ShmoopTube

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Here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by The Avengers.

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Think they have room on the team for a giant cockroach? [The avengers and a giant cockroach]

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All right. A theme of this excerpt is...what??

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And here are the potential answers...[mumbling]

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When we’re trying to indentify themes we have to focus on the larger picture. [baby looks closely at a jar of cookies]

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We have to infer things from the words on the page, not just repeat what’s been said.

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We ask ourselves: what is the piece trying to say? [A baby girl sat with the cookie monster]

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Option (B) is way off.

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Gregor is an adult who helps to financially support his parents.

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But it definitely doesn’t appear like the piece is saying his situation is the way things

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ought to be.

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Throughout the whole passage it’s shown that Gregor is totally miserable. [Gregor sitting miserably on his own]

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He’s even more concerned with his depressing life situation than he is with the fact that

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he’s transformed into a bug. [Gregor transforms into a cockroach]

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Questionable priorities, but okay...

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(C) isn’t going to make the cut either.

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Yeah, Gregor is a hard working guy, but he hates everything about his job. [Gregor with a body of a cockroach typing on a computer]

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There’s nothing in the passage that paints a life of hard work as a good thing.

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Does Gregor talk about how fulfilled he is by his job? [Gregor waiting for a train]

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Does he hum a happy tune as he walks to the train each day?

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Not a chance.

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The absurdity of the fact that Gregor focuses on his crappy job instead of the fact that

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he’s now a roach shows just how awful a life of meaningless work can be.[Gregor holding a briefcase sat with Obama]

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Choice (D) is a little more interesting than the first two options.

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There is a chance that Gregor, in fact, has not turned into a cockroach. [Gregor looking at himself as a cockroach in the mirror]

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It could be that his terrible life has finally caused him to snap.

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All this mental distress might have caused some psychic break in which he now thinks

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he’s transformed into a bug.

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And, whatever’s going on, he is hiding it from his family by refusing to unlock the [Knock at the door and Gregor as a cockroach hides]

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door.

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However, the passage never comments on whether any of this is good.

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When we woke up and thought we were koala bears, we told everybody.

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And it was the best thing we ever did.

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(A) is the only answer that gets it right. [Gregor sat by a desk]

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The main theme is that Gregor feels like a disgusting, useless bug because he is always

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serving others.

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He hates his situation but does nothing to change it, which makes him feel more like [Gregor with a cockroach body feeling miserable]

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a cockroach than a man.

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So what did it mean when we felt like koalas? [A koala hanging onto a branch and a girl appears]

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