“The Metamorphosis” is Franz Kafka’s masterpiece, which delves into the absurdity and anxiety of human existence. It profoundly illuminates alienation, loss of identity, and conflict with family through the story of a man transformed into a grotesque insect.
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was born in 1883 in Prague, Czech Republic, as the eldest son of a middle-class Jewish family. At the time of his birth, Prague was a city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not the capital of Czechoslovakia. Kafka grew up within Prague’s German-speaking Jewish community.
In 1906, Kafka earned a doctorate in law and the following year took a job at an insurance company in Prague. However, he dedicated his life’s sole purpose to literary creation. Kafka’s official debut as a writer began in 1909 with the publication of a collection of prose pieces.
Kafka was extremely reluctant to publish his works even after writing them. He even left instructions in his will to burn his unpublished works. Nevertheless, his friend Max Brod collected and published Kafka’s posthumous writings, diaries, and letters, ensuring Kafka’s name became widely known in modern literary history. After his death, works such as ‘A Hunger Artist’, ‘The Trial’, ‘The Castle’, ‘Amerika’, and ‘The Great Wall of China’ were published. His major works include ‘The Metamorphosis’, ‘The Trial’, ‘In the Penal Colony’, and ‘A Country Doctor’.
Kafka was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1917. After resigning from his job at an insurance company in 1922, he died at the young age of forty-one in 1924 at the sanatorium in Kehlings, near Vienna, Austria.
Work Introduction
‘The Metamorphosis’ is a novel published by Franz Kafka in 1916. Kafka, a German novelist born in Prague, Czechoslovakia, worked as an employee at an insurance company throughout his life while writing novels every night. His writing meticulously depicts reality while possessing a fantastical atmosphere. In addition to ‘The Metamorphosis’, works such as ‘The Trial’, ‘The Castle’, and ‘A Country Doctor’ all reflect this characteristic.
‘The Metamorphosis’ depicts the story of a protagonist who suddenly transforms into a bug one day, rendered in a cold and realistic style. It is considered a masterpiece that explores the absurdity and anxiety of human existence through the protagonist and the people surrounding him. This work is also regarded as the starting point of modern literature and has sparked numerous debates in literary history. The protagonist, transformed into an insect within the novel, can be seen as symbolizing the anxiety and despair of modern people—those who never know when or in what situation they might find themselves.
‘Gregor Samsa’s Metamorphosis’ is a sequel to ‘The Metamorphosis’ written by Karl Brandt in 1916. By resurrecting the protagonist, who had died after transforming into an insect, back into human form, this work became the catalyst that propelled ‘The Metamorphosis’ to even greater fame.
Brief Synopsis
Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, woke up one morning to find his body had undergone a strange transformation. He had transformed into a hideous insect with numerous legs. ‘What on earth had happened?’ he pondered, but it was clearly no dream. The company manager, who came to find out why he was absent, fled in shock; his mother fainted; and his father chased him into his room. He found himself trapped, confined to his room.
Gregor had always worked hard to support his family and loved his parents and sister dearly. But now he was hated by his family. An apple thrown by his father struck his back, and the resulting wound even robbed him of his appetite. Drawn by the sound of his sister playing the violin, he ventured into the living room, only to be discovered by the lodgers they had taken in to make ends meet. This made him an even more hated presence.
Gregor gradually lost the meaning of life. His family now wished for his death. One morning, as the wound on his back worsened, Gregor quietly breathed his last. His parents and sister breathed a sigh of relief and went on a picnic to the countryside to enjoy the bright spring sunshine for the first time in ages.
Character Introduction
Gregor Samsa
The protagonist of this novel, he works hard as a traveling salesman of fabrics to support his family. One day, he suddenly transforms into a bug, yet his consciousness remains unchanged from when he was human. He understands what others say, but his own voice sounds like the chirping of a bug. Wounded by his family’s coldness and gripped by despair, he gradually loses the will to live.
