The Metamorphosis (German: Die Verwandlung), also translated as The Transformation, is a novella by Franz Kafka published in 1915. One of Kafka’s best-known works, The Metamorphosis tells the story of salesman Gregor Samsa, who wakes one morning to find himself inexplicably transformed into a huge insect (German: ungeheueres Ungeziefer, lit. “monstrous vermin”) and struggles to adjust to this condition.

The novella has been widely discussed among literary critics, who have offered varied interpretations. In popular culture and adaptations of the novella, the insect is commonly depicted as a cockroach.

About 70 printed pages, it is the longest of the stories Kafka considered complete and published during his lifetime. It was first published in 1915 in the October issue of the journal Die weißen Blätter under the editorship of René Schickele. The first edition in book form appeared in December 1915 in the series Der jüngste Tag, edited by Kurt Wolff.

Plot

Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning to find himself transformed into a “monstrous vermin”. He initially considers the transformation to be temporary and slowly ponders the consequences of his metamorphosis.

Stuck on his back and unable to get up and leave the bed, Gregor reflects on his job as a traveling salesman and cloth merchant, which he characterizes as being full of “temporary and constantly changing human relationships, which never come from the heart”.

He sees his employer as a despot and would quickly quit his job if he were not his family’s sole breadwinner and working off his bankrupt father’s debts. While trying to move, Gregor finds that his office manager, the chief clerk, has shown up to check on him, indignant about Gregor’s unexcused absence.

Gregor attempts to communicate with both the manager and his family, but all they can hear from behind the door is incomprehensible vocalizations. Gregor laboriously drags himself across the floor and opens the door.

The clerk, upon seeing the transformed Gregor, flees the apartment. Gregor’s family is horrified, and his father drives him back towards his room. Gregor is injured when he tries to force himself through the doorway (which is too narrow for him), but gets unstuck when his father shoves him through.

With Gregor’s unexpected transformation, his family is deprived of financial stability. They keep Gregor locked in his room, and he begins to accept his new identity and adapt to his new body.

His sister Grete is the only one willing to bring him food, which she finds Gregor only likes if it is rotten. He spends much of his time crawling around on the floor, walls, and ceiling.

Upon discovering Gregor’s new pastime, Grete decides to remove his furniture to give him more space. She and her mother begin to empty the room of everything, except the sofa under which Gregor hides whenever anyone comes in.

He finds their actions deeply distressing, fearing that he might forget his past as a human, and desperately tries to save a particularly loved portrait on the wall of a woman clad in fur.

His mother loses consciousness at the sight of him clinging to the image to protect it. When Grete rushes out of the room to get some aromatic spirits, Gregor follows her and is slightly hurt when she drops a medicine bottle and it breaks.

Their father returns home and angrily hurls apples at Gregor, one of which becomes lodged in a sensitive spot in his back and severely wounds him.

Gregor suffers from his injuries and eats very little. His father, mother, and sister all get jobs and increasingly begin to neglect him, and his room begins to be used for storage.

For a time, his family leaves Gregor’s door open in the evenings so he can listen to them talk to each other, but this happens less frequently once they rent a room in the apartment to three male tenants, since they are not told about Gregor.

One day, the charwoman, who briefly looks in on Gregor each day when she arrives and before she leaves, neglects to close his door fully. Attracted by Grete’s violin-playing in the living room, Gregor crawls out and is spotted by the unsuspecting tenants, who complain about the apartment’s unhygienic conditions and say they are leaving, will not pay anything for the time they have already stayed, and may take legal action.

Grete, who is tired of taking care of Gregor and realizes the burden his existence puts on each member of the family, tells her parents they must get rid of “it” or they will all be ruined. Gregor, understanding that he is no longer wanted, laboriously makes his way back to his room and dies of starvation before sunrise. His body is discovered by the charwoman, who alerts his family and then disposes of the corpse.

