The Metamorphosis is a short story by Franz Kafka about a guy who wakes up and discovers that he’s transformed in a giant insect. You never find out how or why Gregor Samsa becomes a giant bug, he just wakes up in a different body. The story is about his attempted adjustment from being his family’s financial provider to being a cockroach. He becomes a burden on his family, slowly draining them financially and emotionally. They are disgusted and repulsed by him, and they end up resenting him. They end up despising him. And they don’t hide it either.
The Metamorphosis isn’t about a guy changing into a bug; it’s about change itself. It’s about a guy realizing that his life will never be the same again and having to deal with it. It’s about a family rejecting one of their own because he’s no longer useful. Kafka published this novella back in 1915 and it’s still an important, intriguing, and relevant work of literature to this day. I once had to buy it for a college class, and it was so good that I didn’t sell it back to the campus bookstore. I could have used that money to buy beer and Top Ramen, but I chose to expand my library instead.
Critically Rated at 15/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
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