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Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
There aren't many stories that begin with an opening as shocking and hideous as Kafka's opening sentence in The Metamorphosis. It is preposterous of course to imagine waking up in bed and discovering you are a huge roach, but by doing that Kafka has the reader's undivided attention. He has set the tone for what will follow. Not only is he a big insect, his voice sounds like the buzzing of an insect. This is a story with a psychological twist; it is likely that Kafka wrote this story in order to somehow work through his rebellion against his father, with whom he had a tense relationship. Meanwhile the protagonist / bug is Gregor Samsa, who has to remain in his room lest his family find out that he isn't a human anymore. His family is in denial that the bug is really Gregor. They shove him back into his room. The problem is more complicated than just a man turning into a cockroach; Gregor was the breadwinner but now he obviously cannot report for work as a roach. But due to his inability to continue as a human -- juxtaposed with the family's need to earn money -- the family finds jobs....
They also take in renters, who don't know about Gregor the roach, but one night when a violin was playing Gregor came out of the room and when the renters spotted him they threatened to leave without paying rent. It is an altogether bizarre scene and a very strange and yet compelling story. Gregor has to play hide-and-seek with various people that arrive at the house because well, cockroaches aren't supposed to appear where humans once took up space.
Response to the Story
The story is impossible and even ridiculous of course but in fiction the writer can do whatever he wishes. A reader is asked to allow the unbelievable to become believable. The reader is supposed to relate to a man who has turned into a bug, and when his boss comes to the house to fetch him to come to work, the boss finds his employee has become a bug. That scene is both funny and strange. It is strange that the bug finds comfort for the first time in his experience as a cockroach when his boss is in the house. When Gregor "flopped down upon his many tiny legs…he felt a physical ease and comfort for the first…
Works Cited
Kafka, Franz. The Metamorphosis, in the Penal Colony and Other Stories: The Great Short
Works of Franz Kafka. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000.
Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis In The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka tells the story of Gregor Samsa, who transforms into a hideous insect-like creature. Gregor was a traveling salesman before he changed into the creature, and one day he wakes to find the transformation has taken place during the night (Kafka 13). Throughout the rest of the novella, Gregor deals with the changes that have taken place and attempts to adjust to what
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And yet in his personal life despite the anguish he wrote about so eloquently he enjoyed modern novelties such as the cinema, aeroplanes, and motor-cycles. He went swimming and followed the vogue for nudism. He had his fair share of sexual affairs, and he complemented those with visits to brothels (Johnson, 2005). Doubts about his work caused Kafka before his death to ask that all of his unpublished manuscripts be
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