he Metamorphosis Franz Kafka

See also Franz Kafka Short Story Criticism and "A Hunger Artist" Criticism.

The Metamorphosis is one of the most frequently analyzed works in literature. This
elusive story, which chronicles the transformation of Gregor Samsa from a human being
into an enormous insect, is renowned for its ability to inspire diverse, sometimes
mutually exclusive interpretations. For this reason The Metamorphosis has come to be
considered one of the central enigmas of the modern literary imagination. Nevertheless,
critics generally praise Kafka's powerful and symbolic portrayal of alienation achieved
through the literalized metaphor of man as insect.
Plot and Major Characters
The Metamorphosis opens as Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, awakes to find
himself transformed into a "monstrous vermin." Initially shocked by the change, Gregor
soon begins to worry that he will miss his train and be late for work. He also laments the
boredom of his job, employment to which he had resigned himself for as long as
necessary to pay off his parents' debts. From outside the room, Gregor's worried mother
calls to him. Gregor, unfamiliar with his new body, struggles to get out of bed. Later, the
chief clerk of his office appears outside the locked door to Gregor's room, inquiring why
his employee has missed the early train. Speaking through the door, Gregor claims that
he is slightly ill but will soon be on his way. Meanwhile, Gregor's concerned mother asks
her daughter Grete to call for a doctor and a locksmith. Finally Gregor manages to open
his door. His appearance startles the chief clerk, and although Gregor tries to reason
with him, claiming he will get dressed and be on his way to work, the clerk retreats from
the giant insect, as does Gregor's frightened mother. Gregor's father then appears and
drives Gregor back into his room.
Time passes, and Gregor's family members grow more accustomed to living with
Gregor in this strange form, though only Grete has the courage to enter her brother's
room in the ensuing days. When Gregor leaves his room weeks later, his mother
becomes distraught, and her husband forces Gregor to his room under a hail of thrown
apples. Gravely injured and largely unable to move, Gregor suffers a lonely
convalescence that lasts for more than a month. In the interim Gregor's mother devotes
herself to sewing while his sister takes a job as a salesgirl. Increasingly, Gregor is
neglected by his family. They hire a charwoman to attend to the heavier work around
the house, tasks that used to be performed by Gregor. Odds and ends are placed in his
room for storage, primarily to make space for three male lodgers the Samsas have
taken in to supplement their income. One evening as Grete plays the violin for these
men, Gregor is attracted by the music and crawls unnoticed into the living room. Later,
one of the boarders observes him. Citing the revolting condition of the household, the
lodgers threaten to give notice and depart. Grete realizes that they must get rid of this
giant bug, which she seems to no longer view as her brother. The following morning, the
charwoman enters Gregor's room and finds him dead. When the lodgers appear and
demand breakfast, Mr. Samsa orders them to leave. Meanwhile, the giggling
charwoman returns and explains that she has disposed of Gregor's body. The story
closes as Gregor's parents, newly optimistic for the future and without a thought of their
deceased son, comment on their daughter's vivacity and beauty, realizing she has
grown into a woman.
Major Themes
Thematic analysis of The Metamorphosis has tended to focus on the psychoanalytic
and symbolic, or allegorical, nature of the story. While evaluations of the narrative vary,
many commentators view the theme of alienation from humanity at the center of the
story and interpret Gregor's transformation as a kind of wish-fulfillment or as an
extended metaphor. Critics who perceive the metamorphosis as a form of wish-
fulfillment on Gregor's part find in the text clues indicating that he deeply resented
having to support his family. Desiring to be in turn nurtured by them, he becomes a
parasite in entomological fact. The complete dependence of Gregor's family and
employer on him, then, is seen as an ironic foil to the reality of Gregor's anatomical
transformation into a parasite. Many critics who approach the story in this way believe
the primary emphasis of The Metamorphosis is not upon Gregor, but on his family, as
they abandon their dependence on him and learn to be self-sufficient. One interpretation
of the story holds that the title applies equally to Gregor's sister Grete: she passes from
girlhood to young womanhood during the course of the narrative. Another view of
Gregor's transformation is that it is an extended metaphor, carried from abstract concept
to concrete reality: trapped in a meaningless job and isolated from the human beings
around him, Gregor is thought of as an insect by himself and by others, so he becomes
one.
Critical Reception
Kafka's letters to his fiancée Felice Bauer, and his diary entries concerning The
Metamorphosis, indicate that although he was generally satisfied with the tale, he felt
the ending was seriously flawed. For this he blamed a business trip that had interrupted
him just before he completed the story. However, critics have noted that The
Metamorphosis is one of the few works for which Kafka actively sought publication.
Since Kafka's death, critical interest in the novella has been considerable. In addition to
the attention critics have placed on thematic analysis ofThe Metamorphosis, several
have observed its sustained realism, which contrasts with the initially fantastic
occurrence of Gregor's transformation into an insect. Many critics have also offered
psychoanalytical interpretations of The Metamorphosis, seeing in the work a
dramatization of particularly modern neuroses. For its technical excellence, as well as
for the nightmarish and fascinating nature of the metamorphosis itself, Kafka's story has
elicited a vast amount of interest, and its various problematic features continue to
challenge its readers. Stanley Corngold has noted that "no single reading of Kafka
escapes blindness," but that each new reading of his work encourages the study of the
vast body of criticism devoted to it.
The opening paragraph is surreal, especially if you take 'surreal' to mean dreamlike,
yes? 