Grete
Gregor’s seventeen-year-old sister. She was an immature young girl when he was earning money, but after his transformation, she takes on the responsibility of earning money. While she does tasks like cleaning his room and attending to him, she grows increasingly weary and eventually argues that he must be thrown out. She plays the violin well and dreams of attending music school.
Mr. Samsa
Gregor’s father. He shows no sympathy for his son transformed into a bug, making him the person Gregor fears most. While his son was earning money, he pretended to be too old to work, but when circumstances changed, he got a job as a janitor and works diligently. Mr. Samsa throws an apple at his son, inflicting a serious injury.
Mrs. Samsa
Gregor’s mother. She pities her son after his transformation, but faints at the sight of him. Suffering from asthma and poor health, she runs a boarding house and takes on work from a dressmaker to make ends meet. She finally finds relief when her son dies.
The Boarders
Rude and arrogant individuals, they refuse to pay rent when Gregor crawls into the living room, claiming they cannot live under the same roof as a bug. They even threaten to sue for damages. Later, they are thrown out by Mr. and Mrs. Samsa.
Work Commentary
Without strictly dividing East and West, the motif of transformation is not difficult to find throughout world literary history. Its history is also as ancient as humanity itself. This is because the motif of transformation is easily found in traditional narratives like myths, legends, folktales, and fairy tales. From Korea’s Dangun myth of a bear reincarnating as a woman and Ovid’s ‘Metamorphoses’ to the digital age today, transformation has played a crucial role in the imagination of artists throughout history. Undoubtedly, this is because humans possess a strong desire for change. The literary device that satisfies this desire is none other than transformation.
Franz Kafka’s (1883–1924) novella The Metamorphosis (1915) also employs transformation as its most central device, as the title itself clearly suggests. Of course, while this work uses animals as its subject matter, it differs significantly in character from traditional fables that satirize society by featuring anthropomorphized animals. Compared to conventional transformations, Kafka’s The Metamorphosis is more philosophical and metaphysical. This is not unrelated to the fact that he was a Jew, a marginal figure in German society as a member of the Germanic people, and that he lived in an era when life was threatened more than at any other time in human history.
Background and Content of the Work
Franz Kafka wrote ‘The Metamorphosis’ in 1912, published it in a monthly magazine in October 1915, and then published it in book form by Kurt Wolff Verlag in December of the same year. Kafka had planned to publish this work together with ‘The Judgment’ and ‘The Stoker’, which he had written earlier, but due to the publisher’s opposition, only ‘The Metamorphosis’ was published separately. This novel is the most widely known of all Kafka’s works.
Kafka began writing this work just before the outbreak of World War I, a tragedy unprecedented in human history. At this time, Western society was in crisis on multiple fronts. As Western scientific civilization, initiated by the Industrial Revolution, became highly developed, humanity lost its dignity; spiritual matters were pushed aside, and materialism became widespread. Reason, which many believed could save humanity, had lost its function, driving nations across Europe toward war. It was within this era that Kafka wrote ‘The Metamorphosis’.
At first glance, ‘The Metamorphosis’ appears to be nothing more than an absurd tale. The protagonist, Gregor Samsa, awakens from a peaceful dream to discover he has transformed into a monstrous insect on his bed. Gregor graduated from university, completed military service, and now works as a salesman for a clothing company. Since his father’s bankruptcy five years prior, he has supported his parents and his seventeen-year-old sister, Grete. Yet this sudden misfortune plunges him into rage and despair. The sound of the morning train still reaches him, but his body is now that of a giant insect, wriggling countless legs.
When he fails to appear after the usual commute time, his family knocks on his door, and the company manager arrives to investigate why Gregor hasn’t shown up for work. The manager angrily threatens to fire Gregor from the company. Gregor tries to plead his case through the locked door, but his voice is unintelligible to anyone. Shortly after, the manager, seeing Gregor struggle to open the door and emerge, nearly faints and flees in horror. His parents are utterly shocked. His father makes threatening gestures to force the insect back into the room, causing Gregor to suffer a severe blow and bleed.
