The Metamorphosis

The Metamorphosis is Franz Kafka's 1915 novella about Gregor Samsa, a travelling salesman who awakens transformed into an insect-like creature. His first anxieties concern work and responsibility, but the household gradually reorganizes around his changed condition. Kafka's plain narration places an impossible event beside familiar problems of earning a living and caring for a dependent relative. The story exposes how recognition and affection can be strained when a person's usefulness changes. The pressure of ordinary expectations continues even after the household has been changed beyond recognition.