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered

that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. He lay on his
armour-hard back and saw, as he lifted his head up a little, his brown, arched abdomen
divided up into rigid bow-like sections. From this height the blanket, just about ready to
slide off completely, could hardly stay in place. His numerous legs, pitifully thin in
comparison to the rest of his circumference, flickered helplessly before his eyes

Well, surrealistic can either be defined as having a dreamlike quality or, in literature,
producing fantastic, incongruous imagery by juxtaposing and combining things that don't
belong together. Based on the first definition:

-Gregor doesn't seem to care that he is a bug, which is very dreamlike. It's as if
everything doesn't matter and is out of his control. 
-Gregor is, creepily, a very large bug. Which, while the transformation itself is
unrealistic, so is his size. 
-Gregor seems to know how to act as a bug--hiding under the couch from his sister and
climbing on the wall. How would he know how to do that? 
-When he starts to die from the apple in his back, he goes all giddy. It's weird. 

However, I think the second definition, the literary one, is more applicable here. Based
on that... 

-Isn't Gregor a traveling salesman? What a plain job, that doesn't seem to have much
importance, outside of himself. There could be a commentary on that idea based on his
transformation. 
-Like I said before, he doesn't care what he is, just that he can't do his work. That's very
unusual and discomforting. If I turned into a bug, the last thing on my mind would be
how to get to work. 
-There is sharp contrast among the reactions in his household. It's been a while since I
read it, but isn't his mother the most horrified? That's also very discomforting, as one
should expect one's mother to be there as a comforter and someone to rely on. 
-Also, you want his sister's attitude to prevail, but it doesn't. She slowly starts becoming
more and more like her parents. 
-Isn't an apple a day supposed to keep the doctor away? Not in this case... I'm sure
there's symbolism there, but I don't know what... 
-Lastly, the end of the story is very awkward. Gregor basically loses his mind and just
thinks he's going to peacefully go to sleep when he dies. Also, the family just leaves at
the end. Everyone just seems to have a "you know, whatever" attitude about it all, when
the breadwinner in their family dies.

Surrealism is a good term to apply to Kafka’s work, because etymologically it means

“above realism.”  In the early 1920’s artists and writers experimented with alternates to
realism, the prevailing mode prior to World War I.  Surrealism is often referred to as
“literature in the dream state,” where a different kind of logic (or non-logic) prevails (as
we all experience when we dream disjointed but strangely detailed events).  If we
remember that Georg Samsa wakes up “from a restless sleep” to discover that he has
taken on an exo-skeleton “beetle-like” shape, we see that Kafka is inverting the
relationship between so-called “reality” and the dream-state.  The key to understanding
this reversal is remembering that strange dreams come from “anxieties” that cause
“restless sleep”.   In the 17th century Spanish Calderon wrote a play entitled Life is a
Dream (La Vida es Sueno) in which such a role reversal is manufactured, to make the
same point—that our daily “logical” life could be a dream.  Georg Samsa “wakes” into
the surrealistic dream world where apples stick in his casing, etc.  Kafka is using this
surreal device to question the assumed cause-effect “essence” (as opposed to the
“existence precedes essence” idea of existentialism) of life.  If you read the whole story
as a recital of a dream Samsa is having, you will be much enriched by the layers of
narration Kafka handles here

This novel encompasses the very core of most modernist works in accordance with the
motif of surrealism. This may be seen especially in The Metamorphosis because every
detailed, unrealistic event breathes an extraordinary aesthetic value to the reader but is
commonplace in the perspective of the characters to whom these events occur. Imagine
waking up one morning to find yourself morphed into a giant insect but still be
concerned about the fact that you're late for work and haven't had your morning coffee.
In direct correlation with the time period in which the novel was writen, surrealism takes
hold of the reader as a part of the intent of absurdist literature to evoke shock and awe
through an irrational element coupled with a realistic setting. What's perhaps most
interesting is the author's ability to exclude his own voice in order to open the novel to
interpretation making it much more interactive and exciting for the reader. Kafka uses
such descriptive sentences of the surreal elements in the novel that it works to
challenge the reader's imagination. You try imagining an insect-like creature with a hard
armor-plated back, a domelike brown belly divided into stiff arched segments and
numerous legs pitifully thin compared to the rest of his bulk waving helplessly in front of
his own eyes....too much? Kafka not only focuses on the intricacies of the protagonist's
physical transformation but also on the psychological transformation he undergoes as
he adapts to his new self. It is unclear whether or not the author wanted us as readers
to assume that Gregor Samsa has indeed been physically altered into an insect-like
creature, or whether the pressures of the world around him, including his debts and his
need to support his family caused him to dehumanize himself merely in his mind. That is
for you to decide. In the most extensively used version of the novel with inroduction and
notes by Jason Baker, there is an outstanding quote that tells you all you need to know
about the author and his reflection in The Metamorphosis; "Franz Kafka's fiction doesn't
make sense...Kafka's writing is on the one hand specific and realistic, and on the other
incomprehensible."