Gregor on the surface may appear to be the epitome of an average working drone however from what I've read I think Gregor has potential and he knows it. Gregor as we've seen is one of the most work oriented people I've ever seen outside of a movie. At first it appears as though he is infinitely faithful to his job, ready to sacrifice parts of his new insect body in hope of opening his door and getting to work on time. This reminds me of the character Stanly from The Stanly Parable in this game you play as a worker who had held the same job for years and did nothing but pushes buttons whenever his computer monitor told him to. Stanly never questioned his job and did it with no thoughts about why or quitting or anything.
In both Stanly and Gregor have really strange events happen to them in the midst of their average every day lives. In Gregor's case he gets turned into a bug, in the Stanly Parable commands don't come up on his screen one day and he discovers there's a strange voice narrating everything he does while he goes through his huge office building. Along his travels he can't find a single fellow human.
In the Stanly Parable the strange event opens up a plethora of new opportunities such as making his office go nuclear however I think that Gregor's opportunities are present before his transformation. Before Gregor transformed he was managing money so well or getting paid so much that he was able to comfortably support a family of 4 in a nice flat while paying off a debt when we don't know if any of the others have any source of income.
On top of Gregor's financial situation he wasn't planning on staying in his current job forever despite it's well paying qualities. Instead he was planning on quitting his job once the debt he had to the owner was paid off. We can tell from Gregor only having this job for the past 5 years and from his military service that this job isn't his whole life. I think Gregor before this transformation had a bright future.
To me the evidence is clear and I think this is pretty true, feel free to disagree in the comments with what you think, but Blogger.com hates names and it's kind of annoying.
Though I've never played Stanly Parable, I think this connection is interesting. The two characters share a lot of common traits. They both follow, and they both work to their best ability. I wonder what Stanly's life was like previous to his job, and what happens during his journey to find a fellow human. Maybe this could give us some insight on how to find more information about Gregor's past and future experiences.
ReplyDeleteWhile I haven't played it, I have heard of this game. I really like the connection you make between the two. Gregor is certainly a mindless worker when he is still a human. However I would argue that while the character Stanley gets a "wake-up call" to his situation as a soulless drone, Gregor does not really have any meaningful revelations about his life upon being turned into a cockroach-- one of the first things he thinks about upon discovering his transformation is "I hope I'm not going to miss the train."
ReplyDeleteI think that here is a really interesting connection that you bring up because in the game and in the Metamorphosis there is a common theme that we just have to accept that all the questions that naturally arise given the situation will not be answered, and that in order to fully enjoy the experience of reading the book or playing the game, you have to accept the fiction presented as reality and just go with it. This creates an interesting dynamic in the sense that both the Metamorphosis and The Stanely Parable make you not only accept their world, but think about the implications of it while suspending reality, which helps give a different perspective on a lot of things.
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