The strong desire for money or luxury has distinguished the characters’ humane feelings in the two texts. Mr. Samsa and his family move away from Gregor since he loses the ability to produce money for them by turning into a bug. Gregor’s family now do not need him, hence “his family closed the door quickly behind him” and keep him locked away in his lonely room. For a while, Gregor’s sister, Grete takes good care of her brother and continues to love him, but unfortunately that does not last very long, and she is forced to get a job and go to work. That way she spends less time with her brother, and soon she develops a sense of disgust towards Gregor, and so she stops visiting him and left him in isolation. Similarly Charles, Eugenie’s love drifts away from Eugenie for financial purposes. Charles’ determination to regain his wealth and his father’s honour makes him leave Grandet. Ironically Grandet finances Charles’ initial steps by giving away her precious ‘coin box’ to Charles. He then returns after seven years and takes more money from Eugenie, just so that he can marry another wealthy girl, leaving his beloved in solitary, and Eugenie supports him out of the love she has for him. Both protagonists lose their most loved ones, simply because their loved ones run away from their emotional attachment because of materialistic attachments.
In both texts the protagonists are the ones affected by the greed of others. In Metamorphosis, Gregor was taken care of and was respected by his family, as long as he had the capacity to earn for them, and when Gregor would not earn money but still needed the support and attention of his family, the greed of the family makes them drift away from Gregor’s repellent appearance. In Eugenie Grandet, Monsieur Grandet wants his daughter married off to Monsieur Guchot de Bofone or Adolphe des Grassine. The only purpose of him to see his daughter married to people whom she does not even love is to see money flowing into his household. For him, one of the most important decisions of life that expresses emotional love to one is nothing but a business deal. Eugenie’s emotional feelings and thoughts are completely neglected by her father. Eugenie, like Gregor does have people who understood her feelings at various stages in her life, such as Mrs. Grandet and Nanon, who stuck with Eugenie for all their life as a support to her, unlike Grete for Gregor who eventually joins the rest of the family in being self-centred. However, the presence of Mrs. Grandet and Nanon for Eugenie and Grete for Gregor does not make a difference to the ultimate outcome of the story that is led by the greed of the antagonists. In fact, the greed of Eugenie’s father was to the extent that he was furious when he found out that Eugenie gave her precious box of coins to Charles. Her father was agitated enough to punish her, regardless of the emotional trauma Eugenie would undergo and without understanding the reason for which she gave the coin box to Charles. Monsieur Grandet fails to understand, rather fails to attempt to understand the emotional values of his daughter. When it comes to the family members being unable to understand the emotional values of the protagonists (after Mrs. Grandet dies), both Gregor and Eugenie are in the same boat, a barren life.
It is ironic that although the people around the main characters are money-oriented people who care only about money, to the extent that when Felix Grandet was living his last breaths, his eyes were glued to the golden cross of the priest, both Gregor and Eugenie are the most generous of all. Gregor works all his life for his family, and hardly ever thinks of himself. He sacrifices all his luxuries and opportunities in order to clear his family’s debt so that they can live peacefully and in comfort. But doing all that paid him back nothing but seclusion in his tiny bedroom. Similarly Eugenie sacrificed a lot of her wealth for Charles so that Charles can have the opportunity to succeed in life and so that he can marry the woman of his choice, even though she dearly loves him. Not only that, when Eugenie was the owner of all the wealth of her father left for her, she gave away a lot of her wealth to charity, and let herself live with just the basics of survival. Both characters (Gregor and Eugenie) are the only ones to have humane emotional feelings, but the selfish and corrupt society around them ended up leaving the two protagonists to die alone.
Finally, Eugenie Grandet and Metamorphosis are stories that illustrate the relationships of simplistic protagonists, and their relations with gluttonous people. Both protagonists (Gregor from Metamorphosis and Eugenie from Eugenie Grandet) are affected by the actions of their relatives that shape their entire lives.
