Kafka opens up the story, and has the protagonist transformed into a bug.  As I read on, it showed that Kafka had a weirdly composed and tranquil voice after the transformation.  Gregor realizes his transformation, but just thinks that he is getting a cold.  He thinks that it is something that will just pass over  because he has to go to work.    Something like this would never happen in real life, yet Kafka has such a calm reaction towards it.  Kafka pays a lot of attention to detail, but never really makes any symbolic or metaphorical connections.  I think that Gregor used an insect on purpose.  An insect is viewed as a very disgusting and insignificant thing.  I think it is meant to symbolize Gregor's insignificance in his family.  People usually hate bugs, and by the end of the story Gregor's family kept a big distance from him. 

            One of the main driving themes of the story is Gregor's alienation from everything.  He hates his job and is ignored by his family.  He wants to quit his job, but he only keeps it to provide for his family.  His transformation into an insect portrays this alienation. 

            Kafka illustrates Gregor with a very dominant father.  His father shows his power to Gregor through force, authority, and strength.  This is scene in the seen where Gregor's father chases him into his room with a stick.  This quote helps portray Gregor's unhappiness.

            " 'Oh God,' he thought, 'what a grueling job I've picked!  Day in, day out- on  the road.  The upset of doing business is much worse than the actual business in the home office, and , besides, I've got the torture  of traveling, worrying about changing trains, eating miserable food at all hours, constantly seeing new faces, no relationships that last or get more intimate. To the devil with it all!"  He felt a slight itching up on top of his belly; shoved himself slowly on his back closer to the bedpost, so as to be able to lift his    head better; found the itchy spot, studded with small white dots which he had no idea what to make of; and wanted to touch the spot with one of his legs but immediately pulled it back, for the contact sent a cold shiver through him."  (Pages 3-4).  

This passage is a very significant passage in The Metamorphosis.  The language that Franz Kafka uses is not a coincidence.  Kafka uses very horrible descriptive words such as miserable, torture, devil, and grueling.  Kafka uses these words to show how truly unhappy Gregor is.  This depicts the overall theme of Gregor's unhappiness and alienation.

            "No longer considering what she could to to give Gregor a special treat, his sister, before running to business every morning and afternoon, hurriedly shoved any old food into Gregor's room with her foot; and in the evening, regardless of whether the food had only been toyed with or- the most usual case- had been left completely untouched, she swept it out with a swish of the broom.  The cleaning up of Gregor's room, which she no always did in the evenings, could not be done more hastily.  Streaks of dirt ran along thewalls, fluffs of dust and filth lay here and there on the floor." (page 41)

            In this quote, he realizes that his whole family is alienated from each other, this is demonstrated by the way that his sister gives him food.  She doesn't give him food properly or clean his room properly, this shows that how she doesn't care about Gregor. It shows that Gregor is truly alienated from his family as well as society.  He has no one to turn too, and at this point he is useless to even his family.  His family resents him especially since he is not their provider anymore.  He just takes up space, eats food, and lies there all day. The falling apart of the family life parallels the Gregor's death in the end.