"That's to Kafka"

I believe that Kafka could not have agreed more with Thoreau's quotation. He practically restated it in his short story, The Metamorphosis,and revolved the whole plot around it. Gregor Samsa clearly lead a life of quite desperation, he was not content nor was he openly troubled with his role in the family or society, which could have been the reason why his 'condition' remained seemingly unnoticed. As Gregor proceeded to sacrifice his happiness for the good of the family he slowly defamiliarized himself with (for lack of a better pronoun) himself. Gregor lost all sense of connection with people. In turn people lost all connection with him, causing them to completely disregard all the signs of Gregor's despair. By encoorporating this into the story Kafka takes a stab at our 'accepted' way of life and slaps the everyday nine to five working man in the face. He is sending out a warning to all those who see life as a period of time in wich one must live to work instead of work to live. This warning message goes hand in hand with Thoreau's transcendentailist beliefs that man must, at least for some period of time, step back from the chaotic everyday bustle of society and get back to nature.