The relieved and optimistic father, mother, and sister all take the day off work. They travel by tram into the countryside and make plans to move to a smaller apartment to save money. During the short trip, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa realize that, despite the hardships that have brought some paleness to her face, Grete has grown up into a pretty young lady with a good figure and they think about finding her a husband.

Characters

Gregor Samsa

Gregor is the main character of the story. He works as a traveling salesman in order to provide money for his sister and parents. He wakes up one morning finding himself transformed into an insect. After the metamorphosis, Gregor becomes unable to work and is confined to his room for most of the remainder of the story.

This prompts his family to begin working once again. Gregor is depicted as isolated from society and often both misunderstands the true intentions of others and is misunderstood.

Grete Samsa

Grete is Gregor’s younger sister, and she becomes his caretaker after his metamorphosis. They initially have a close relationship, but this quickly fades. At first, she volunteers to feed him and clean his room, but she grows increasingly impatient with the burden and begins to leave his room in disarray out of spite. Her initial decision to take care of Gregor may have come from a desire to contribute and be useful to the family, since she becomes angry and upset when the mother cleans his room.

It is made clear that Grete is disgusted by Gregor, as she always opens the window upon entering his room to keep from feeling nauseous and leaves without doing anything if Gregor is in plain sight. She plays the violin and dreams of going to the conservatory to study, a dream Gregor had intended to make happen; he had planned on making the announcement on Christmas Day.

To help provide an income for the family after Gregor’s transformation, she starts working as a salesgirl. Grete is also the first to suggest getting rid of Gregor, which causes Gregor to plan his own death. At the end of the story, Grete’s parents realize that she has become beautiful and full-figured and decide to consider finding her a husband.

Mr. Samsa

Mr. Samsa is Gregor’s father. After the metamorphosis, he is forced to return to work in order to support the family financially. His attitude towards his son is harsh.

He regards the transformed Gregor with disgust and possibly even fear and attacks Gregor on several occasions. Even when Gregor was human, Mr. Samsa regarded him mostly as a source of income for the family. Gregor’s relationship with his father is modelled after Kafka’s own relationship with his father. The theme of alienation becomes quite evident here.

Mrs. Samsa

Mrs. Samsa is Gregor’s mother. She is portrayed as a submissive wife. She suffers from asthma, which is a constant source of concern for Gregor. She is initially shocked at Gregor’s transformation, but she still wants to enter his room. However, it proves too much for her and gives rise to a conflict between her maternal impulse and sympathy and her fear and revulsion at Gregor’s new form.

The Charwoman

The charwoman is an old widowed lady who is employed by the Samsa family after their previous maid begs to be dismissed on account of the fright she experiences owing to Gregor’s new form. She is paid to take care of their household duties.

Apart from Grete and her father, the charwoman is the only person who is in close contact with Gregor, and she is unafraid in her dealings with Gregor. She does not question his changed state; she seemingly accepts it as a normal part of his existence. She is the one who notices Gregor has died and disposes of his body.

Interpretation

Like much of Kafka’s work, The Metamorphosis tends to be given a religious (Max Brod) or psychological interpretation. It has been particularly common to read the story as an expression of Kafka’s father complex, as was first done by Charles Neider in his The Frozen Sea: A Study of Franz Kafka (1948).

Besides the psychological approach, interpretations focusing on sociological aspects, which see the Samsa family as a portrayal of general social circumstances, have also gained a large following.

Vladimir Nabokov rejected such interpretations, noting that they do not live up to Kafka’s art. He instead chose an interpretation guided by the artistic detail but excluded any symbolic or allegoric meanings.

Arguing against the popular father-complex theory, he observed that it is the sister more than the father who should be considered the cruelest person in the story, since she is the one backstabbing Gregor.

In Nabokov’s view, the central narrative theme is the artist’s struggle for existence in a society replete with narrow-minded people who destroy him step by step. Commenting on Kafka’s style, he writes, “The transparency of his style underlines the dark richness of his fantasy world. Contrast and uniformity, style and the depicted, portrayal and fable