Metamorphisis

by Franz Kafka

One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he looked.

62 pages, Paperback

Published February 4, 2023

About the author

Franz Kafka was a German-speaking writer from Prague whose work became one of the foundations of modern literature, even though he published only a small part of his writing during his lifetime. Born into a middle-class Jewish family in Prague, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Kafka grew up amid German, Czech, and Jewish cultural influences that shaped his sense of displacement and linguistic precision. His difficult relationship with his authoritarian father left a lasting mark, fostering feelings of guilt, anxiety, and inadequacy that became central themes in his fiction and personal writings.
Kafka studied law at the German University in Prague, earning a doctorate in 1906. He chose law for practical reasons rather than personal inclination, a compromise that troubled him throughout his life. After university, he worked for several insurance institutions, most notably the Workers Accident Insurance Institute for the Kingdom of Bohemia. His duties included assessing industrial accidents and drafting legal reports, work he carried out competently and responsibly. Nevertheless, Kafka regarded his professional life as an obstacle to his true vocation, and most of his writing was done at night or during periods of illness and leave. Kafka began publishing short prose pieces in his early adulthood, later collected in volumes such as Contemplation and A Country Doctor. These works attracted little attention at the time but already displayed the hallmarks of his mature style, including precise language, emotional restraint, and the application of calm logic to deeply unsettling situations. His major novels The Trial, The Castle, and Amerika were left unfinished and unpublished during his lifetime. They depict protagonists trapped within opaque systems of authority, facing accusations, rules, or hierarchies that remain unexplained and unreachable. Themes of alienation, guilt, bureaucracy, law, and punishment run throughout Kafka’s work. His characters often respond to absurd or terrifying circumstances with obedience or resignation, reflecting his own conflicted relationship with authority and obligation. Kafka’s prose avoids overt symbolism, yet his narratives function as powerful metaphors through structure, repetition, and tone. Ordinary environments gradually become nightmarish without losing their internal coherence. Kafka’s personal life was marked by emotional conflict, chronic self-doubt, and recurring illness. He formed intense but troubled romantic relationships, including engagements that he repeatedly broke off, fearing that marriage would interfere with his writing. His extensive correspondence and diaries reveal a relentless self-critic, deeply concerned with morality, spirituality, and the demands of artistic integrity. In his later years, Kafka’s health deteriorated due to tuberculosis, forcing him to withdraw from work and spend long periods in sanatoriums. Despite his illness, he continued writing when possible. He died young, leaving behind a large body of unpublished manuscripts. Before his death, he instructed his close friend Max Brod to destroy all of his remaining work. Brod ignored this request and instead edited and published Kafka’s novels, stories, and diaries, ensuring his posthumous reputation.
The publication of Kafka’s work after his death established him as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. The term Kafkaesque entered common usage to describe situations marked by oppressive bureaucracy, absurd logic, and existential anxiety. His writing has been interpreted through existential, religious, psychological, and political perspectives, though Kafka himself resisted definitive meanings. His enduring power lies in his ability to articulate modern anxiety with clarity and restraint.

Reviews

[Jeff Bradford · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too bizarre for my liking

[Rimsha Khan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka

The setting takes place in 20th century Europe during the industrial revolution. There are 3 main characters, Gregor, Gregor’s father and Gregor’s sister. Throughout the story Gregor is hit with the feeling of alienation and isolation as he wakes up as a cockroach. He feels useless in society and hated by his family for not contributing to the household, and ultimately starves himself to death to find relief. His family then feel the burden of living with him lifted off their shoulders and they look towards the future and move to the country side of their country. The conflict of the story is that Gregor feels trapped under the circumstances of his work-life and the state of his country. Workers are always being exploited so that wealthy people get more money off harsh labor, and Gregor is a victim of it. He works as a traveling salesman and gets burnt out in the beginning after clocking in day in and day out until he physically and mentally cannot do it anymore-- waking up as a cockroach. His father sees that he gave up on working and becomes hostile towards him since Gregor would be the one paying off his debts, and just like his father, his whole family start to resent him (except his sister at first) since they find it a burden on taking care of him. The book ended with Gregor starving himself to end the empty feeling of isolation, which was sad because his family was under the same roof as him, but they always neglected him just because he couldn't work anymore. My favorite part of the book was when his sister would give him food since it showed that at least someone cared about him even when he felt alone. People who would life this book would be those who are interested in fantasy with some history about people living in 20th century Europe.

[mannleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5)

This is a pretty easy book to read for beginners (Mostly because it's a short story) unlike most classical books the writing is fairly easy to understand.

I enjoyed this book a lot. I feel like the whole forming into a bug concept overshadows the actual meaning of the book and more people should know of it. The phrase 'would you love me if i was a worm' would describe this book. It shows how Gregor's family reacted to his change, and it's a reference to Kafka's relationship with his parents, as he was a sad teenager, which strained his relationship with his father.

Its sort of like how you change when you grow up and your parents opinions on you shift if you catch my drift.

[Alicia O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this when i was 19 n it’s been on my mind so much recently. maybe bc ive been reading kafka’s letter to his father & it’s brought back the mems of reading this. i have no words to describe or explain this book im gna stay mysterious & just say i think it definitely deserves a re read this summer 😈

[kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shoutout Mrs Daken because without her I wouldn’t have been able to understand a single thing happening in this book

[alina · Rating 2 out of 5]

that was weird. and perhaps slightly pedophilic towards the end. although what's new with male authors atp

[Stella Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

when your family has so much beef with your state of being they throw an apple at you and let it rot while it’s lodged in your abdomen.