The Metamorphosis Mrs. Samsa Quotes

Mrs. Samsa

Quote 1

"Doesn't it look as if by removing his furniture we were showing him that we have given up all hope of his getting better and are leaving him to his own devices without any consideration?" (2.20)

Mrs. Samsa is perhaps the last member of the family to relinquish the idea that Gregor's transformation is irreversible. In this passage, she makes the case that Gregor is still deserving of their "consideration."

Mrs. Samsa

Quote 2

[His mother] caught sight of the gigantic brown blotch on the flowered wallpaper, and before it really dawned on her that what she saw was Gregor, cried in a hoarse, bawling voice: "Oh, God, Oh, God!" (2.26)

Gregor's "brown blotch" of a body is in stark contrast to the military portrait we discussed in Quote #1. Gregor's mother's response shows that to her, Gregor is a big brown stain first, her son second. She can't say anything to Gregor; all she can do is exclaim.

"Dead?" said Mrs. Samsa and looked inquiringly at the cleaning woman, although she could scrutinize everything for herself and could recognize the truth even without scrutiny. "I'll say," said the cleaning woman (3.31)

As in Quote #6 above, the cleaning woman seems to have an unusually close tie to Gregor, at least closer than his family. It's the cleaning woman, and not any of the Samsas, who definitively declares Gregor dead. Perhaps she has some special knowledge of who – and what – he is in a way that the Samsas don't, even though he's part of their family.