In literature, the archetypal absent mother haunts almost every page of . Gregor Samsa’s mother is present but emotionally vanished—she faints at the sight of him, retreats into domestic helplessness, and ultimately abandons him to the cold logic of his father. Gregor’s transformation into a vermin is a physical manifestation of the son’s feeling of being an unlovable, monstrous burden to an inaccessible mother.