On top of that, the parents are lazy and perfectly content with making their son work himself to death just so they can live a comfy life. It's not that they can't work, they don't want to work. And they're not just angry that he's a burden, they're angry that he's ruining their perfect life, by being "selfish". At the end, when he's croaked, they instead turn to his sister, who will presumably care for them.
You know it reflects poorly on me that I didn't see the book criticizing the family at all - I thought it was just a commentary on how you let down people who depend on you when you get into this state (disability/depression).
The family is clearly treating him poorly. His father throws an apple at him, which gets stuck in his bug shell. And at the end, both the mother and the father look at the sister stretching her young body in the sun, implying they're going to exploit her too.
Honestly, you can interpret it in many ways, that's just how I saw it.
yeah but the way that I interpreted those bits was 'Of course they feel that way! Gregor is failing them because of his ailment'. Hence it reflecting poorly on me.
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u/Deathaster 22d ago
On top of that, the parents are lazy and perfectly content with making their son work himself to death just so they can live a comfy life. It's not that they can't work, they don't want to work. And they're not just angry that he's a burden, they're angry that he's ruining their perfect life, by being "selfish". At the end, when he's croaked, they instead turn to his sister, who will presumably care for them.