When Gregor wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect, he is separated from a vital part of human life. His taste has changed, and he can no longer eat the same foods he ate as a human. His new view on the value of eating is one of the reasons for his decline and eventual death. His family, seeing that he no longer has any human qualities, begins to exclude him from all family life. Food is also important in the novel in that lack of it leads to Gregor's death. Although he cannot eat normal human food, the author suggests that there are other foods that would be suitable for Gregor, such as rotten cheese and other garbage. The family fails to provide these, and Gregor wastes away. Food is used in the novel to show just one way that the protagonist's life has become miserable.
As in all societies, mealtimes are a form of social gathering in both One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and The Metamorphosis. This role of food is quite pronounced in Kafka's novel. In the story, family gatherings almost always occur at mealtimes. Gregor's exclusion from the table after his transformation is a reflection of his exclusion from the family altogether. Other familial relationships can be understood from seeing the Samsa's at mealtimes. A person's presence or absence from the table reveals important information about his or her current status within the family. Also, the family's behavior and mannerisms at the dinner table, although not described in depth by the author, are something of a portrayal of German social customs. Of course, Germans of different social standing would have had dining customs that were different from each other, and by observing the Samsa's customs in comparison to customs of different social classes in Germany at the time, it is possible to place them in their own social class, or to guess what social class they attempt to imitate.
