Society Care More About Conformity Then Individual Identity

Society care more about conformity then individual identity
Society care more about conformity then individual identity. Conformity is behaviour in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards. Identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. This state of being is shown through Franz Kafka’s “The Metamorphosis.” Gregor’s sister and family are very concerned with Gregor’s new state and how it will be accepted by society. They are afraid that if he is different that society will not care for him anymore. This is because society accepts conformity more than individual identity, due to the fear of being unaccepted as an individual. Famous scientists have been killed due to the fact of proposing a new idea that goes against the usual trend of everyday society. Society cares so much about conformity that they actually force others to conform, such as students in school uniform. Gregor strives to show his true identity to his family, out of fear that they will disown him both as a son and from society.
Striving to show identity is shown through the character of Gregor in Franz Kafka’s ‘The Metamorphosis.’ Gregor is almost disowned as a son after his radical transformation into ‘A…Vermin.’ During the rest of the story Gregor tries at the best of his ability to show to his parents that it is his soul inside the bug. His main course of action showing this was when his mother and sister were removing the furniture from his room. The furniture was the key symbolic distinction between man and beast. “he hurried up onto the picture and pressed himself against the glass… at least, completely covered by Gregor, would certainly not be taken away,” this shows that Gregor is still in his human frame of mind, and that he still has hopes that he will be cured of his illness. Unfortunately for Gregor, his sister and parents do not share the same hopes, they believe that he will be rejected by society for what he looks like and not who he really is.
Gregor’s sister, Grete, and parents both begin to believe that Gregor is transformed for good, making him a socially unacceptable outcast. This frame of mind means that Gregor’s parents, and sister believe that he is no good to anyone and might as well be dead. “We have to stop believing it’s Gregor anymore,’ Gregor’s family lost hope, and lost patience, this led to the series of acts that mortally wounded Gregor, leading to his tragic death. Gregor’s family knew that their society cared more about conformity than individual identity, otherwise they would have gone public with Gregor, knowing that he would have been instantly made famous. The expression “they follow each other like sheep,” is used in so many places of todays society has now been turned into a cliché. This is because we real humans actually do care about conformity rather than individual identity. society accepts conformity more than individual identity, due to the fear of being unaccepted as an individual. This is a sad thing that we as humans do, we could have accomplished so much more, and discovered many new things if society had not been so unacceptable of others. What could have been discovered if society had not gone against individuality and killed some of our most famous scientists such as Galileo, just for simply having an idea, or making a hypothesis. Clothing trends have become all too responsible for much of this conformity; school uniforms take students choice, the choice to express their identity the way they want to be seen. Trevor Priest, student of Flinders Christian Community college made the comment ‘We are all forced to be like sheep and conform with the 12 hundred other students in the school, we have no say and certainly no excitement with what we wear for 8+ hours a day 5 days a week.’ As much as people in society wants to be an individual, they are forced not to, out of fear of judgement from others.
Society care more about conformity than individuality in both ‘The Metamorphosis’ and our society. In The Metamorphosis, Gregor tries to portray to his family that he is Still Gregor by actions such as protecting the furniture in his room. Gregor’s family believes that Gregor is as good as dead, as he is no longer socially acceptable, and can no longer provide for his family and to society. Humans care more about conformity than individuality to such an extent where people are killed for being different. Humanity has made certain mandatory obligations for people, so they conform with one another in order to stop bad judgement of other people individual identity.

References
Top 10 scientists killed or injured in there experiments http://listverse.com/2008/06/04/top-10-scientists-killed-or-injured-by-their-experiments/ date visited 26/02/13
Galileo http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/galileo.html Date Visited 20/02/13
Franz Kafka, 1915 ‘The Metamorphosis’

References: Top 10 scientists killed or injured in there experiments http://listverse.com/2008/06/04/top-10-scientists-killed-or-injured-by-their-experiments/ date visited 26/02/13 Galileo http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/whos_who_level2/galileo.html Date Visited 20/02/13 Franz Kafka, 1915 ‘The Metamorphosis’