(Kafka gives some thought to what a giant insect would eat, thus he completely ignores the initial offering of bread in milk, and he, and they, learn that he prefers rotten vegetables.)

Quite quickly a pattern settles onto the little household: Gregor’s sister brings in leftover food for him to eat before leaving for work, then removes the leftovers in the evenings. The striking feature of this early section, as of the work as a whole, is how everyone accepts the miraculous fact of the metamorphosis, and continues thinking their mundane anxious thoughts. So he is mortified when the Chief Clerk from his office turns up to find out why he’s late. keeps on thinking the harassed thoughts of a much put-upon employee in a big firm. Gregor, for his part, on the first day of his change, is mostly concerned that he’s going to be late for work i.e. His family is horrified at his transformation but, once they’ve overcome their initial shock and repugnance, the main impact is financial: they realise they’ll have to go out to out to work, and so Grete takes a job as a shop assistant, Gregor’s father gets a job as a bank commissionaire and his mother takes in lingerie to darn and repair. Thus begins one of the most famous short stories ever written, The Metamorphosis. One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. Gregor Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug. Then, one morning, Gregory awoke from a bad night’s sleep to discover he had been transformed into a man-sized insect, something like a wood louse.Īs Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. Only Gregor’s hard work and iron discipline kept the little family afloat, financially. During those years his father grew old and fat and used to trudging round the apartment in his dressing gown, his mother grew frail and increasingly prone to asthma attacks, and his little sister, Grete, went from being a schoolgirl to a young woman of 17. Gregor had been working as a clerk, but stepped into the breach by becoming a travelling salesman and was soon earning enough money to cover all the family’s costs. Five years ago Gregor Samsa’s family fell on hard times when his father’s business went bust, owing a lot of money.

The transformation kafka