The Metamorphosis

One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug. With thisstartling, bizarre, yet surprisingly funny firstsentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, TheMetamorphosis. It is the story of ayoung traveling salesman who, transformed overnight into a giant,beetlelike insect, becomes an object of disgrace tohis family, an outsider in his own home, aquintessentially alienated man. Rather than being surprised at the transformation, the members of his family despise it as an impending burden upon themselves. A harrowingthoughabsurdly comicmeditation on human feelings ofinadequacy, guilt, and isolation, TheMetamorphosis has taken its place as oneof the most widely read and influential works oftwentiethcentury fiction. As W. H. Auden wrote,Kafka is important to us because his predicamentis the predicament of modern man.