The Gregor Effect

Hypothesis: While acting like my dad is no use to me, he will become anxious to my behavior and will develop anger toward me.
Subjects: My Father, Juan P.
Independent Variable: My attitude and behavior will change. I will begin to act like my dad is invisible and disgusting.
Dependent Variable: My dad will start to act different toward me and will question the way I am behaving.
Control Group: Other family members (Mom, Sister, Brothers and Grandma).
Experimental Group: My dad.

Experimental Notes (Observations):
Day 1:
My actions                                                                Dad’s reaction

Day 2 (Acting like Gregor’s sister):
My actions                                                                Dad’s reactions

Day 3:
My actions                                                                Dad’s reactions

Analysis

The Gregor Effect is an experiment I composed. It was to see how a real person would act if they were to be treated like Gregor, the main character from The Metamorphosis. Gregor was the core of his family because he supported them financially. He turned into a beetle and was no longer able to make money and pay off the family’s debts. His family began to treat him as if he were disgusting and no longer important. They did not want to take care of him. For my experiment, I treated my dad, the money-maker in my family, as if he were Gregor. I wanted to see how my dad would react to the whole situation and if he would have any similar reaction to Gregor.

My first action was to avoid any contact with my dad, meaning no talking or being in the same room as him. This connects with my second action, which was forwarding his phone calls. When he would come into the same room as me, I would immediately leave. At first he did not notice, but then he would watch me walk out and soon started to avoid coming into rooms I was in. I believe he started to do this because he had a feeling that he was not wanted, so he did not want to go through those awkward moments. When he would call me, I forwarded his calls. When I saw him later that day, he asked me why I did not answer and I tried answering with the fewest words possible. Any other day I would answer right away. His reaction when he got home was disappointed. There was no similar action from my dad and Gregor. His overall reaction to my lack of communication was shock; he was not used to this kind of treatment.

My father and I have a strong relationship. We always have great conversations and tell each other everything and ask any questions we have. My next action was to see how he would react to me  asking my mom the questions I would normally ask him and have more conversations with her while he was close to use. At first he didn’t pay much attention, but I had heard him talking to my mom. He asked her if she noticed my weird behavior. I believe my dad grew a little jealous because I was not talking to him. To me this is normal; he is used to having me to talk to him. I also noticed that when I would ignore him, he would talk to my younger sister more.

On Day Two, my reactions were more like the way Gregor’s sister acted in the book. She would take care of Gregor but was disgusted by her brother. My first reaction for Day Two was making his food look messy and not edible. On this day we had chicken, rice, beans and vegetables for dinner, I mixed all of it together and it looked gross. When I gave it to him, he looked at me like I was delirious. He did eat the food, but he was hesitant. With my strange behavior he probably thought I did something to his food. This reaction was different from Gregor’s because Gregor wanted to eat food that did not look appetizing, and my dad preferred food that was put together and neatly placed onto the plate.

Another thing I did was called my dad “it.” Yes, I find this disrespectful but I wanted to see how he would react. I got the reaction I expected; he was really upset and I received a slight punishment, which was to stay in my room the rest of the night. He asked me, “Do I look like an it? Since I’m it and not your dad, you can find a way to buy your own things.” This made me feel bad because I could see the hurt in his eyes. We usually play around like this, but I had said it in a serious tone, and when I did say it, his facial expression changed. I got a little scared. I think he felt disrespected because he is my parent and provides me with everything that I need, and for me to call him “it” was saying I had no respect toward him. I had a callous attitude.

On Day Three, I decided to go into my dad’s room and change things around. I wanted to see how he would react if I touched his things, so I moved some of his furniture. When I did the rearranging, my dad was not home. He arrived home and I sat there waiting to see how he reacted. He was frustrated at first because he was tired and didn’t want to deal with that stuff. After a while, he didn’t care and told me to change it back, so I did. I think at this point my dad was fed up with the actions that I was taking and he felt like talking wouldn’t work.  The difference between my dad and Gregor was that Gregor did not have the chance to voice his opinions, but my dad did, and he got his furniture back to the way it was.

After the three days of my experiment, I noticed a change in the relationship I had with my dad. It was now weird when we were around each other. After doing this, I realized how it must have been for Gregor to go through this type of situation with his own family. Yes, he was a big bug, but that should not have changed the attitude of his family members. They should have been there for him and treated him like him was still important. My actions were all similar to the ones that were taken place in The Metamorphosis, but the reactions were not the same for all. The different personalities played a role in the outcome; my dad knows how to advocate for himself better than  Gregor did, but in some cases, my dad held back what he wanted to say to me and said it to my mom.