Doors in Kafka's Metamorphosis

One of the most interesting things I noticed in Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis was the continuous mention of doors. Pretty much every important moment in the story happens in relation to one. Gregor’s bedroom door becomes a barrier between him and the rest of the world. In the beginning, Gregor’s family and his boss speak to him through it, worried about why he hasn’t left for work. Kafka writes, “His sister whispered, ‘Gregor, open up, I'm pleading with you.’ But Gregor had absolutely no intention of opening the door.” As the story progresses and Gregor’s transformation takes place, the door takes on a new meaning. It becomes a symbol of his isolation. In Chapter 3, when Gregor quietly watches his family through a door left “opened a crack.” Kafka writes, “Every day around dusk the living-room door…was opened, so that, lying in the darkness of his room, invisible from the living room, he could see the whole family sitting at the table under the lamp…”. Gregor can can see his family but can’t join them. By the time Gregor’s sister starts feeding him without looking at him, the door turns into a boundary of shame. She opens it just enough to push food through and then shuts it again immediately. The family stops addressing him directly, speaking through the door rather than to him.

It’s interesting that Kafka uses doors specifically. Doors are liminal. It’s never entirely open or closed, and is the perfect metaphor for conditional love. While the family can approach it, speak through it, and knock, they will never step across it. In the end, when Gregor dies alone behind it, the closed door becomes the perfect symbol for his dehumanization. 

Anika Mukherjee