Kafka's novella is funny on a number of levels. First, Gregor's whole situation—his transformation into a giant insect—functions as a kind of broad joke, an example of hyperbole, or a metaphor made literal. Gregor isn't simply insignificant like an insect—he is an insect. His transformation has additional comic effect as he family struggles to understand what has happened to him and how to act. Grete's repudiation of Gregor-as-insect is a kind of final comic take on man's inhumanity to man (or brother, in this case): she argues that if the bug really were Gregor, it would have the sense to know it was not wanted and leave on its own!

The tragic implications of Gregor's case are equally clear. As a bug, he is stigmatized, feared, and unloved, even by his own family. If we understand his transformation as a kind of realization of his social and political powerlessness, then we can understand his fate as a bug to be the fate of all who share his disenfranchisement—a fate that ultimately destroys even the bonds of family.

An extra tragic twist lies in the empathy Grete expresses only after Gregor is dead: Look how thin he was," she says, recognizing the corpse of the bug as her brother. The end of the story—which suggests that the Samsas have a bright future now that Gregor is gone—also has a tragic air to it. While it is possible to read their sense of well being as another example of their insensitivity, on another level their eagerness to embrace the bourgeois life (now they can get a better apartment!) suggests that they are just as trapped and powerless as Gregor.