The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis Franz Kafka. As Gregor Samsa awoke one
morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in
his bed into a gigantic insect. He was laying on his hard
as it were armor-plated back and when he lifted his head a
little he could see his domelike brown belly divided into
stiff arched segments on top of which the bed quilt could
hardly keep in position and was about to slide off
completely. His numerous legs which were pitifully thin
compared to the rest of his bulk waved helplessly before
his eyes. With its startling bizarre yet surprisingly
funny first opening Kafka begins his masterpiece The
Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young man who
transformed overnight into a giant beetle-like insect
becomes an object of disgrace to his family an outsider in
his own home a quintessentially alienated man. A
harrowing—though absurdly comic—meditation on human
feelings of inadequacy guilt and isolation The
Metamorphosis has taken its place as one of the most
widely read and influential works of twentieth-century
fiction. As W.H. Auden wrote Kafka is important to us
because his predicament is the predicament of modern man.
Published: March 1 1972 by Bantam Classics