Losing Your Identity: Kafka and Alienation
Naama Bader Alhebsi
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Introduction
Imagine waking up on an ordinary morning, ready to continue your repetitive work routine, when you realize that something in your body has changed. The body that once allowed you to perform your duties is no longer the same. Instead, you have an armour-like back, a brown, domed belly divided into stiff sections, and numerous legs waving helplessly (Kafka, 2024, p. 5). What would remain of your value to your employer, your family, or yourself if you could no longer produce?
Franz Kafka introduces this disturbing idea in his novella The Metamorphosis, whose main character, travelling salesman Gregor Samsa, experiences this transformation. However, Gregor’s transformation does not create his alienation; it exposes a condition that already controls his life. Even before losing his ability to work, he is trapped in a job he dislikes. He remains because his family depends on his income, leaving little space for his own desires. This fictional character raises a wider question: how can work separate people from their personal lives instead of helping them express who they truly are? Marx’s theory of alienated labour provides a framework for understanding Gregor’s situation. This essay explains Marx’s four aspects of alienation, links them to Gregor’s experience, considers why the novel continues to resonate with contemporary workers, and discusses how employers can reduce workplace alienation.
Marx and Alienated Labour
Karl Marx developed his theory of alienated labour in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, particularly in a section titled “Estranged Labour.” In its general English meaning, alienation refers to a state in which someone feels isolated from a group to which they should belong (Oxford University Press, n.d.). Marx goes beyond this definition. He explains workplace alienation and why workers may feel alienated from their work. Labour feels external when workers experience their jobs as something imposed from outside rather than as a free expression of themselves. Under the conditions Marx describes, workers have little control over the nature or purpose of their work. Depending on the workplace hierarchy, tasks are assigned by an employer or manager. As a result, workers may feel more like themselves outside work and may feel that their working hours belong to someone else (Marx, 1959). Marx’s theory does not merely describe a worker’s personal feelings. He views alienation as a condition produced by the economic organization of labour: the employer controls the activity and owns its results. In Marx’s theory, alien describes something that has become foreign or separate from the worker. Gregor’s physical transformation turns this invisible social separation into something readers can see. Marx describes four aspects of alienation: alienation from the product, the labour process, human potential or species-being, and other people (Marx, 1959).
The Four Dimensions of Alienation
I. Alienation from the Product
Alienation from the product occurs when the worker is separated from the object, service, or result their labour creates. Marx writes, “The worker puts his life into the object” (Marx, 1959, p. 29). Here, “life” refers to the worker’s time, energy, and abilities becoming part of something that ultimately belongs to someone else. The employer owns the result and decides how it will be used or sold. Going back to The Metamorphosis, Gregor is a salesman, so his “product” is not exactly a physical object that he manufactures. Rather, the result of his labour is the revenue generated for his employer. In return, he receives wages that support his family and help repay his parents’ debt (Kafka, 2024, p. 6). Therefore, although Gregor’s labour produces economic value, that value does not provide him with freedom, ownership, or personal fulfilment.
II. Alienation from the Labour Process
The second aspect is alienation from the labour process, in which the worker lacks meaningful control over when, how, or why the work is performed. The process itself can feel as if it belongs to the employer rather than the employee. Gregor’s schedule is controlled by trains and travelling requirements, and he describes the routine as exhausting. He has no control over his working time, tasks, or methods. Yet his first reaction upon waking is to worry about missing his train and upsetting his employer before fully confronting what has happened to his body. This shows how deeply the work routine controls his thinking. Gregor dislikes the job and wants to leave, but his parents’ debt restricts that choice (Kafka, 2024, p. 6). As Marx explains, “His labor is therefore not voluntary, but coerced” (Marx, 1959, p. 30).
A simple example helps distinguish alienation from the product from alienation within the labour process. A worker manufactures a table but does not own or control it; this is alienation from the product. However, if the worker must manufacture the table according to someone else’s schedule, design, and method, this is alienation from the labour process.
III. Alienation from Human Potential (Species-Being)
Alienation from human potential, or what Marx calls species-being, occurs when workers become separated from their capacity to act consciously, freely, creatively, and socially. Under alienated labour, work becomes merely a way to stay alive. As Marx writes, “Life itself appears only as a means to life” (Marx, 1959, p. 31). Human beings can do more than survive; they can create beauty and meaning. Gregor’s life, however, is devoted to earning money and repaying debt. After his transformation, his emotional response to his sister’s violin playing suggests that his sensitive side remains alive beneath his identity as a worker or an insect. Gregor even wonders, “Was he an animal if music could captivate him so?” (Kafka, 2024, p. 51). His response shows that his capacity for beauty and emotion endures even when others no longer recognize his humanity.
Most workplaces have rules and professional standards that workers are expected to follow. These standards can be useful, but they may become alienating when workplace expectations force people to suppress important parts of their identity, values, emotions, or creativity.
