However, rather than attempt to resolve these issues or find new employment he continues both working there and dwelling in his dislike for it. It would even seem that this abusive environment motivates Gregor and that his fear of failing there drives him every day to same misery. .
Gregor states that his main motivation for his employment situation is for his family to pay off their debts but we see then that his family does not act gratefully, but rather they expect this of him. So even if his motivation is to help his family, it is one more similar to an obligation or servancy. This passive, accepting behavior can be described as indicative of a masochist1. Gregor continues to hypnotically work at a miserable job that not he, but his father selected for him, cowering under his employers, for the sake of his ungrateful family. Considering that Gregor could either choose to not help his family or at least do so in a different employment, it seems as though this character does truly want to or feel the need to suffer.
The next example of Gregors helpless devotion to suffering for the sake of others is his withdrawal from the world after his bugitude. We know that Gregors actions before the transformation were self-suffering and driven to appease others, but this behavior continues afterwards too, when he reveals the shame of being so nonhuman the shame that would bring to his family and to his employment. So, in response, he lives in solitude to save the public from the distress of interaction with a bug monster. He proceeds to never leave his bedroom, and even spares his little sister when she comes into feed him as he "not without a slight feeling of shame, he [had] scutted under the sofa." (13) In this act of reclusion, Gregor demonstrates a basic instinct to suffer in shaming himself in order to prevent the suffering of others.
The most important and certainly defining event in Gregor's martyrdom is his demonstration of the most masochistic act humanly possible; death.