Outwardly, at least, Gregor's transformation is complete and immediate. He wakes up to find that his body is that of an insect. Inwardly, however, the transformation seems more gradual, though not entirely even. His urges and concerns are clearly human at first: his job, his responsibilities, and his family. His body is foreign to him. He lacks coordination and motor skills, staring out of the window and listening at the keyhole longingly. At first, even his voice is human--or human enough to assure his mother through his bedroom door that he is getting up soon. The voice soon dissolves into unintelligible animal squeaks. With time, Gregor grows more insect-like in demeanor. Noises and commotion frighten him. Tight, dark spaces are a comfort. His vision fades to functional necessity. When frightened, he instinctively scuttles in random directions. Yet he is far from wholly an animal; he would not suffer if he didn't retain a human sense of guilt, frustration, affection, memory, and disappointment.

One common interpretation of The Metamorphosis is this: Kafka is telling us that some people, or the lives some people lead, are so insect-like that they may as well wake up one morning as insects. Another way to translate the German word Kafka uses to describe Gregor is "vermin." Certainly, Gregor's job is degrading, frustrating, and un-fulfilling. But is he vermin? He is vulnerable. His boss could probably squash him like a bug (professionally speaking). But the qualities we associate with insect vermin-ness don't necessarily apply to Gregor. To insects we attribute an utterly mindless, instinctive survival drive. Gregor's work may be mindless--he may be a worker sent out on a fruitless mission to gather nectar for the company hive, and he may jump when his boss says jump--but he has a purpose. He knows that he is doing what he is doing to keep the family afloat and dig his father out of debt. He knows it is a temporary situation, and that he can look forward to better days. He is also proud of his role in the family, of the fact that he is making his parents' and his sister Grete's lives comfortable. In addition, he has a secret plan to send his sister to the conservatory so that she can pursue her love of the violin. Are these the aspirations of an insect?

The clean symbolism or one-to-one allegorical correspondence that so many search for in this novella is, in the end, elusive. Gregor the man is not merely an insect in a business suit. Gregor the insect is not merely a man with a thorax. The transformation is strange, mysterious, horrifying, and humorous, both empty of meaning and steeped in it. There are parallels between Gregor's insect state and his employment conditions, but Kafka's message was nothing so tidy as that.