IV. Alienation from Other People
Alienated labour produces “the estrangement of man from man” (Marx, 1959, p. 32). In this final aspect, Marx explains that alienated labour separates human beings from one another. In a society organized around money and wage labour, economic relationships may shape how people view and relate to each other. Alienation from others can be illustrated through three relationships: employers, colleagues, and families.
The first is the relationship between employers and employees. Employers may view their workers mainly in terms of productivity. When Gregor misses work because of his transformation, his employer responds by sending the chief clerk to his house (Kafka, 2024, p. 11). The second is the relationship between colleagues. Two coworkers could have become close friends, but competition for recognition, promotion, or job security can place them against each other. The third is the family relationship. Family members may begin to view a worker mainly as a source of income. Once Gregor can no longer work, his family increasingly views him as a burden. His sister moves from caring for him to insisting that the family must get rid of him. However, the family’s response involves not only money but also fear, exhaustion, and their inability to communicate with Gregor. After he dies, they feel relieved and begin imagining a better future (Kafka, 2024, pp. 56–64). Gregor’s experience shows the danger of relationships becoming financially conditioned, as a person’s value may become tied to what they provide.
Why Gregor Still Feels Familiar: Alienation Today
Gregor’s transformation is fictional, but why do contemporary workers relate to his exhausting routine, isolation, and fear of losing income even though Kafka created him more than a century ago? According to Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2026 report, 48% of employees in the Middle East and North Africa experienced stress during much of the previous day, while only 14% were engaged at work (Gallup, 2026). Although disengagement is not the same as Marxist alienation, these findings suggest a widespread distance between many workers and their work.
Career choices can also change according to the job market, as people may shape their paths around income and market demands rather than their personal interests. In its 2026 Graduate Outlook Survey, CFA Institute surveyed university students and recent graduates aged 18–25 across 11 markets. Half identified salary as their primary career driver, while 67% prioritized job security over finding the “perfect” position (CFA Institute, 2026). These statistics do not prove that the people surveyed are alienated; they simply imply that financial security can influence career choices and sometimes take priority over personally meaningful work, which may create conditions for labour alienation.
But if the workplace is unsatisfying for the worker, why don’t they simply leave? Just as Gregor is constrained by his family’s debt, workers may be constrained by the need to secure a livelihood, personal responsibilities, or fear of being replaced. Gregor also dreams of leaving, but he has commitments that limit his choice. However, not every repetitive, professional, or financially motivated job is necessarily alienating. Marx’s framework becomes relevant when workers lack ownership, autonomy, meaning, and authentic human connection.
What Can Employers Do to Reduce Alienation?
Marx’s theory does not suggest that every structured workplace is necessarily alienating. A healthy workplace should not drain workers’ lives. Repetitive work can provide stability, routine, and income, along with a sense of achievement. Professional rules can also maintain order and protect workers’ rights. The problem begins when workers lack control, when their efforts go unappreciated, when they do not see meaning in their work, or when they are valued only for their productivity. Work can also affect employees beyond their paid hours. Technically, their evenings belong to them, but exhaustion may leave them without enough energy for relationships, hobbies, creativity, or rest. This connects directly to the species-being aspect. Employers can offer workers reasonable control over how they complete tasks, invite them into decisions, have meaningful discussions with them, recognize their contributions, reduce toxic competition, show empathy, and maintain manageable workloads to prevent burnout. Gregor’s employer takes the opposite approach: after one missed morning, the company responds with suspicion and sends the chief clerk instead of asking whether he is okay.
Conclusion
Gregor’s transformation does not create his alienation; it exposes what already controls his life. Connecting his situation with Marx’s theory, Gregor lacks ownership of what his labour produces, lacks control over the working process, faces limits on his wider human potential, and experiences relationships shaped by economic usefulness. In a world where labour is often valued above other things, are we really different from this fictional character?
Recognizing alienation also shows that workplaces can be organized differently, allowing employers to protect workers’ autonomy, relationships, and lives beyond productivity. Contemporary workers depend on wages to live, and many have limited control over workplace rules and their own work. Like Gregor, workers may feel replaceable and may feel that their value is connected to their productivity. Gregor’s transformation makes an invisible condition visible: people already treat him mainly as a worker and provider, and after his transformation, they increasingly treat him as a burden. What remains of a person’s value when they are no longer able to produce?
References
Kafka, F. (2024). Metamorphosis. Penguin Random House SEA.
Marx, K. (1959). Estranged labour. In Economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844 (M. Milligan, Trans.). Progress Publishers. (Original work written 1844). https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/labour.htm
Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Alienation. In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Retrieved July 27, 2026, from https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/alienation
Gallup. (2026). State of the global workplace 2026: Global data summary. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/697904/state-of-the-global-workplace-global-data.aspx
CFA Institute. (2026). Finance remains the top career choice as graduates prepare for an increasingly competitive, AI-shaped job market. https://www.cfainstitute.org/about/press-room/2026/global-graduate-outlook-survey-2026