We Are All Gregor Samsa: Absurdity, Contingency, and the Choice to Remain Human

This journal offers a philosophical reflection on The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, reading the story as an exploration of absurdity and the instability of meaning in human life. Through the character of Gregor Samsa, it shows how effort, sacrifice, and moral character do not necessarily lead to recognition or purpose, but can instead collapse without explanation. The essay places this narrative in conversation with Albert Camus’s account of the absurd in The Myth of Sisyphus, suggesting that the absence of inherent meaning does not make life empty, but changes the kind of question we ask. Rather than searching for meaning in outcomes, the essay argues that what remains is the possibility of dignity—preserved through consciousness, emotional experience, and the refusal to give in to despair. In this way, Kafka’s work becomes not just a story of transformation, but a reflection on what it means to remain human in an indifferent world.