Despite Gregor’s complete physical transformation into an insect at the beginning of Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, his character’s personality changes very little over the course of the book. Gregor is a good man with a good heart – he is very close with his family, especially his little sister. This essay analyzes Gregor’s lonely yet compassionate and selfless character. The reader is immediately brought into Gregor Samsa’s bizarre world in the first sentence of the novella: “Waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered… he had been changed into a monstrous venomous bug” (3). A normal reaction for someone who goes to sleep as human and wakes up the next morning as a hideous insect would be utter shock and panic – but for some odd reason, this doesn’t happen with Gregor. Instead, he rolls over in bed, looks out the window, and the first thing he thinks is that he will be late for work. “I have to deal with the problems of traveling, the worries about train connections, irregular bad food, temporary and constantly changing human relationships which never come from the heart… to hell with it all!” (4). Gregor is oblivious to the fact that his transformation even occurred. He’s concerned about the morning’s commute – and the crowded train – even the bad food he might eat that day! He’s overly pessimistic. But as the novella progresses, the reader learns more of the Gregor’s personality – in particular, his loneliness. It’s obvious he has a lack of interaction within his own family. When his manager shows up at the house to check on Gregor, his mother tries to intervene and save her son’s job: [Gregor] has nothing in his head except business. I’m almost angry that he never goes out at night. Right now he’s been in the city eight days, but he’s been at home every evening. He sits there with us at the table and reads the newspaper quietly or studies his travel