Question # 12: How did you respond to the ending of The Metamorphosis? What other ending might the story might have had? Explain your answer.
The end of The Metamorphosis was to me, a slow and saddening conclusion to an interesting story. Gregor’s death due to his loss of will to live was not the way I imagined the story would play out. I thought he would have had more of a will to live because of how little he had actually done in his life. Perhaps he wanted to see the world or go and have an adventure in his short life; instead he simply gave up for the sake of his family. Even when Gregor became a bug, he was always putting his family before himself. His perpetual love for his family and mainly his sister is what pushed Gregor into accepting death so that they could be happier. I did not enjoy the ending of the story because I felt Gregor quit, which I feel shouldn’t be the ending to any story. What I thought would be a different ending would have involved Gregor deciding to not quit on life and escaping from his room while he had the chance. After escaping his room he would go on to becoming more of a social being and eventually turn back into a human being. This ending would have seems more appropriate because it would have showed Gregor’s growth into becoming less of a secluded human and more of a person. Furthermore, since I felt that Gregor turned into a bug because he saw himself as such, the only logical way for him to turn back into a human seemed to be to become more social and human in his own eyes.