The Metamorphosis

“Kafka is important to us because his predicament is the predicament of modern man.”-W.H. Auden “The common experience of Kafka’s readers is one of general and vague fascination, even in stories they fail to understand, a precise recollection of strange and seemingly absurd images and descriptions-until one day the hidden meaning reveals itself to them with the sudden evidence of a truth simple and incontestable.” -Hannah Arendt With the profoundly unsettling story of Gregor Samsa’s transformation into a gigantic insect, The Metamorphosis (1915) is Franz Kafka’s best-known work and one of the most influential pieces of 20th century literature. Without ever leaving the setting of a single apartment, the notion of a vast disaffection takes on universal truths about the tolls of modern work and the mind-body divide. In the defining opening, “As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant insect.”, Franz Kafka begins what