Gregor Samsa
A traveling salesman whose usefulness was his place in the family.
Modernism · Novella · 1915
The Metamorphosis
Franz Kafka
Gregor Samsa wakes as a monstrous vermin. The family adjusts. The horror is how smoothly a household can reorganize around an inconvenience.
Modernist parable
Characters
Grete
The sister whose care becomes the instrument of expulsion.
Themes
Use and love
Affection measured by a wage and a clean room.
Alienation
The body makes visible a prior exile from one’s own life.
Motifs
A bedroom as both shelter and cell.
A father’s wounding gift that lodges and stays.