Martyr or Sacrifice

I think while comparing characters in stories to Christ like figures it is important to discuss whether the character was a martyr or a sacrifice. The connotation behind a martyr is a person that GAVE their life to further a cause or protect some divine integrity. A sacrifice gives the strong connotation that the soon to be deceased has had their fate chosen for them such as the slaughter of an animal to appease gods.

A very important distinction between Gregor and a "true Christ" figure is that Gregor is a sacrifice not a martyr. While in his vermin-like state he forces those around him to come out of their static lives and start to live with actual meaning, he has not chosen to give up his humanity to bestow this backhanded gift on his family. This is very clearly a condition inflicted on Gregor that he had no control over. In this sense it gives a modern existential twist to an old religious dogma. Where in antiquity a divine plan was laid out and brought to fruition to give our lives meaning, in Kafka's revised version a terrible happening causes the people around to force meaning on their own selves. There is no sense of plan in Gregor that would cause the reader to believe that his transformation was done to save those around him.

When Gregor dies it is not some grand martyrdom but a simple excepting of what has already happened to him. The family takes this sacrifice take their new lives and recede into a more appropriate way o living. I believe that Gregor is a Crhist figure but one without divine guidence or self direction. Through Gregor the vision of the savior goes from being a lofty divine savior to the brother in the next room with the unpredictable disease of nature.