Isolation is a major theme in Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Which two excerpts best reflect Gregor's isolated condition after his
transformation?
He got into the habit of closely watching it for one or two hours before it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of his room where he could
not be seen from the living room, he could watch the family in the light of the dinner table and listen to their conversation- •with everyone's
permission, in a way, and thus quite differently from before.
All of them were usually very quiet nowadays. Soon after dinner, his father would go to sleep in his chair; his mother and sister would urge each
other to be quiet; his mother, bent deeply under the lamp, would sew fancy underwear for a fashion shop; his sister, who had taken a sales job,
learned shorthand and French in the evenings so that she might be able to get a better position later on.
Gregor never responded to being spoken to in that way, but just remained where he was without moving as if the door had never even been
opened. If only they had told this charwoman to clean up his room every day instead of letting her disturb him for no reason whenever she felt
like it!
The woman most likely meant to fetch the things back out again when she had time and the opportunity, or to throw everything out in one 30,
but what actually happened was that they were left where they landed when they had first been thrown unless Gregor made his way through
the junk and moved it somewhere else.