the following in your notes:
After Part Two, my reading of Gregor's transformation has shifted because I now see ______.
After Part Two, my reading has stayed the same — but it feels ______ now, because ______.
The moment in Part Two I keep returning to is ______ — and I think that is because it touches something about ______.
A question Part Two leaves me with is ______. I think that question might be exactly what Kafka wants me to be sitting with.
For Next Class: Part Three
Reading
Read Part Three.
As you read, track one thing: at what point — if ever — does Gregor give up? Look for the moment his inner voice changes. Does it feel like defeat — or something else?
Questions to live with
How much can a family endure before love becomes something else?
Is Grete's final decision — when it comes — a betrayal, or an honest act of self-preservation?
What does the ending say about whose story this actually is?
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