First, we learn that Gregor has a job as a travelling salesman. This seems fair enough, as most grown people aspire to have jobs. What is somewhat odd, however is that Gregor has a job but lives with his parents and sister. But at this point in the novel we can, perhaps give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he hasn't been at this very long and doesn't have the funds to buy his own place.
The next morsel of information regarding Gregor's work situation is that doesn't enjoy his job, and the only reason he hasn't quit is for his parents' sake. Gregor tells us (indirectly) that his parents owe his boss a large debt and he probably still has 5 or 6 more years of working until it's paid off. This raises the obvious question: why is Gregor working at a job he hates to pay off his parents' debt? Shouldn't they pay it off themselves? We don't really find out.
We do learn, however, that Gregor has already been working at his job for 5 years, so his parents' debt must be quite large, indeed. The question of why he's living with his parents is therefore answered, because obviously if all the money he makes is going towards paying off this debt, then there wouldn't be any for him to save to buy his own apartment.
Gregor mentions taking the train to work every morning. Taking the train costs money. This is probably the first sign we get that the Samsas are not so poor that they are living on the streets or some other extreme case like that. It is possible that the company pays for him to take the train, but if Gregor's family owes the company money then I don't think they'd extend that courtesy.
Another telling sign is that Gregor and his sister each have their own rooms. If the family was scraping to get by, one would think that they would've downsized to a smaller apartment and that Gregor and his sister would share a room. But they seem to have plenty of living space so, again, why is Gregor working to pay off this debt? Why does the debt exist in the first place?
The family also has a maid, where generally poor, indebted families, don't splurge on a luxury such as that. They also are perfectly willing to call a blacksmith and a doctor when Gregor won't come out of his room, where poorer people would be more careful about such expenses. One gets the feeling that Mr. and Mrs. Samsa aren't really doing their best to get this debt paid off as soon as possible. If they wanted the debt paid off fast so that Gregor didn't have to keep at this job for so long, they could have cut their costs by a lot and would therefore be able to put much more of Gregor's paycheck towards the debt. This would have saved Gregor a lot of trouble, but Gregor's parents don't seem to think of his well-being very much, especially since they're making him pay the debt instead of doing it themselves. This is not what I would call good parenting.
And as the story unfolds, there's the implication that Gregor's transformation effects a change in the family as well--ironically, a positive one. It's almost as if his working for them has *made* them lazy and unmotivated, and his removal from the human scene makes them get it together. This fits with Gregor's sense of himself as nothing more than a burden in either case, and his conviction at the end that his family will be better off without him.
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