Gregor observes his family through the door crack. His sister, disgusted by his appearance, brings him food out of fear, but he finds it unappetizing. Two weeks later, his mother enters his room and faints upon seeing the hideous insect. Once, when Gregor leaves his room, his father, enraged, throws an apple at the insect, inflicting severe wounds.
His sister convinces their parents that they can no longer regard the insect as their brother and must find every means to eliminate it. Gregor returns weakly to his room, languishes, and finally dies, becoming stiff. Yet the father declares, “Now, let us give thanks to God,” the maid cleans up the insect’s corpse, and the family, feeling considerably lighter, happily takes the tram for an outing.
In ‘The Metamorphosis,’ Gregor Samsa’s transformed insect has often been translated as ‘bug’ or ‘pest,’ but the German original is ‘Ungeziefer.’ This term generally refers to harmful creatures, including birds and small animals. Based solely on Kafka’s description in the work, it is impossible to know exactly what kind of creature he had in mind. Russian-born American author Vladimir Nabokov speculated it was probably a beetle, based on its greatly swollen body.
Central Theme of the Work
In ‘The Metamorphosis’, Franz Kafka reveals anew that family relationships, in a narrow sense, and human relationships, in a broader sense, are merely relationships based on self-interest. Gregor finds his mechanical office work deeply unsatisfying. Above all, he detests getting up early in the morning. He thinks, “Getting up early from bed makes a man a fool. A person needs to sleep enough.” However, his parents’ business failure has left them with a huge debt, so he cannot quit his job until it is paid off.
While Gregor earns the family’s living as an office worker, his family loves and is grateful to him. But when he suddenly turns into a bug, he is not only treated coldly by his family but also becomes a nuisance, and worse, an enemy who tarnishes the family’s honor. They even wish he would die rather than live on, bringing shame upon the household.
Borrowing the concept of German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies, Kafka sharply critiques the values of ‘Gesellschaft’ in this work. According to Tönnies, traditionally, the family, unlike organizations like companies, is a ‘Gemeinschaft’ (community), valuing the natural bonds of love and trust seen among its members. Gregor’s family initially appears to embrace the values of a community society. However, once Gregor transforms into a bug and can no longer provide for the family, they discard the values of community society like worn-out shoes and immediately adopt the values of a profit society. The defining characteristic of a profit society is precisely its artificial, conceptual, and mechanical values.
As the saying goes, ‘Cultivate oneself, regulate one’s family, govern the state, and bring peace to the world.’ The family is the most fundamental unit constituting society. Individuals come together to form families, and families come together to form society and the state. The collapse of the family often signifies the collapse of society or the nation. Kafka, in ‘The Metamorphosis’, broadens the scope of family members and focuses on human relationships. In the modern profit-driven society, all human relationships are formed solely based on self-interest. If it benefits me and brings gain, a human relationship is established; if not, it holds no meaning whatsoever. This is the distorted self-portrait of modern society.
Moreover, in ‘The Metamorphosis’, Kafka depicts humans living day to day like insects within modern civilization. Modern individuals are merely tiny cogs in the vast machine of capitalist society. The fact that the protagonist, Gregor Samsa, is a salaryman supports this. Without any creative joy, he commutes to work early in the morning and returns home in the evening, dragging his weary body. This life repeats day after day, like a hamster on a wheel. In short, the transformed Gregor in this work represents the modern individual who has lost the meaning of his existence and lives in alienation and solitude. Through Gregor’s metamorphosis and death, Kafka persuasively depicts the decline of the middle class after World War I, the dehumanization of mass society, and the lonely existential condition of human beings. At the very least, in the sense that it portrays accepting loneliness and alienation as daily sustenance while living in an absurd world, this work touches upon existentialism.
Kafka employs a form and technique befitting these existentialist themes: a dreamlike, grotesque expressionist style. He relies not on the tightly woven plots common in traditional novels, but on a fragmentary, episodic approach.
